Book Review: Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller

Searching for God Knows What
by Donald Miller
Published in 2004 and 2010 by Thomas Nelson

Summary: Needless to say I have been a little slow on making blog posts of late, so I finished this book over a month ago, but it is an exceptional theological look at our identitity and especially our identity as Christians.  He begins by considering how we have reduced Christianity to formulas rather than real relationships and proceeds to evaluate the accuracy of the picture we as Christians have painted of God.  With that as a base he begins to ask the challenging question of have we gotten something a little wrong in the manner in which we portrait God and practice Christianity?  Through the lens of this question and the Book of Genesis he then begins to present some sound theological positions about the God of scripture and how He often differs from the God we present to people and about our self identities being tied to something outside of us.  That something is God and since we were seperated from Him in the garden we have spent the last few milleniums looking for things outside ourselves to define who we are and have been failing miserably because the only thing outside of us that can define us is God.  Until we recognize our need for Him we are going to be lost, there is no getting around it.  Ultimately he presents the suggestion that Christianity should be a lot more like falling in love with Jesus than getting a formula correct and that it is only in relationship that we can fully appreciate God's love for us.

Review: Once again Miller has written a profoundly moving book.  Not only does he use his writing style and wit to keep us interested and laughing, but he also presents well thought out and deep theological concepts that will challenge ones understanding of God and the Christian walk in ways that will only improve our relationship with God.  It is so refreshing to see him use theology to inform the way he both thinks about life and lives it.  I remember reading a Grenz and Olsen book in seminary called Who Needs Theology? and they made the statement that "right theology should help us live a life that makes it easy for others to believe in Jesus," (Faron's paraphrase) and that is in essence what Miller is doing with this book.  He is presenting theological understandings of God that will better enable us to live that kind of life.  This is as worthy of a read as Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life.
Reading Recomendation: YES!