Donald Miller: Quotes about God (page 2)

“I think it is interesting that God designed people to need other people. We see those cigarette advertisements with the rugged cowboy riding around alone on a horse, and we think that is strength, when, really, it is like setting your soul down on a couch and not exercising it. The soul needs to interact with other people to be healthy.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , People , Exercises , Soul

“I associated much of Christian doctrine with children's stories because I grew up in church. My Sunday school teachers had turned Bible narrative into children's fables. They talked about Noah and the ark because the story had animals in it. They failed to mention that this was when God massacred all of humanity.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , Children , School , Teachers

“I guess I'm looking for what any guy is looking for. I want a companion, you know. Just someone to share life with. I want her to be my biggest fan and I want to be her biggest fan, too. I want us to raise kids in a home where they know their parents are in love with each other, with them, and with God. I guess that's all I want.”

Donald Miller

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

Love , Life , God , Guy

“Early on, I made the mistake of wanting spiritual feelings to endure and remain romantic. Like a new couple expecting to always feel in love, I operated my faith thinking God and I were going to walk around smelling flowers. When this didn't happen, I became confused.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Love , God , Faith , Feeling

“I think we have two choices in the face of such big beauty: terror and awe. And this is precisely why we attempt to chart God, because we want to be able to predict Him, to dissect Him, to carry Him around in our dog and pony show. We are too proud to feel awe and to fearful to feel terror. We reduce Him to math so we don't have to fear Him, and yet the Bible tells us fear is the appropriate response, that it is the beginning of wisdom.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Wisdom , God , Fear , Beauty

“Well, a lot of times we are looking for a sign that tells us we're godly. We want to preach, or be a missionary or whatever, all to help ourselves believe that God is using us. We look everywhere but to God to make us feel godly. We try to convince others we are godly so that we can convince ourselves we are godly. The bottom line is that godliness is about relationship, not about image”

Donald Miller

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

God , Feeling , Time , Help

“I realized in and instant that I desired false gods because Jesus wouldn't jump through my hoops, and I realized that, like Tony, my faith was about image and ego, not about practicing spirituality.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God , Faith , Falseness

“The churches I attended would embrace war metaphor. They would talk about how we are in a battle, and I agreed with them, only they wouldn't clarify that we were battling poverty and hate and injustice and pride and the power of darkness. They left us thinking that our war was against liberals and homosexuals. Their teaching would have me believe I was the good person in the world and the liberals were the bad people in the world. Jesus taught that we are all bad and He is good, and He wants to rescue us because there is a war going on and we are hostages in that war. The truth is we are supposed to love the hippies, the liberals, and even the Democrats, and that God wants us to think of them as more important than ourselves. Anything short of this is not true to the teachings of Jesus.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Love , God , Hate , War

“It is Christianity, I believe, that truly faces the facts of reality. The Christian does not try to create his or her own reality. Our search for the truth leads us to Christ. Faith costs something (as all things of worth do) and obedience is hard, but God has poured out His love for us and given us the grace that empowers us to obey.”

Donald Miller

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

Love , God , Truth , Faith

“Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God that the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Love , God , Faith , Feeling

“But I think that God does not so much take us from point A to point B in the physical world as He takes us from not knowing Him to knowing Him.”

Donald Miller

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

God , World , Thinking

“I mean that to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people," Paul says. "That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Love , God , People , Thinking

“I feel like I am constantly saying things I don't mean. I tell people they should share their faith, but I don't feel like sharing my faith. I tell people that should be in the Word, but I am only in the Word because I have to teach the Word. I said to a guy the other day, 'God bless you.' What does that mean? I have been saying that stuff all my life, but what does it mean? Then I started thinking about all the crap I say. All the clichés, all the parroted slogans. I have become an infomercial for God, and I don't even use the product.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Life , God , People , Faith

“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.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Love , God , Decision