Don Miller
Don Miller is a best-selling American author and public speaker based out of Portland who focuses on Christian spirituality.
Could we, with human reason, process the finality of death, we would be very different souls, giving more than we take, forgiving easily, and listening with all that is in us for the answers to questions we would not have otherwise asked.
But I do all of this, not because I want to life scripturally, but because church culture has a certain rhythm. And when you have marched to this beat since infancy, it is difficult to break free from.
I was wondering the other day, why it is we turn pop figures into idols? I have a theory, of course. I think we have this need to be cool, that there is this undercurrent in society that says some people are cool and some people aren't. And it is very, very important that we are cool. So. when we find somebody who is cool on television or on the radio, we associate ourselves with this person to feel valid ourselves. And the problem I have with this is that we rarely know what the person believes whom we are associationg ourselves with. The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people believe, what they stand for; it only matters that they are cool. In other words, who cares what I believe about life, I only care that I am cool. Because in the end, the undercurrent running through culture is not giving people value based upon what they believe and what they are doing to aid society, the undercurrent is deciding their value based upon whether of not they are cool.
Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. Loneliness is something that came with the fall.
And that's when I realized that believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is like making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon.
What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.
"You know what I want in a woman, Paul?"
"What's that?"
"A friend. A true friend; someone who knows me and loves me anyway. You know, like when I'm through putting my best foot forward, she's still there, still the same."
I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group think, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything. This is the hardest principle within Christian spirituality for me to deal with. The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest.
Too much chicken soup for the soul is not a good thing. Working men eat meat and potatoes.
I think if you like somebody you have to tell them. It might be embarrassing to say it, but you will never regret stepping up.
What was more frustrating than the loss of exhiliration was the return of my struggles with sin. I had become a Christian, so why did I still struggle with lust, greed, and envy? Why did I want to get drunk at parties or cheat on tests?
Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.
Cupid is fat and slow and can't hit moving targets.
This is a James Taylor moment and we are stuck with a piano player who wants to sound like Enya and a southern funk band that, somewhere along the line, fell into thinking Alabama is a sweet place to call home.
For a moment, sitting there in above the city, I imagined life outside narcissism. I wondered how beautiful it might be to think of others as more important than myself. I wondered at how peaceful it might be not to be pestered by that childish voice that wants for pleasures and attention. I wondered what it would be like not to live in a house of mirrors, evereywhere I go being reminded of myself.
The early bird catches the worm. But I have never been one for worms. I am not sure what the late bird catches, but I will feast with him today. Probably porridge.
I honestly don't believe we will be solving the greater human conflict with our efforts. The problem is not a certain type of legislation or even a certain politician; the problem is the same that it has always been. I am the problem.
"Don."
"Yeah."
"Why don't people believe?"
"Why don't they believe what?"
"In God."
"I don't know. Not everyone has a Volkswagen."
We have come one hundred miles and both the tortoise and the hare have passed us laughing.
I had the image of a spiritual person, but I was bowing down to the idols of religiosity and philosophy.