i like to read. a lot. i've been known to finish a novel in less than a day and, more often than not, i can be found on the porch or lying in bed, lost in words and plot lines.
to me, the mark of a good book--especially a Christian one--is one that takes me more than 24 hours to get through. sure, i may quickly read through it once, but then i feel compelled to go back to it. i want to chew on the meat of the book's message, to spend time searching myself and how i react to whatever was said in it. do i agree? do i disagree? why? what do i like about it? what did i learn? can i use the information in another setting? is it at all applicable? what emotions does the language evoke? what does it make me think of?
that being said, whenever i come across a book like that, i will re-read it. often. take Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz, for example. i read it for the first time two years ago and fell in love with how it moved me. smart writing. raw content. honest. i felt like i was reading my own thoughts on someone else's pages. each and every time i go back to it, that book teaches me something new.
so, due to my efforts to one) put more of my own writing out there for others to read and two) start being more transparent about my faith, i've decided to share my thoughts on Donald Miller's thoughts on Christian spirituality. if you're interested (and have some time to spare), read on.
It was as if we were broken, I thought, as if we were never supposed to feel these sticky emotions. It was as if we were cracked, couldn't love right, couldn't feel good things for very long without screwing it all up...I was just a kid so I couldn't put words to it, but every kid feels it. (I am talking about the broken quality of life.) page 14
i have felt this very feeling, sometimes so strongly that it brings me to tears. it's like i suddenly have heightened awareness, and i'm able to see it: we were supposed to good, but now we're so far away from where we were meant to be. poverty. war. crime. disease. abortion. discrimination. divorce. they're all reminders that something is seriously wrong, that we have gotten way off track. it wasn't supposed to be this way. we weren't supposed to be this way.
The heart responds to conflict within story, I believe, because there is some great conflict in the universe with which we are interacting, even if it is only in the subconscious. page 32
just like we can feel the ugliness, the wrongness of this world, we are also able to feel that longing for it to be made right. there's tension. i feel it in the air, feel it deep down underneath my skin. everything's all messed up--but it can't always be this way. it won't always be this way. right now we're wandering through the muck of our brokenness, but one day we will be found.
I don't think you can explain how Christian faith works, either. It is a mystery. And I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. page 57
i have several people in my life who tell me they can’t believe in God because He doesn’t make sense. i believe in Him because He doesn’t make sense. as Miller says, “there is something inside me that causes me to believe.” my head may reject something that it doesn’t understand, but my heart always seems to have a way of finding the Truth. no logic. no formula. Christianity shouldn’t be about head knowledge. it is a language of the heart.
"Your problem is not that God is not fulfilling. Your problem is that you are spoiled.”
And Moses was right. God is not here to worship me, to mold Himself into something that will help me fulfill my level of comfort. I think that part of my problem is that I want spirituality to be more close and more real. page 92
ouch. i’ve been there. when God is not moving my mountains or up to something extraordinary in my life, i have a tendency to slip into feeling frustrated with Him. it’s almost like i want Him to prove His realness to me, to jump through my hoops in order to bolster my weak faith. i know, i know. you can say it; it’s okay. i am spoiled. hurts to admit it, but it’s true.
“Because I can’t be here anymore. I don’t feel whole here. I feel, well, partly whole. Incomplete. Tired…It’s like something got crossed in the wires, and I became the person I should be and not the person I am. It feels like I should go back and get the person I am and bring him here to the person I should be.” page 98
YES. that’s the exact feeling that’s been haunting me, that haunts me still. i haven’t been able to quite figure it out, yet here it is in black and white. i couldn’t have put it into words any better myself. most days, i have no idea who i am. i feel like i have to be this whole different person and i don’t recognize her at all. and it just doesn’t feel right. it doesn’t fit. but i haven’t always had this feeling. i can remember feeling light, free, fully me. how do i get back there? how can i stop feeling incomplete and tired? how do i rid myself of the me that feels wrong, the one that fits too tight, so tight that it’s suffocating me?
[as a side note: please tell me i’m not crazy. please tell me someone else has felt this feeling, too, and that i’m not the only one.]
But the trouble with deep belief is that it costs something. And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn’t like truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. page 107
i think that everyone ought to know and be able to articulate what he or she believes. furthermore, if you aren’t willing to live your life in a way that lines up with what you state you believe, then i would argue you don’t really believe it in the first place. maybe you think it sounds good. maybe you know of others who have that belief, so you figure you should too. but if it isn’t rooted in you, if it’s not something that drives your speech and actions and decisions and attitude, then you don’t believe it. at least not in the way you should. that’s my belief, anyway.
