Quotes from Eugene Peterson

The gospel offers a different view of suffering: in suffering we enter the depths; we are at the heart of things; we are near to where Christ was on the cross.

Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts.

But Jesus' priesthood is permanent. He's there from now to eternity to save everyone who comes to God through him, always on the job to speak up for them.

It is not just pastors who get surprised, but it is easy for pastors to harbor the presumption that when we are wronged or ignored or dismissed, God himself is being blasphemed.

I'll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I'll call the unloved and make them beloved. In the place where they yelled out, 'You're nobody!' they're calling you 'God's living children.

So much of the time it is not complacency that threatens but its opposite, impetuosity. We see something that is wrong, whether in the world or in the church, and we fly into action, righting the wrong, confronting sin and wickedness, battling the enemy, and then we go out vigorously recruiting "Christian soldiers".

Good poetry survives not when it is pretty or beautiful or nice but when it is true: accurate and honest.

The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him.

It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It's the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can't be packaged, and it can't be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.

And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily--open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.

The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless.

We cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.