Tags
asthma, Bible, Blue Like Jazz, books, Donald Miller, Ecclesiastes, Fruit of the Spirit, Galatians, God, happy place, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Job, Lamentations, love, narrative, paranoid, people, Picture of a Shoeless Poet, praying, Read, Savior, Searching for God Knows What, strength, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, writer
I have attempted to read Blue Like Jazz three times and only succeeded twice. The first time I tried to read the book, I was younger than I am now and my Dad was getting a heart transplant and so the book severely depressed me. The second time I read it, it was a few years later. I got through this time, but I really hated it. I couldn’t understand why it was so popular among Christian circles.
Then, about two weeks ago, I got into a mood to re-read Blue Like Jazz because I remembered Picture a Shoeless Poet (http://pictureashoelesspoet.wordpress.com/) raving about Donald Miller. So, I re-read it, and *gasp* semi-liked it. Now, I am not saying Donald Miller is the greatest writer of all time nor that his books are uplifting. He is a bit like Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and/or Job. It is really depressing but you find out more about God. Only read when you are in a happy place.
I really was now in the hankering now to read some more Donald Miller, so I bought Searching for God Knows What. I liked this book better because Donald Miller had grown as a writer and there was a bit more of a narrative in this book compared to Blue Like Jazz.
What I liked about these two books though, was that Miller was willing to admit that he didn’t have things figured out, except for the “things that really mattered”. (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.) Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Savior of the world. The Bible is true. Jesus loves us. We should love everyone.
Well, I prayed to God for me to love people. I got an answer to prayer all right. Just like praying for patience. I ended up breaking down sobbing two days in a row from how horrible people were, how horrible of a person I was for not loving people, and how my asthma medicine made me paranoid, but that’s a different story). So, warning: only pray to God to make you love people if you want to be tested to your limits (or beyond them).
After my asthma medicine stopped making me paranoid and started making me breathe again, I remembered how my church talked about how the Fruit of the Spirit (look it up in Galatians, the list all counts as one fruit) can only happen through the Holy Spirit in our lives, and not through our own strength. I figure I was trying to love people on my own, and not through God and that is part of the reason I was in such a bad state.
Until Our Next Meeting.
The Lost Writer of Rohan