quotes for the current me

Donald Miller wrote, "It doesn't make a great deal of sense that a person who went to Bible college should have a better shot at heaven than a person who didn't, and it doesn't make a lot of sense either that somebody sentimental and spiritual has greater access."

I struggle with that a lot b/c I'm not outwardly emotional or as sentimental as others and I used to think that it was a fault in me. It's not, it is just me.

"I think it is more safe and more beautiful and more true to believe that when a person dies he will go and be with God because, on earth, he had come to know Him, that he had a relational encounter with God not unlike meeting a friend or a lover or having a father or taking a bride, and that in order to engage God he gave up everything, repented and changed his life, as this sort of extreme sacrifice is what is required if true love is to grow. We would expect nothing less is marriage; why should we accept anything less is becoming unified with Christ?"

I read this in Zambia and it gave me hope. I want to yearn for my God as I yearn for Andy. I want to turn to Him as I would love to do to a close friend. I'm working on this; I'm hoping and praying for this.

And later in "Searching For God Knows What" he also wrote this: "the thing about being religious [is that] it isn't this safe place in the soul you can go, it has just as many booby traps as any other thing you can get yourself into. It's a bloody brothel, in fact. Jesus even says there will be people who will heal other people, but when they die He is going to say He didn't KNOW them. It is somewhat amazing to me, once again, that all Christianity, all our grids and mathematics and truths and different groups subscribing to different theological ideas, boils down to our KNOWING Jesus and his KNOWING us."