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

by Eugene H. Peterson

So what do I do with Edom? I ask God to bring me to Edom—the place, the person fortified against God: Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom? God will. And God does. Over and over and over again. The person, the task, the threat, the frustration, the institution, the circumstance that my first impulse is to curse—you stupid Edomite!—becomes, through the wonderful praying of Psalm 108, the occasion for going beyond my strength or understanding or inclination to search out the purposes of God where God is working them out, not where I am cozily domesticating them. For it is God, not me, who treads down, that is, takes care of, our foes.