…he was pretty serious about loving people regardless of whether they considered Jesus the Son of God or not, and Rick wanted to love them because they were either hungry, thirsty, or lonely. The human struggle bothered Rick, as if something were broken in the world and we were supposed to hold our palms against the wound. page 114
Jesus said over and over again that we are supposed to love one another. and i’m pretty sure he meant exactly that. want to know why? because everyone—absolutely everyone—needs to be loved. male, female, rich, poor, ugly, beautiful, black, white, Christian or not. each one of us has this needy thing inside of us that is crying out to be loved. there is something broken in the world, and too many people go through life not knowing the love that their heart and soul so desperately needs because we don’t take Christ seriously when he says to love them.
one of my life mottos is: be love. so much of what Jesus taught comes down to simply that. recognize that you are not alone in this world, that people everywhere are hungry for your smile, a kind word from your lips, a listening ear, a note of encouragement, even just acknowledgment. i challenge you to be intentionally loving in your relations with others. let people know what you see them and accept them for who they are. that you value them. that they are worth something. you have been freely given the riches of love from on high; therefore you, in turn, can freely give it. become it. live it.
Sure, Christians had done terrible things to humanity, but I hadn’t....And those people weren’t following Jesus when they committed those crimes against humanity. That isn’t Jesus’ fault. page 119
i’m not naïve. i know that, historically, horrible things were done to others in the name of God. i also know that we Christians haven’t always done a very good job of representing Him to the world. and, frankly, that sucks. not just because i get a bad rap--but because God does, too. non-believers see the poor example supposed Christ-followers are setting and automatically lose interest in the God that they follow. hear me, people: we’re not all like that. and the God that i follow is nothing like that.
At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay. page 206
one of the biggest lies i have believed for most of my Christian life is that i need to always have things figured out. because if i didn’t, my reasoning supposed, then i would probably make a mistake and screw everything up (which, i know, is what people do. we’re flawed and we sometimes do things we shouldn’t do, and then everything gets messy. still—it was a fear of mine.) and i guess there was this part of me that didn’t know or didn’t believe or understand that God is infinitely bigger than any of my mistakes and is more than capable of making it, making me okay. only recently have i started to realize that the day will never come when i’ll have all things figured out and, furthermore, that God doesn’t want me to. i don’t need to know or understand every little thing; what i do need is to believe in the One who does.
I loved the fact that it wasn’t my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God’s, that my part was just to communicated love and approval. page 221
another burden that i spent a long time unnecessarily bearing is the belief that it was my responsibility to do such a good job of communicating the Truth that it—actually, that i—would convince another person to change. seriously. i actually have spent years of my life putting that type of pressure on myself. (and another thing—did i really consider myself that highly, to think that that i have such power over another person, over another of God’s creations who has freely been given free will?)
thankfully, i am trying hard these days to not be such a narcissistic, overbearing type A. now that i see the error in my ideology, i feel such relief—and release. i’m beginning to understand that the only thing i need to do is be love. and i think i can do that. Jesus said i have freely been given all the love i will ever need. he also said i can, in turn, freely give it.
He was saying i would never talk to my neighbor the way I talked to myself, and that somehow I had come to believe it was wrong to kick other people around but it was okay to do it to myself…And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it. page 231
i have a really bad habit of criticizing myself. a lot. and very harshly. i would be embarrassing to let other people know what i can sometimes think of myself.
but this morning, i was reading 1 John 3, and i realized something profound. something that made my heart skip a beat because of the weight of truth it carried. John’s argument, starting in 3:18, is that when we are practicing love, being love like Jesus told us to, we become free of self-hatred and self-criticism. so, if i’m still beating myself up and kicking myself around, that it must mean i am not loving the way i need to be. it would seem that i need to be more deliberate about loving God and loving others.
My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love…For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing our condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, doing what pleases him. (1 John 3:18, 20-22, The Message)
i know that one thing i want more than anything is to be “bold and free before God.” my self-hatred and self-esteem issues are like an insufferable disease, eating away at my heart and my mind. eventually, it will kill me on the inside. and i don’t want to die. i want to be cured.
and so, every day, i “put on love” because (though it’s a cliché that’s been used too many times) love truly is the answer.
in closing, i want to leave you with my favorite Blue Like Jazz quote ever, the one that says it all for me:
I am learning not to be passionate about empty things, but to cultivate passion for justice, grace, truth, and communicate the idea that Jesus likes people and even loves them. page 112
like Miller, i am learning the very same thing. and it’s changing me and the life that i’m living. justice, grace, truth, love—those things matter; they’re what matter most. and you matter, too. because God made you. because God loves you. because you’re you.
thanks for reading, friends. much love.
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