Good Stuff

My latest quiet time/devotional guide is a book by Eugene Peterson called 'The Jesus Way'.  So far I love this book and have had some great personal times with God as He reveals to me things going on in my life as I'm on this journey..... 

Here are some good things Peterson has to say:

(all quotes below from the book...)

"The way of Jesus is not a sequence of exceptions to the ordinary, but a way of living deeply and fully with the people here and now in the place we find ourselves."

"The way for us was far more than a way to get to the top.  It was a way of being present to everything on the way..."

Faith requires us to "give up control...give up sensory confirmation of reality...give up insisting on head knowledge as our primary orientation in life."

"Sacrifice exposes spiritual fantasy as a masquerade of faith...Sacrifice is a readiness to interrupt whatever we are doing and build an altar, bind whatever we happen to be carrying with us at the moment, place it on the altar, and see what God wills to do with it...At each altar [Abraham] learned a little more, acquired a deeper discernment, a sharper insight into God's command and promise in contrast to his innate willfulness and indulgence..."

"In the process of leaving behind, Abraham became more, gradually but certainly realizing that relinquishment is prerequisite to fulfillment, that letting go of a cramped self-will opened up to an expansive God-willed life. Faith."

"Even after all his years on the road, all those altars, all those sacrifices, Abraham still required assistance in getting to Mount Moriah for the sacrifice...The capacity and readiness for sacrifice is an accumulation of small but significant details."

~lk