Blue Like Jazz

I finished the book in 4 days. This might be a record for me since childhood when I used to read.

I hope I start reading like this again, it's a very fulfilling activity unlike playing video games for hours just to be distracted from learning about how to live our lives better. (nothing against video games, I do love me some Halo 2)

This book has moved me. It first had me question myself as a Christian (as seen in my last post) and whether I have struggle to look forward to or not...but at the end of the book I was left with a different feeling, a much more satisfying feeling.

In the book Donald Miller talks about a pastor, Bill Bright, that his friend Alan met with. Bill, when asked about what Christ meant to him, was reduced to tears. This man has such a passion and deep appreciation for Christ and such a relationship with him that merely hearing his name can bring him to tears.

Miller then continues to talk about seeing a program on tv about a woman whose son was on death row. He then talks about what it was like seeing her pain when she got the call that he had been executed. He compares this to what Mary must have felt. The feelings that overwhelmed me just reminded me how much of a tradition and how numbed down Christ's death seems to us sometimes, what I felt hurt, but I loved it.

From reading this book I have gained a new perspective, I'm not going to try to find new ways to force God in my life, he has already said he will be with us and I think we need to stop looking for new ways to find God. God reveals himself in so many ways to us and we just are too busy to see them. I don't necessarily need a huge event in my life to define my relationship with Christ, he will connect in whatever he sees fit and I trust that.

I am ready to let Christ move in my life in whichever ways he chooses too, after all, I do not know what is best for me.

I also am ready to just love, as Christ calls us to, I am a huge jerk, usually sarcastically, but sometimes that's even too much. I need to reflect Christ more in my life.

Please call me out on it if you're seeing something I'm doing which does not resemble this, I'm asking you.

Love,
Carl