Love Does

I should have known it would be similar to Donald Miller's style of writing when I read that the foreword was by none other than Donald Miller himself. Every chapter begins with "I used to think..., but now...". Reminds me of Jesus with his "You have heard it said... But I tell you" conversations.

I would like to be friends with Bob Goff based on the little I gathered about him through reading this book. He is a man of not just vision but also putting love into action. Loved the chapters of how he met his wife and how his kids wrote letters to world leaders and were invited to interview them, leading to friendships.

Some of my favorite quotes are:
"I used to be afraid of failing at the things that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter" (30).

"[B]roken things, just like broken people, get used more; it's probably because God has more pieces to work with" (54).

"[B]e exactly who He has made us to be and who we are right where we are" (98).

"You become like the people you hang around, and to a great degree, you end up going wherever they're headed.... [W]e have a lot more power to decide who we do life with than some people think" (118).

God "wants followers, not just onlookers or people taking notes" (142).

"When I don't know the answer to where I am or what God wants me to be doing, which is often, I try to get a bearing on at least a couple of fixed points that I can trust. One is Jesus.... The other fixed point I use is a group of people I feel God has dropped into my life" (155).

"Secretly incredible people do things.... You want a mission statement to go along with being secretly incredible?... 'Be Awesome'" (161).

"Getting passed by can feel like a great injury. But it's not. It's people like us who can be secretly incredible and get the most done.... God loves the humble ones, and the humble ones often don't make it as first-round draft picks for the jobs with big titles or positions" (163).

"[T]hey have a name for guys who just study things about a person they like but don't do anything about it -- they're called bachelors" (199).

"Let me tell you what I do when I don't know what to do to move my dreams down the road. I usually just try to figure out what the next step is and then do that (216).

In May, there was a conference called Love Does Stuff. I found out about it a week before it happened, so I couldn't swing the $1000 trip to Washington, but it sounded like a great event. Be on the lookout for info on Love Does Stuff 2014. I am hoping it is in Detroit, a city that could really use some Jesus followers in action.