A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society

by Eugene H. Peterson

Because A Long Obedience was my initial venture into what has continued to characterize everything I’ve written since, this fresh edition seems an apt occasion for making explicit what is everywhere implicit in my books; that men and women who believingly follow Jesus (what we commonly call “the Christian life” or “Christian spirituality”) are best guided and energized by a fusion of Scripture and prayer. For as long as an enthusiasm for Christian “spirituality” accelerates without an equivalent commitment to its means, nothing much is going to come of it. There is virtual unanimity among our Christian ancestors that the means consists precisely in

this 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 accomplished by reading these Scriptures slowly, imaginatively, prayerfully and obediently.