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

by Eugene H. Peterson

Friendship is not a way of accomplishing something but a way of being with another in which we become more authentically ourselves.

So Aaron made a god, a golden calf. At that moment Aaron quit being their pastor and became their accomplice. There are some people who are always looking for a religion that makes no demands and offers only rewards, a religion that dazzles and entertains, a religion in which there is no waiting and no emptiness. And they can usually find someone like Aaron who will help them make it up, some sort of golden calf religion.

In prayer we do not merely speak our feelings. We speak our answers.

Prayer is not a way in which we order things; it is a way in which we become ordered.

Prophets insist that God is the sovereign center, not off in the wings awaiting our beck and call. And prophets insist that we deal with God as God reveals himself, not as we imagine him to be.

I try to get peace by getting rid of what irritates me; God gets peace by restoring everything to health. I try to get peace by getting rid of what I don’t like; God gets peace by loving the unruly and unlovely into a life-changing salvation. I try to get peace by saying, “Shut up. I don’t want to hear it anymore”; God gets peace by saying, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

The prophet’s primary task is to pay attention to the presence of God in our world and in our lives. Before he can tell us about God, he has to get our attention that God is present, here.

Well, a central concept in the Christian concept of God has always been that God is doing something. He is never inactive or silent. But he does not receive his directions from us. He doesn’t conform his actions to our desires.

The God who in his majesty, strength, and wisdom is beyond our imaginations has chosen to work primarily as a servant who is almost beneath our imaginations, so far beneath we don’t even notice him.

The great danger for all of us, youth and adults, is not that we will make mistakes. We most certainly will. Given our nature and the conditions in which we live, there is no getting around that. The great danger is that we will live unaware, unresponsive, unbelieving.