Something which has made life worth living
I just won't mention the passage of time since the last post, as that would be monotonous. But, as I suspect everyone in Christendom would know, Eugene Peterson died recently. I have until now not read so much of his work, but many of the posts I saw in note of his passing prompted me to take up A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, which has been on the list of appealing books for some time. I was actually rather intrigued to discover that the title of this work comes from Nietzsche, who wrote, in Beyond Good and Evil:
The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.
But, to Peterson, this particular portion from the third chapter on Psalm 121 has struck me so far. It perhaps then goes without saying that I have occasionally thought some of these thoughts ...
The only serious mistake we can make when illness comes, when anxiety threatens, when conflict disturbs our relationships with others, is to conclude that God has gotten bored looking after us and has shifted his attention to a more exciting Christian, or that God has become disgusted with our meandering obedience and decided to let us fend for ourselves for a while, or that God has gotten too busy fulfilling prophecy in the Middle East to take time now to sort out the complicated mess we have gotten ourselves into. That is the only serious mistake we can make. It is the mistake that Psalm 121 prevents: the mistake of supposing that God’s interest in us waxes and wanes in response to our spiritual temperature.
A page later comes this sentence, which I both loved and was challenged by:
We Christians believe that life is created and shaped by God and that the life of faith is a daily exploration of the constant and countless ways in which God’s grace and love are experienced.
Might that be ever more true!