Silent Sitter

Often people that know me well accuse me of being a talker. But tonight I just listened. I attend a small group consisting of 4 other guys and myself. Each week we discuss a different article, most of the time relating to faith. More often than not we get into some pretty deep discussions. Tonight was no different. I consider my inteletic to be towards the bottom of this great group of guys. Among these guys my quite side comes out. Its is not that I feel dumb when I say something. It is just that I feel that I can get more from just listening.
Tonight we read an excerpt from a book called Searching For God Knows What by one of my favorite authors, Donald Miller. It was good to re-read this chapter this week, it provided a boast in my currently seemingly dull (not sharp) faith walk. The following is one of my favorite parts of this book. Miller talks about not taking a lot of stock in formula, when it comes to figuring out Christianity.

From Searching For God Knows What:

I know there are people who have actually gone from misery to happiness, but
they didn’t do it by walking through three steps; they did it because they had a certain set
of parents and heard a certain song and knew somebody who had a certain experience
and saw some movie then read some book then had something happen to them like a car
wreck or a trip to Seattle, and then they called on God and a week later read something in
a magazine or met a girl in Wichita, and when all this had happened they had an
epiphany, and somebody may have helped them fulfill what this epiphany made them
feel, and several years later they rationalized this mystic experience with three steps, then
they told the three steps to us in a book. And I’m not saying they weren’t trying to be
helpful; I bring this up only because life is complex, and the idea you can break it down,
or fix it in a few steps is rather silly. The truth is there are a million steps, and we don’t
even know what the steps are and, worse, at any given moment we may not be willing or
even able to take them and still worse they are different for you and me and they are
always changing. I have come to believe the sooner we find this truth beautiful, the
sooner we will fall in love with God on His terms, who keeps shaking things up, keeps
changing the path, keeps rocking the boat to test our faith in Him, teaching us not to rely
on easy answers, bullet points, magic mantras or genies in lamps, but rather in His
guidance, His existence, His mercy and His love.