As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God

by Eugene H. Peterson

science and religion are opposites, the way your thumb and forefinger are opposites: if you are going to get a grip on things, you need them both.

A friend, if honest and true, will tell you things you don’t want to hear. A friend, if deeply serious about you, will do things that feel painful. Friends do that because they respect our dignity and honor our uniqueness.

Naming an event a miracle doesn’t mean we can’t understand it. It means we can’t anticipate it. It means we can’t reproduce it. We cannot control it. There is more going on than we can comprehend.

Abraham lived by faith. He believed in a God he never saw. He obeyed a command that had no guarantees. He took the risk of traveling to a far country and living as a stranger. His life was shaped by promises and lived in risk. I would like to live like that.

Always and everywhere in Scripture our attention is brought back to the central fact: God is a person; God makes persons; God remakes persons.