Donald Miller...check!

I am reading a book by Jim Palmer that has affected me in the same way Donald Miller has affected me in the past. If you don't know me very well, you should know that I LOVE Donald Miller. So much so, that one of my best friend's called me and said, "Meagan. You will never believe who I met today. There was a very attractive guy (check) on the dart with me. We started talking and he was from ACU (not really a check but whatever). He has been to Africa (check) working for the peace corps and he was wearing cowboy boots (check times 10). And then after we finished talking he pulled out a Donald Miller book!!!" Can I just say that I was so happy when my girl friend felt like it was fate when he pulled out a DM book. DM = more checks than cowboy boots mainly b/c cowboy boots unfortunately don't make you a southern, God fearing gentleman like my little brain wants me to believe.

That last sentence is just a whole other blog in itself.

Anyways, Jim Palmer is real, raw, honest and I like it. He goes against what everyone else seems to follow when it comes to church and religion. I like it when people step outside the norm and question if that's how Jesus intended for His followers to be. The idea of his book is "shedding religion to find God." Basically, how he encountered and grew closer to God through divine nobodies; a hip hop artist, Denny's waitress, a disabled child and tire salesman. Without further ado here are a few quotes from Jim's book, Divine Nobodies.

“It’s a little curious that the ‘sinners’ in the Bible were much more responsive to Jesus and ready to receive the kingdom of God than religious people. The same sun melts wax and hardens clay, and the same Jesus melted and hardened people’s hearts, but maybe there’s a hidden message in who was melted (prostitutes) and who was hardened (priests). Doesn’t God want folks either passionately in love with him (hot) or flipping him the bird (cold) rather than the halfhearted mediocrity of religious compliance?

It’s clear from the hot/cold Scripture in Revelation that the video nauseating God is not categorically the hip-hop one, but the one where we come to church masking our brokenness, out of touch with the truth about ourselves while pointing our fingers of condemnation at others.

In reference to the Denny’s waitress he befriended…

She talked about how over the years Christians were often her worst customers. They would come in all cheery and blessed after Sunday morning service, running her unmercifully with a table of 8 and leaving loose change for a tip on a large bill. For years, I prided myself on having right theology, but Wanda got me thinking about whether any theology can be “right” if it doesn’t motivate you to treat people with love and respect. Let’s just hope on Judgment Day that God doesn’t leave it in the hands of waitresses, cashiers, and all the other invisible people in our world who are on the receiving end of what’s truly in our hearts.”