Sometimes I wonder how we convince anyone of anything. How is it we come to like what we like? How are passions developed? Why is it we are “into” the things we are into? How is it that we ever got interested and engaged with God? Especially when we can’t see, hear, taste or touch him. Is it that we just get good at rational argument and can just tell people about something and then instinctively they will get it? Is it the case that the things we love are those others have used logic and facts, argued persuasively for us to relent, and then we got hooked? Rationality is a good thing; in fact, irrationally never helps us in any area of life except maybe denial. There is another way, obvious yet seldom acknowledged, often practiced yet never talked about. Why have we missed it? Why has the church missed her greatest teaching tool?

My daughter Bethan recently gave me a book to read, Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. Something he wrote worked like mental Windex giving me a clear perspective of the art of persuasion and how it is we have developed our loves and tastes:

I never liked jazz music before because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Baghdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.

I liked that when I read it, knew it had something meaningful to say, but couldn’t quite figure it out. Then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense and was not only a passing statement, but really an insight into the way things are.

I like to fish. I am a fisherman who likes to eat what I catch. Therefore I will use whatever I can get my hands on to catch fish and laugh at those who don’t catch as many fish as I do, until I went on a couple of fishing trips with some guys to the Spring River. When we got there, my brother and I proceeded to deliver a seminar on catching rainbow trout. With ultra light spinning reels, we proceeded to catch our limit and everyone else’s. Unlike us, the other guys were fly-fishermen. Having read A River Runs Through It, I was familiar with this craft, but now was the first time I had witnessed fly-fishermen. As we ate steak later that night John and I were quick to point out our superior method of fishing. Hard to imagine how these guys didn’t get it. We out-fished them and they laughed good-naturedly and continued to talk about flies—wet and dry, bamboo rods, felt-bottomed waders and lots of stuff totally foreign to me. I thought surely they would put those primitive looking things down and change to a spinning reel where they could catch some fish. The next morning they happily rigged their fly rods while John and I again proceeded to catch our limit and theirs. However, their joy failed to dampen. Recently, John called and told me he has a picture of us with a stringer full of trout and small mouth between us. On each side are Jon Burkeen and Kevin Norment with one fish apiece. They seem as happy as we seem haughty.

Over the last couple of years I fished with these fly-fishermen on other occasions and continued to mock their obsession. They never seemed to catch as many fish as we did, but they always seemed to have an unquenchable joy and zeal about their craft. I have to admit that during this time, I did admire the beauty, though still I mocked. This past summer I finally told my brother we had to repent and buy fly rods. These guys seemed to be onto something I couldn’t quite understand, but they seemed to have a joy about it.

I haven’t bought my fly rod yet, but this illustrates the point Miller makes, “Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.” His learning to love jazz music and my coming to see the glory and beauty of fly-fishing says that you must do more than communicate with someone about a thing you love; you have to celebrate the thing you love so they can see it too. That is what my friends have done for me with fly-fishing. They never became haughty or made fun of me for my lowbrow fishing methods; they celebrated among themselves the joy of the thing. I saw the joy and beauty of a fisherman’s well-honed craft, cultivated while standing in the middle of rushing water, methodically dancing a fly back and forth inches over the water in the figure eight of a skater, until finally they released the string. Then to see it drop softly behind a rock and then watching the water explode as a rainbow trout emerged to take the bait. It was too much. I said to myself one day, “I have to experience this.”

Ultimately, this is true with the Christian faith. We are told to communicate the gospel truth with people, but we are also called to celebrate the gospel before them. Till people see this aspect of the gospel from God’s people, there is no draw to our message. All people hear is another tired moralism from a group of people who seem to have traded a life of fun and joy for duty and dullness. This misses the point. The point of the gospel is God’s love for sinners. When you understand you celebrate. When you celebrate you show the way others can celebrate too: “Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.”