Donald Miller: I'm the kind of person who wants to present my most hon...

It occurs to me it is not so much the aim of the devil to lure me with evil as it is to preoccupy me with the meaningless.

Donald Miller

lure aim evil

There is a time when every person who encounters Jesus, who believes Jesus is the Son of God, decides that they will spend their life following Him. Some people, like the Apostle Paul, make this decision the minute they meet Him, the minute they become a Christian. Others, like the Apostle Peter, endure years of half-hearted commitment and spiritual confusion before leaping in with all their passion. Still others may enjoy some benefits of God's love and grace without entering into the true joy of a marriage with their maker.

Donald Miller

spiritual christian jesus

THINGS JESUS NEVER SAID: "You should come with me to church.

Donald Miller

church should jesus

Here's the truth about telling stories with your life. It's going to sound like a great idea, and you're going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you're not going to want to do it. It's like that with writing books, and it's like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain.

Donald Miller

pain writing book

Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever.

Donald Miller

christian heart ideas

If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation.

Donald Miller

transformation stories character

I often learn more about myself from listening to the life story of a friend than I do reflecting on my own story.

Donald Miller

life-story stories listening

I love writing books - I really do. If I could just quit everything and work on a book every day, I would love that most.

Donald Miller

quitting writing book

The mountains themselves call us into greater stories.

Donald Miller

mountain greater stories

What we really need is somebody who loves us so much we don’t worry about death, or about [anything for that matter]… We need this; we need this so we can love other people purely and not for selfish gain, we need this so we can see everybody as equals, we need this so our relationships can be sincere, we need this so we can stop kicking ourselves around, we need this so we can lose all self-awareness and find ourselves for the first time, not by realizing some dream, but by being told who we are by the only Being who has the authority to know, by that I mean the Creator.

Donald Miller

selfish dream mean

I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can't see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their spouses, and they go looking for an easier story.

Donald Miller

giving-up kids moving

I fell in love with books. Some people find beauty in music, some in painting, some in landscape, but I find it in words. By beauty, I mean the feeling you have suddenly glimpsed another world, or looked into a portal that reveals a kind of magic or romance out of which the world has been constructed, a feeling there is something more than the mundane, and a reason for our plodding.

Donald Miller

mean book people

I think our society puts too much pressure on romantic love, and that is why so many romances fail. Romance can't possibly carry all that we want it to.

Donald Miller

romantic-love romance thinking

The very scary thing about religion, to me, is that people actually believe God is who they think He is.

Donald Miller

believe people thinking

No love is conditional. If love is conditional, it’s just some sort of manipulation masquerading as love.

Donald Miller

conditional manipulation love-is

Earthly love… is temporal and slight so that is has to be given again and again in order for us to feel any sense of security; but God’s love, God’s voice and presence, would instill our souls with such affirmation we would need nothing more and would cause us to love other people so much we would be willing to die for them.

Donald Miller

voice love-is order

She knows who she is. She just forgot for a little while.

Donald Miller

knows littles

I think if you like somebody you have to tell them. It might be embarrassing to say it, but you will never regret stepping up. I know from personal experience, however, that you should not keep telling a girl that you like her after she tells you she isn't into it. You should not keep riding your bike by her house either.

Donald Miller

regret girl thinking

The sexual conquest is huge with men in terms of affirming themselves and their feelings of masculinity. That's a misguided kind of affirmation. That is not helpful, but that stuff happens.

Donald Miller

stuff-happens feelings men

If honesty is the key to intimacy, it means we don't have to be perfect and we don't have to pretend to be perfect.

Donald Miller

honesty keys mean

I'm the kind of person who wants to present my most honest, authentic self to the world, so I hide backstage and rehearse honest and authentic lines until the curtain opens.