I am reading Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What? a second time. Here’s a section I particularly enjoy and affirm.
I returned home and began pouring over the bible, looking for formulas I could use for my book of daily devotions. And I have to tell you this was much more difficult than you might think. The formulas, in fact, are hidden. It seems when God had the Bible put together, He hid a lot of the ancient wisdom so, basically, you have to read into things and even kind of make up things to get a formula out of it. And the formulas that are obvious are terrible.
For instance, a guy named Stephen was miserable (or at least I assumed he was miserable) and then he became a Christian, and then he was stoned to death. This formula, of course, was not good enough to make the cut. And for that matter, neither was the one about Paul, who was a murderer before he became a Christian and then was blinded while traveling, met Jesus in a burst of light, and then spent painful years moving from city to city, prison to prison, routinely being beaten and bitten by snakes. No formula there. I moved on to Peter, who was rescued from a successful fishing business only to be crucified, some historical accounts claim, along with his wife. And of course that wouldn’t work. So I decided to ignore the actual characters of Scripture and just go with the teachings of Jesus. And that is when things really became difficult. Apparently Jesus had not heard some of the wonderful tools of acronym. He mostly told stories, some which were outlandish. Step one: Eat My flesh. Step two: Drink My blood. Do you know what having to read something like that would do to a guy trying to process dairy products?
Of course, I got frustrated. And it really got me thinking that, perhaps, formula books, by that I mean books that take you through a series of steps, may not be all that compatible with the Bible.
I ask of us, what do we expect and when do we expect it to happen? No, I am not a cynic about spiritual growth, a skeptic about real change. I just think it takes a lot longer (like a whole life time), has a few more valleys than we expected, and is always mixed with a certain amount of disappointment. Formula Christianity doesn’t cut it. Let’s grow up and be honest about our journey. We could use a bit less amazing dental work by TV preachers and a bit more facing up to this thing we call the Christian life.
