…sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself…

—

— Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

Tonight I went to listen to Donald Miller speak in a large church that I haven’t set foot in for a long time. Driving home under plum night skies with the radio turned off, the part I couldn’t stop replaying is him calling modern religion heresy. Him explaining how we were made to be loved perfectly and what we are waiting for without that possibility here - what keeps us half heartbroken and unsatisfied and always will through our lives, despite everything else that faith might give us. How we will never never find that peace, entirely, on this earth…and all the pretty Christian books that promise otherwise are lying. It sounds like a funny thing to gain hope from, but I wish I could tell him how much it meant to me. How it blew my ears or my heart wide open, ready to consider again. The idea that it’s not all ok here, and there is good reason for that, is strikingly beautiful to me. The idea that God doesn’t expect sorority smiles of blind appeasement….doesn’t need us to speak in the robotic and conventional shorthand of the church. That we could be messy and grievous and complicated and wondrously stupefied by the greater world. That maybe He understands how broken we still feel and that’s ok - that these days don’t call for pious cheer alone. That faith is hope and endurance and patience. That it is the waiting and not the final word.

It’s too much (too personal?) to explain but after a long season away, listening to Donald Miller explain faith to me again held a quiet shade of hope.

(via beenthinking)