Long Obedience

A Long Obedience In the Same Direction is a wonderful book by Eugene Peterson which is about the Psalms of Ascent - Psalms 120 - 136.
This Sunday I am going to preach on Psalm 130 so I have been spending some time with this book again and just re reading my underlinings. And want to share what continues to touch me.
Here are some quotes from the book:



"The world is no friend to grace." Opening sentence of the book. Think about that.

"World is an atmosphere, a mood. It is nearly as hard for a sinner to recognize the world's temptations as it is for a fish to discover the impurities in the water."

"One aspect of the world that I have been able to identify as harmful to Christians is the assupmtions that anything worthwhile can be acquired at once."

"There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness."

He quotes Gore Vidal who wrote that today's passion is for the "immediate and the casual."

"Christian living demands that we keep our feet on the ground; it also asks us to make a leap of faith. A Christian who stays put is no better than a statue. A person who leaps about constantly is under suspicion of being not a man (or woman!) but a jumping jack."

And the bottom line of this book is that this journey of following Jesus is one of dedication and perseverance. He writes that we are best guided by a fusion of scripture and prayer:
"It is not a terribly difficult way of reading and writing, but it does require diligent attentiveness. The fusion is accompanied by reading these scriptures slowly, imaginatively, prayerfully and obediently."

One of the blessings of this year for me has been that a year ago I purchased his book"The Daily Message: through the Bible in One Year." And so, this year I have read and preached through the entire Bible. I am always awed by the way that the word - especially studied in community - can speak to directly to my life.

And so this week - Psalm 130 - which begins:
Out of the depths I cry to you.

Hmmmm....I wonder where is this going to lead this week?