donald miller is my hero!

one of my friends j.k. was reading this book called "blue like jazz". i decided that the cover was pretty cool looking, therefore it's contents must be good. you see, i'm a target audience for all marketing scams... if the product comes in a pretty package, i'll believe everything they say!

so i decided to buy it off of amazon.com for some leisure reading, and amazon.com has this awesome system to suck you in where they say "other customers who bought this product also bought...". well, i ended up buying 2 more books (needless to say, the ones with the coolest covers), and i have been actively reading ever since.

first off... blue like jazz was the most amazing book i've read in a REALLY freakin' long time. i finished it in 24 hours, which is amazing considering my reading comprehension is comparable to that of a 7th grader! the truths that were spoken in that book were just what i needed. a very "hey, i'm human too, and this is how i understand faith" outlook on christianity. i highly recommend you go buy it right now, and perhaps you will be sucked into buying 2 more books that "other customers" purchased.

second off... i am now in the process of reading another book by the same author, "searching for God knows what", which i put marginally below "blue like jazz", but still a very good read. i thought i'd kinda comment on one of the things that the author (donald miller) stresses in this book that i found to be extremely beneficial:

basically, one of the chapters is about how we perceive jesus and the gospel today. when miller was teaching at a bible college, he asked his class to list the ideas/steps necessary for becoming a christian. with no surprise, his students listed out a nice concise bullet-point list of ideas.

1) man is sinful by nature

2) sin separates us from God

3) jesus died for our sins

4) we could accept jesus into our hearts

5) etc, etc, etc

after this, miller asked his class to list the ideas/steps necessary for a guy to fall in love with a girl. amongst chuckles, the class started to formulate their list.

1) a guy would have to get to know her

...several seconds of silence passed while the class thought of the next step or suggestion, when one kid spoke up and said, "it isn't exactly a scientific process."

i guess this particular part of the book stood out to me, because it is very easy for me to describe my "faith", but it is extremely hard to describe my "love" of someone/something... and i don't think that is possible. our relationship with christ should be much more complicated to understand than our relationship with any other human - God is just beyond what our minds can grasp, and people, well, they are tangible... you can actually feel them hold you.

i think that maybe i've just been looking at my relationship with christ as more of a scientist than as a child, and therefore i have been looking at my faith as more of a formula than a relationship. so what do i do with this new-found glitch in my thinking? how do you take facts and beliefs and turn them into emotion? no idea... but i've come to the conclusion that i should've been an english major or something, and i wouldn't have this problem of trying to fit the gospel into an efficient protocol! :)