Well my Sunday Stirrings for this week was much less of a gentle whisper in the depths of my soul and much more like a slap upside my head. God has to do that every now and again to get my attention.
I grabbed a book off my nightstand yesterday, about mid-morning. I finished it at 1 am. There has only been one other book that I couldn’t put down and completely neglected my kids for, not finding their half hearted attempts at nutrition and cleanliness until the next day. That was The Shack. This one is called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.
The book is radical. Or at least it would be called that in my little Bible belt town. The author says things like “I don’t like church”, “Jesus looks a lot like Osama bin Laden”, and “every year or so I start pondering at how silly the whole God thing is”. That’s pretty bold where I come from.
I could tell you the people in my family who would get to the part where Miller attends an anti-George W. Bush rally, call him a communist and not read another word!
His journey to knowing and understanding Jesus involves liberals, hippies, athiests and more. And who would be the most likely to judge him on this?
Go ahead. You can say it. Christians.
And why is that? Because if you really knew the Word of God and really knew what Jesus said while He was on earth, you would know that our command is to LOVE PEOPLE.
Not just some people. Not just people who look like us and dress like us and who are nice to us. ALL PEOPLE. Regardless of skin, attitude, hair color, sexual preference, political affiliation, etc.
Jesus’ passion was people. As followers of Christ, our passion should be people too. He died for them as much as He died for us.
After reading this book I feel challenged to make an impact on someone outside my church community. I don’t know how and I don’t know where, and I probably won’t know until I’m standing in the middle of it. But I want to be open to the opportunity. To not shy away from sharing God’s love with those around me.
Miller has a theory that if we could channel all the energy we use in thinking about ourselves into thinking about others, it would solve the majority of the world’s problems. I like that theory. And I really liked this book. It was open and honest, painful and true.
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It took me forever to write this today, given that it’s Super Bowl Sunday and I was preparing food for most of the afternoon and eating food for most of night. I wish it didn’t seem so scattered. The book is a fantastic read and I feel like I didn’t do it justice. If you get a chance to pick up a copy, I’d love to know your thoughts.
And remember, if you blog about something God is stirring in your personal Walk, link it up here so we can encourage and enlighten each other. Have a great week!!!
3 Comments
Your description of Miller’s theory reminds me of a great story that is told by the character of Estevan in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “The Bean Trees.” Estevan’s story tells the difference between heaven and hell like this: He says that in hell, people sit around a big table with plenty of food, starving to death because they must eat with long-handled spoons and cannot manage to get the spoons in their mouths. Heaven, he says, looks just the same: same table, same food, same spoons. But in heaven, the people use the long-handled spoons to feed one another.
LOVE that story! :-)
Great description of the book. You did it a whole lot more justice than I could!
Makes me want to read it all over again!
So glad I found it on our bookshelf today! Can’t wait to finish “Forgotten God” and start reading it! Thanks for the suggestion! Oh, and I can’t wait to see how God uses you!