And that's when I realized that believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is like making a decision. Love is both something that happens… - Donald Miller

The magical proposition of the gospel, once free from the clasps of fairy tale, was very adult to me, very gritty like something from Hemingway or Steinbeck, like something with copious amounts of sex and blood. Christian spirituality was not a children's story. It wasn't cute or neat. It was mystical and odd and clean, and it was reaching into the dirty. There was wonder in it and enchantment.
Perhaps, I thought, Christian spirituality really was the difference between illusion and magic.

The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart.

I realized in and instant that I desired false gods because Jesus wouldn't jump through my hoops, and I realized that, like Tony, my faith was about image and ego, not about practicing spirituality.