Blue Like Jazz

I have been reading a book entitled: Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. It was actually a book JB was reading for his men's book club, and I snagged it and started reading it, mostly because I was interested in the writer's tone and style. He has a very stream of consciousness approach that I really appreciate. It was actually more his style than his words that caused me to turn the pages. Before I knew it, I was 100 pages in.

Shortly after writing the post that I did yesterday -- a post where I confessed to you all the questions I had regarding why I had to endure the difficult complications in order to bring Elijah home -- I stumbled across a few paragraphs in Miller's book that just jumped off the page at me. It truly was if God was speaking to me through his prose. If Miller's words don't help answer the questions I am struggling with, I really am not sure what can.

How quickly we forget that God is not human. That we live in a fallen world. That life is not perfect. One thing I came to realize during our years of infertility was that I held a very big misconception of how life worked. I had, somehow, held onto a just-world mentality. (I wrote a post on this back in March of 2006 which you can read by clicking here.)

Just-World thinkers are people who blame the victim: The world is tough but fair; if something happens to you, it is your own fault. The Just-world hypothesis is defined as: "The tendency to believe that the world is fair and that people get what they deserve."

But Miller reminded me of how it really works. I hope that those of you struggling with why can find some comfort in his words just as I did:

I know a little of why there is blood in my body, pumping life into my limbs and thought into my brain. I am wanted by God. He is wanting to preserve me, to guide me through the darkness of the shadow of death, up into the highlights of His presence and afterlife. I understand that I am temporary, in this shell of a thing on this dirt of an earth. I am being tempted by Satan, we are all being tempted by Satan, but I am preserved to tell those who do not know about our Savior and Redeemer. This is why Paul had no questions. This is why he could be beaten one day, imprisoned the next, and released only to be beaten again and never ask God why. He understood the earth was fallen. He understood the rules of Rome could not save mankind, that mankind could not save itself; rather, it must be rescued, and he knew that he was not in the promised land, but still in the desert, and like Joshua and Caleb he was shouting, "Follow me and trust God!"

I see it now . . . I could see Satan lashing out on the earth like a madman, setting tribes against each other in Rwanda, whispering in men's ears in the Congo so that they rape rather than defend their women. Satan is at work in the cults of the Third World, the economic chaos in Argentina, and the corporate-driven greed of American corporate executives.

I lay there under the stars and thought of what a great responsibility it is to be human. I am a human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan. God is reaching out to me to rescue me. I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved.