Saturday, September 6, 2008

I Do Not Have the Blues

While I was staying home in May, being a camp counselor in June, and flying on a plane to Kenya in July, I read the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. The following are a few of my favorite quotes from my summer reading :

"I always thought the Bible was more of a salad thing, you know, but it isn't. It is a chocolate thing." p.47

"If you don't love somebody, it gets annoying when they tell you what to do or what to feel. When you love them you get pleasure from their pleasure, and it makes it easy to serve. I didn't love God because I didn't know God." p.14

"I will love God because he first loved me. I will obey God because I love God. . . . Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God's love will." p.86

"Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself." p.ix

"Passion is tricky, though, because it can point to nothing as easily as it points to something. . . . Passion about nothing is like pouring gasoline in a car without wheels." p.109 and 110

"I don't have to watch the evening news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself." p.20

"I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil, but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God." p.13

"All great Christian leaders are simple thinkers. . . . actually believes that when Jesus says feed the poor, He means you should do this directly." p.110

"What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do." p.110

"'If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus.'" p.185

"I need wonder." p.205

"I need for there to be something bigger than me. I need someone to put awe inside me; I need to come second to someone who has everything figured out." p.237

"If we could, God would not inspire awe." p.202

"The things we want most in life, the things we think will set us free, are not the things we need.... that's the tricky thing about life, really, that the things we want most will kill us." p.63

"It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things." p.217

"God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson." p.220

"Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them." p.220

"Communicate the idea that Jesus likes people and even loves them." p.112

2 comments:

sharon said...

Hey Nifty Niece,

I love all your posts, but I particularly like some of these quotes. My faves: pgs 47, 205, 237, and 220.

Keep up the good work.

Much luv,
Auntie

Charity Yost said...

I love these, too, so much that I think I saved my favorite quotes outside this blog so I can write entire blogs on those quotes later. Coming soon . . . .