Donald Miller: Quotes about God

“It is the occupation of a Christian to glorify God.”

Donald Miller

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

God

“I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , Evil , Time , Heart

“Your problem is not that God is not fulfilling, your problem is that you are spoiled.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , Problem

“Here's what I've started thinking: All the wonder of God happens right above our arithmetic and formula. The more I climb outside my pat answers, the more invigorating the view, the more my heart enters into worship.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , Thinking , Heart

“Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , Feeling , Time , Heart

“The days and weeks before a true commitment to Jesus can be terrible and lonely. I think I was feeling bitter about the human experience. I never asked to be human. Nobody can to the womb and explained the situation to me, asking for my permission to go into the world and live and breathe and eat and feel joy and pain. I started thinking about how odd it was to be human, how we are stuck inside this skin, forced to be attracted to the opposite sex, forced to eat food, and use the rest room and then stuck to the earth by gravity. I spent an entire week feeling bitter because I couldn't breathe underwater. I told God I wanted to be a fish. I also felt a little bitter about sleep. Why do we have to sleep? I wanted to be able to stay awake for as long as I wanted, but God had put me in this body that had to sleep. Life no longer seemed like and experience of freedom.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Life , God , Pain , World

“I spend 95 percent of my time thinking about myself anyway. I don't have to watch the evening news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself. I am not browbeating myself here; I am only saying that true change, true life-giving, God-honoring change wound have to start with the individual. I was the very problem I had been protesting. I wanted to make a sign that read "I AM THE PROBLEM."”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Life , God , World , Problem

“My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don't really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and some other guys who can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly, I don't care.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , Faith , Guy , Time

“I need more than a bedtime story, I need more than a youth group God. I am looking for a savior. A guide. An existential answer to my questions about purpose and meaning. I want true fulfillment in my Christian faith. I am looking for joy.”

Donald Miller

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

God , Youth , Faith , Question

“Don."
"Yeah."
"Why don't people believe?"
"Why don't they believe what?"
"In God."
"I don't know. Not everyone has a Volkswagen.”

Donald Miller

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

God , People

“I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it…God's love will never change us if we don't accept it.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Love , God , Understanding , Change

“The problem with Christian belief--I mean real Christian belief, the belief that there is a God and a devil and a heaven and a hell--is that it is not a fashionable thing to believe.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , Fashion , Hell , Problem

“Outside of God's perspective, even romance loses its significance. Not in riches or in romance do we find fulfillment, but in God.”

Donald Miller

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

God

“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.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Life , God , Feeling

“The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , Knowledge , Heart

“Poppycock religion is America's new faith. It is easy. It is quick. It allows a person to feel spiritual, seem intellectual, have a faith to follow, and have something interesting to talk about over coffee. Poppycock is the quick-fix diet of the spiritual industry. It sells. It rarely threatens or confronts the seeker, allowing each to forge his own individual "religion." The poppycock believer changes the rules as he goes. If he misses a basket, he will say that a missd basket is still worth two points. The poppycock believer does not serve his god, rather his god serves him. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

Donald Miller

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

God , Faith , Religion , Feeling

“I know a little of why there is blood in my body, pumping life into my limbs and thought into my brain. I am wanted by God. He is wanting to preserve me, to guide me through the darkness of the shadow of death, up into the highlands of His presence and afterlife. I understand that I am temporary, in this shell of a thing on this dirt of an earth. I am being tempted by Satan, we are all being tempted by Satan, but I am preserved to tell those who do not know about our Savior and Redeemer. This is why Paul had no questions. This is why he could be beaten one day, imprisoned the next, and released only to be beaten again and never ask God why. He understood the earth was fallen. He understood the rules of Rome could not save mankind, that mankind could not save itself; rather, it must be rescued, and he knew he was not in the promised land, but still in the desert, and like Joshua and Caleb he was shouting, "Follow me and trust God!"”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Life , Death , God , Understanding

“Sometimes I think these self-righteous labors are attempts to impress myself rather than sincere strides toward God.”

Donald Miller

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

God , Thinking , Sincerity

“The more I ponder God's way, the more I believe He changes a person, or molds a person through enlightenment. He changes a person's mind.”

Donald Miller

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

God , Way , Change , Personality

“"I think that is a big problem with a lot of Christians," Paul begins. "We want to feel special. And there are times when it does, you know. But not all the time. Sometimes life just feels like life. We have to put our faith in God.”

Donald Miller

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

Life , God , Faith , Feeling