The following thoughts are inspired by 3AM and "Searching for God Knows What" by Donald Miller.
I read this book for the first time when I was 14. Actually I just skimmed through it, half daydreaming and half annoyed by the fact that Miller wrote paragraph long sentences. I must have thought something was interesting as I found the pages marked up with red pen, underlined, starred, even the occasional written “yeah!” - but I don’t know if much of what he was saying really made the journey from my head to my heart at the time. I was only just discovering this whole relationship with the living God thing.
What I knew was that I didn’t want religion (though I wouldn’t have known to say that yet). I didn’t want fairytales. I didn’t want hype and show - not in the church - not anywhere.
Hype and show do not comfort a 14 year old girl, desperate for identity and belonging.
Religion will never be there for her when she quietly sobs under the blankets because someone at school told her she was ugly and would never be worthy of real love. Fairytales would spur endless daydreams (not that she needed any help with that), but could never be a true anchor of hope.
At 14, I went searching for authenticity.
What I’ve discovered over these last 11 years is that Jesus is as authentic as it gets.
[Exerpt from Chapter 3 of "Searching for God Knows What" by Donald Miller]
"And that is the thing about life. You go walking along, thinking people are talking a language and exchanging ideas, but the whole time there is this deeper language people are really talking, and that language has nothing to do with ethics, fashion, or politics, but what it really has to do with is feeling important and valuable. What if the economy we are really dealing in life, what if the language we are really speaking in life, what if what we really want in life is relational?
Now this changes things quite a bit, because if the gospel of Jesus is just some formula I must obey in order to get taken off the naughty list and put on a nice list, then it doesn’t meet the deep need of the human condition, it doesn’t interact with the great desire of my soul, and it has nothing to do with the hidden (or rather, obvious) language we are all speaking. But if it is more, if it is a story about humanity falling away from the community that named it, and an attempt to bring humanity back to that community, and if it is more than just a series of ideas, but rather speaks directly into this basic human need we are feeling, then the gospel of Jesus is the most relevant message in the history of mankind.
As I said before, the god I renounced that evening at the car wash was an impersonal god, a god of rules and lists and formulas. But what if all our rules and lists and formulas came together for a reason, and if we stopped looking at the rules and lists and formulas and rather looked through them at the larger and more obvious message? What if the motive behind our theology was relational? My need, the brokenness that existed inside me led me to play guitar and memorize poems and even renounce my faith in an effort to think myself smart, was all driven by relational motives: I wanted other people to value me. So what if the gospel of Jesus was a message that was relevant to that need?
I realized that. Jesus was always, and I mean always, talking about love, about people, about relationship, and He never once broke anything into steps or formulas. What if, because we were constantly trying to dissect His message, we were missing a blatant invitation? I began to wonder if becoming a Christian did not work more like falling in love than agreeing with a list of true principles. I had met a lot of people who agreed with all those true principles, and they were jerks, and a lot of other people who believed in those principles, but who also claimed to love Jesus, who were not jerks.
It seems like something else has to take place in the heart for somebody to become a believer, for somebody to understand the gospel of Jesus. It began to seem like more than just a cerebral exercise. What if the gospel of Jesus was an invitation to know God?
Now I have to tell you, all this frightened me a bit because I had always assumed a kind of anonymity with God. When I saw myself in heaven, I didn’t imagine sitting at the right hand of God, as the Scripture says, but I pictured myself off behind some mountain range doing some fishing and writing a good detective novel. But if the gospel of Jesus is relational; that is, if our brokenness will be fixed, not by our understanding of theology, but by God telling us who we are, then this would require a kind of intimacy of which only heaven knows. Imagine, a Being with a mind as great as God’s, with feet like trees and a voice like rushing wind, telling you that you are His cherished creation. It’s kind of exciting when you think about it. Earthly love, I mean the stuff I was trying to get by sounding smart, is temporal and slight so that it has to be given again and again in order for us to feel any sense of security; but God’s love, God’s voice and presence, would instill our souls with such affirmation we would need nothing more and would cause us to love other people so much we would be willing to die for them. Perhaps this is what the apostles stumbled upon.”
“Perhaps this is what the apostles stumbled upon.”
Perhaps this is what I have stumbled upon over these 11 years of searching.
Long story short - it is. It is exactly what I have stumbled upon. I stumbled into this giant pit of unconditional love and belonging and identity and purpose which I will spend the rest of my life discovering and diving deeper into. Me - an imperfect and vulnerable mess - gets to be lavished in the fierce love and grace of a Holy, just and perfect God over and over and over again! What the heck kind of goodness even is that.
And as I’ve had the great honor to meet people all over the world - I’ve learned that they too - have stumbled into the same depth as me. The one with all of the belonging and the unconditional love. Different cultures, different upbringings, different languages - but the same Jesus.
I love that about Him. He gave His life for every one, every nation, every tongue - for everyone to have the chance to know their Creator.
All of humanity was designed to come alive when aligned to love Himself.
In the same places, I have had the same honor to meet those who have yet to stumble.
They are loved all the same. They are valued all the same. But they haven’t the slightest idea.
Some of them, in the midst of searching for belonging, purpose and value - they make the decisions we hear about on the news every day.
I can’t help but think this one thing. And I’m just going to say it.
I can’t help but think that these individuals who do not know the Love that longs to mark them - they are a lot like my 14 year old self. Desperate for belonging. Desperate for identity. Desperate for something, someone, to fill the void that shouts “you are not enough!”
Because of culture. Because of geographical location. Because of circumstances - my life looks very different than the ones I watch cut and edited on the news. But who is to say, that if I didn’t grow up in the way that I did - that would be the case?
And that is what races through my mind and aches in my heart, along with the rest world, over current events. When I hear of tragedies in my backyard and on the other side of the world, I am reminded of one thing. Jesus is not a dusty fairytale we tell ourselves so we can sleep peacefully. He is not hype or show or a way to gain wealth. He is not a rulebook, or a formula, or a big angry guy in the sky.
He is a man. He is love.
He is alive. He is relevant.
He is relevant to a 14 year old girl, living in small town America, whose biggest “issues” are her pointy ears and mile long limbs.
He is relevant to the men and women we know as ‘suicide bomber’ or ‘terrorist’ - who are desperate for a purpose and making decisions without a grid for unconditional love.
He is relevant to me now at 25, and to you.
His message, this beautiful invitation to know Him - it is relevant yesterday, today and tomorrow.
If you’ve already RSVP’d - then you know of it’s rich depths and extravagance.
If you’ve tasted and you’ve seen, then you are fully aware that the church - that His Kingdom - is not an exclusive club, where we we all stand around and love to hate on the outsiders. Just the opposite. Knowing Him always equals loving others with an unexplainable and fervent love. When we choose to keep silent - we are choosing to be selfish - and the invitation doesn’t get passed along.
Just writing these words makes my heart race with conviction.
There is space for every ethnicity. Every gender. Every class. Every tongue. Every life.
There is a seat waiting to be filled by every human that you, that I, could possibly come into contact with.
The world is dying to hear that they’ve already been invited.
That He is the hope they, we, have been looking for.
That He is relevant.
