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

by Eugene H. Peterson

The world, though, is protean: each generation has the world to deal with in a new form. World is an atmosphere, a mood.[2] It is nearly as hard for a sinner to recognize the world’s temptations as it is for a fish to discover impurities in the water. There is a sense, a feeling, that things aren’t right, that the environment is not whole, but just what it is eludes analysis. We know that the spiritual atmosphere in which we live erodes faith, dissipates hope and corrupts love, but it is hard to put our finger on what is wrong.

We’ll try anything—until something else comes along.

Disciple (mathētēs) says we are people who spend our lives apprenticed to our master, Jesus Christ. We are in a growing-learning relationship, always. A disciple is a learner, but not in the academic setting of a schoolroom, rather at the work site of a craftsman. We do not acquire information about God but skills in faith. Pilgrim (parepidēmos) tells us we are people who spend our lives going someplace, going to God, and whose path for getting there is the way, Jesus Christ. We realize that “this world is not my home” and set out for “the Father’s house.” Abraham, who “went out,” is our archetype. Jesus, answering Thomas’s question “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?” gives us directions: “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me” (Jn 14:5-6). The letter to the Hebrews defines our program: “Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in” (Heb 12:1-2).

“the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus” (Phil 3:14).

“Why bother? There is plenty to enjoy without involving yourself in all that. The past is a graveyard—ignore it; the future is a holocaust—avoid it.

William Faulkner. “They are not monuments, but footprints. A monument only says, ‘At least I got this far,’ while a footprint says, ‘This is where I was when I moved again.’ ”[9]

People submerged in a culture swarming with lies and malice feel as if they are drowning in it: they can trust nothing they hear, depend on no one they meet. Such dissatisfaction with the world as it is is preparation for traveling in the way of Christian discipleship.

We drift on the tides of convenience. We float on fashions. It is regarding the things we care about that we are capable of expressing anger.

But of course, the fact that we are a family of faith does not mean we are one big happy family. The people we encounter as brothers and sisters in faith are not always nice people. They do not stop being sinners the moment they begin believing in Christ. They don’t suddenly metamorphose into brilliant conversationalists, exciting companions and glowing inspirations. Some of them are cranky, some of them dull and others (if the truth must be spoken) a drag. But at the same time our Lord tells us that they are brothers and sisters in faith. If God is my Father, then this is my family.

We are invited to bless the Lord; we are commanded to bless the Lord. And then someone says, “But I don’t feel like it. And I won’t be a hypocrite. I can’t bless God if I don’t feel like blessing God. It wouldn’t be honest.”

The biblical response to that is “Lift up your praising hands to the Holy Place, and bless God!” You can lift up your hands regardless of how you feel; it is a simple motor movement. You may not be able to command your heart, but you can command your arms.

“For why do men lift their hands when they pray? Is it not that their hearts may be raised at the same time to God?”