I feel that this blog has made me a very apologetic person...I'm sorry that, this time around, it has been longer than a month since my last post. You already know (those of you who actually read my posts consistently) that this year has been a tough one. Last semester hit me hard emotionally, but this semester has nailed me academically. This has been my toughest semester at Ozark yet, in regards to schoolwork. All that to say...I have been really busy since my last post.
I am in Principles of Interpretation this semester, which is a class that basically teaches you how to exegete Scripture. It's not a hard class, it's just a lot of work. For this class we have to pick a passage of Scripture and, well, exegete it, find out the original meaning of the text and learn how we can apply it to ourselves today. Anywho, it's a major project that you work on over the course of the semester and it was due last week. All that to say...I have been really busy since my last post working on my Principles project.
Miraculously, however, I managed to find some time to read a book. Last spring I read four 300+ page novels. Last semester I read one, which I started at the end of the summer. I just recently finished one, that is barely over 200 pages, which I bought last Thanksgiving, and finally picked up more than halfway through this semester. All that to say...I have been really busy. Period.
Anyway, back to this book. I just recently finished Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller. I've only read one other book by him (Blue Like Jazz), but this one I just read is the definate fave of the two and is one of my new favorite books out of all books I've read. It is one of two books that I have underlined or highlighted throughout its entirety (mainly because I mostly read fiction novels, and because I didn't start highlighting in books until I came to college, and because I don't normally highlight through my textbooks that I'm required to read for school), but did so excessively. All that to say...this paragraph has nothing to do with my being busy.
So back to this book again. You should read it. I highly recommend it. Miller talks about how Christianity is not a formula, a religion based on rules and self-help steps to make life easier or better, but rather, that it's a relationship. I know, original, right? But really, in all essence, Miller is one of the most original writers I have come across. His language is so direct, and yet, so beautiful. I came across a whole new understanding of being in a real relationship with Christ and I realized how egotistical I am in regards to my status in society and in culture.
In the opening chapters, Miller introduces this idea that Christianity is not a three, four, or twelve step program. He talked about this writing seminar he once went to, one which was full of all women who wanted to write daily devotions while drinking coffee, tea, or whatever and to provide three steps to happier, healtheir, more "Jesus" lives. The truth of the matter is, life is not a series of "steps" or "rules." Real life is a story. And everyone's story is different. Life is harsh and can't be fixed with equations. Or as Miller put it so eloquently: "Reality is like a fine wine. It will not appeal to children." Now, I've never even tasted a lick of alcohol in my life, but it certainly does not appeal to me, even now, as a mature and well-off nineteen year old sophomore in college.
Anywho, back to this formula talk. Miller continued to explain how writers of self-help books typically would read through Scripture, these narrative stories of certain people (Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Noah, Paul, etc.) and try to read in formulaic expressions of why their lives were so successful and why they are such prominent figures in Scripture. Here's the thing: Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Noah, and Paul were real people with real problems and circumstances where a real God intervened and gave them real life experiences to learn from. No math, no steps, no formula.
Throughout the progression of the book, Miller introduced and explained this "lifeboat theory." There's a group of people in a lifeboat and the lifeboat is sinking and the only way to save the people in the lifeboat is to toss someone overboard. So basically it was a matter of defending one's own hierarchy and trying to decide who the the least important person was to toss overboard. Miller was trying to make a point about relationships and who we decide to associate ourselves with. You see, Christianity is not a formula, but a relationship. And our relationship with Christ Jesus should be an example for our relationships with everyone else. As Miller stated: "But the great crime, the great tragedy, is not in the attempts to associate but rather the efforts to dissociate. If a person feels his space in the hierarchy is threatened, that he might lose position, the vehemence he feels toward the lesser person is nearly malevolent."
How selfish and arrogant of us. "The most selfless thing God could do, that is, the most selfless thing a perfect Being who is perfectly loving could do, would be to create other beings to enjoy Himself" (another profound statement by Miller). If we really enjoy God and are really in relationship with Him, someone who, as a man, was in relationship with everyone he came in contact with, then what on earth makes us think that we could ignore and dissociate ourselves with the "lesser" people? How selfish and arrogant of us!
"In my own life, I notice I validate people who like or validate me. When I say so-and-so is a nice person, what I really mean is so-and-so thinks I am a nice person. And if I sense a person doesn't like me, or thinks he is better than me, my mind will find all sorts of criticism, noticing his temper or his dense intellect...Don't we find humble people more companionable than arrogant people?" I know, I don't have any original thoughts of my own. But goodness gracious, we are a selfish and arrogant people who try to formulate formulas in our minds of how to be better Christians! Life and Christianity are not formulas. They are stories about relationships. And relationships are what make people thrive. How dare we, especially as Christians, try to deprive others of such relationships all because they are "lesser" than we.
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