mmmmm... That's Good Stuff

I've got a buddy who, when he has a rich experience (e.g. quality time with one of his sons, a perfect surprise for his wife, wonderful worship with the saints, etc.), he calls it "delicious." I love teasing him about that. But mainly I love him because of that -- how he savors rich moments in life.

When I read the following, I thought it was delicious. Not because it describes something grand. But because it is as grand a description of human despair as I've read in a while. From Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years...

I clasped my hand over my heart and knelt between the bed and the television and rolled onto the floor and cried out to God a lamenting demand that he would come and save me from the sorrow that, for the immensity of it, I could only attribute to him in the first place. I didn't want to learn whatever it was he wanted to teach me. I cried out to him an angry petition for rescue. I doubted him and needed him at the same time. God seemed to me, in that moment, a cruel father burning a scar into my skin with his cigarette. And yet I knew he was the only one with the power to make the pain go away.

mmmmmmmm. Ever been there? I know a few of you have. I won't give it away, but Miller gives a keen insight on suffering I don't believe I've ever heard or considered. I assure you: it's much more than a cruel father burning a scar into your skin with a cigarette. It was so incisive that it made James 1:2 make actual sense for the first time in my life.

But it's not just about human suffering. If I were to sum it up, what Miller is trying to accomplish with the book is to make you bored of being bored. And I liked it. I think a lot of you blog readers would like it, too. Check it out.