Belief

Since I'm still in the book at this very moment, I'm going with another one from Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz. This time from chapter 10, which is entitled Belief: The Birth of Cool.

"And that's when I realized that believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is like making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon."

I will approach this from both fronts. It is a favorite quote because of it's relavance to belief, but I do agree that it is very much applicable to love. For me, this quote, or more importantly, this opinion, is important because it emphasizes some sort of compromise between two extremes. I think it is unreasonable to think of faith as simply a decision that you make because you have gathered enough information and are finally ready to evaluate and conclude the matter. Also, faith is definitely not just something that you come across because you have found a new way to brew your coffee. While I agree that conviction is something that "happens to you" and that conviction is more important than information and education when making this decision, I don't suppose that Miller is intending that someone passes from not believing in God to believing in Him without at all acknowledging or realizing that they have done something. While we will never understand this faith completely, it is possible to know God just as it is possible to know a friend, a lover, a pet, without knowing everything about them and how they operate. In any case, if our believing in God is not at all like falling in love, then I think we have drastically missed the point. Nothing in this life is more important than knowing the love of Christ, and how can you do that but by falling in love with Him. I am glad that my decision to attempt a relationship with Him is not the only reason that He remains in relationship with me.