Donald Miller - Searching for God Knows What

PRAISE FOR
SEARCHING
FOR GOD
KNOWS WHAT

Miller... writes on faith with candor and passion reminiscent of Frederick Buechner and Anne Lamott.

The Oregonian

Like a shaken snow globe, Donald Millers newest collection of essays creates a swirl of ideas about the Christian life that eventually crystallize into a lovely landscape... [He] is one of the evangelical book markets most creative writers.

Christianity Today

For fans of Blue Like Jazz, I doubt you will be disappointed. Donald Miller writes with the wit and vulnerability that you expect. Sharing stories of his upbringing and his journey in more recent years, he perfectly illustrates important themes in a genuine and humorous manner... For those who would be reading Miller for the first time, this would be a great start.

Relevant

We need this book. It demonstrates that when Christianity is articulated with intelligence, it proves viable to those of us in the academic community.

Tony Campolo
Professor of Sociology, Eastern University
and Author of Speaking My Mind

If you have felt that Jesus is someone you respect and admirebut Christianity is something that repels youSearching for God Knows What will give you hope that you still can follow Jesus and be part of a church without the trappings of organized religion.

Dan Kimball
Author of The Emerging Church
and Pastor of Vintage Faith Church, Santa Cruz, CA

In Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller cuts through the temptation of looking for how-tos and formulas to bring us life. Instead, he reveals a refreshingly simple and beautiful look at why we were createdto be in relationship first with our Creator and then with our neighbors. What a refreshing reminder of what Christ came to accomplish on this earth. Thanks, Donald, for being bold enough to tell us not what we want to hear, but rather what we need to hear.

Charlie Lowell
Band Member, Jars of Clay

Once again, Donald Miller reminds us that living Christ is not a twelve-step recovery program from the real world... but rather an invitation into its middle. Searching for God Knows What shows us that life is an invitation to follow Jesus into the corner of the world each of us has been given and to simply love the people we find there.

Bebo Norman
Singer/Songwriter, Myself When I Am Real and Try

Whenever people ask me about Donald Miller, I notice the first thing I say is, That guy can write. Having met Don, I also know he seeks to live what he writes, or better said, he writes what he lives. That, I think, is the top credential for a person who writes about ultimate concernsspirituality, meaning, purpose, life, God, and joy. In Searching for God Knows What, youll find more of his great writing, honest feeling, and spiritual insight to help you on your journey.

Brian McLaren
Pastor, Authorwww.anewkindofchristian.com

In Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller combines Bob Dylans no-nonsense message of the good news in Slow Train Coming with Sren Kierkegaards attack on dead orthodoxy in a fresh style and compelling form. Miller helps spiritual seekers get beyond those doctrinal rules and religious and political traditions that cloud the real Jesus and helps churchians rediscover Jesus Christ as their first love.

Paul Louis Metzger
Associate Professor, Multnomah Biblical Seminary
and Author of The Word of Christ and the World of Culture

2004 by Donald Miller

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc. books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Author is represented by the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

Scripture quotations noted NKJV are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

Scripture quotations noted NIV are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations noted KJV are from the KING JAMES VERSION of the Bible.

Scripture quotations noted THE MESSAGE are from THE MESSAGE. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, Donald, 1971
Searching for God knows what / Donald Miller.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7852-6371-5
1. Miller, Donald, 1971 2. Christian biographyUnited States. 3. Christian lifeMiscellanea. I. Title.
BR1725.M4465A3 2004
277.3'082'092dc22

2004014208

Printed in the United States of America
09 10 11 12 13 RRD 24 23 22 21 20

This book is dedicated to
John MacMurray.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE:
Fine Wine: The Failure of Formulas

CHAPTER TWO:
Impostors: Santa Takes a Leak

CHAPTER THREE:
Feet of Trees: What Do We Really Want?

CHAPTER FOUR:
Free Verse: A Whole Message to a Whole Human Being

CHAPTER FIVE:
Naked: Why Nudity Is the Point

CHAPTER SIX:
Children of Chernobyl: Why Did God Leave?

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Adam, Eve, and the Alien: How the Fall Makes You Feel

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Lifeboat Theory: How to Kill Your Neighbor

CHAPTER NINE:
Jesus: Who Needs a Boat?

CHAPTER TEN:
The Gospel of Jesus: It Never Was a Formula

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Circus of Redemption: Why a Three-Legged
Man Is Better Than a Bearded Woman

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Morality: Why I Am Better Than You

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Religion: A Public Relations Campaign for God

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Gospel of Jesus: Why William Shakespeare
Was a Prophet

Sometimes I feel as though I were born in a circus, come out of my mothers womb like a man from a cannon, pitched toward the ceiling of the tent, all the doctors and nurses clapping in delight from the grandstands, the band going great guns in trombones and drums. I unfold and find flight hundreds of feet above the center ring, the smell of popcorn in the air, the clowns gather below, amazed at my grace, and all the people chanting my name as my arms come out like wings and I move swan-like toward the apex, where I draw my arms in, collapse my torso to my legs, roll over in perfection, then slowly give in to gravity. My body falls back toward earth, the ground coming up quick, the center ring growing enormous beneath my falling weight.

And this is precisely when it occurs to me that there is no net. And I wonder, What is the use of a circus? and Why should a man bother to be shot out of a cannon? and Why is the crowds applause so fleeting? and... Who is going to rescue me?

CHAPTER ONE
Fine Wine
THE FAILURE OF FORMULAS

S ome time ago I attended a seminar for Christian writers. It was in a big hotel down South and hotels always make me uncomfortable because the bedding is so fluffy and the television swivels, and who makes coffee in the bathroom? But I felt that I needed to be at this seminar. I was wondering how, exactly, to write a book for a Christian market, a book that people would actually read. I had written a book several years before, but it didnt sell. It was a road-trip narrative about me, a friend, and God, and how we traveled across the country in a Volkswagen van, smoking pipes and picking fights with truckers. God wasnt actually a character in the book the way my friend and I were; God more or less played Himself, up in heaven, sending down puzzling wisdom and answers to prayer every hundred miles or so.