Eugene Peterson, translator of “The Message”, is a true wordsmith. Part of the pleasure in reading this second book in his legacy-making series is the way he crafts sentences, encouraging deeper thought and further growth. Despite being subtitled “The Art of Spiritual Reading,” this is no manual on Bible study approaches but it seeks to evoke a desire for us to delve into the Bible to search out God’s voice - leaving our own selfishness and personalities behind. His section about the authority of self versus the authority of Scripture is exceptional!The metaphor of eating the book - really taking it within us and having it become part of us - is reinforced throughout the text.

In our journey into a life of prayer here at Sawyers, this exercpt really jumped out at me and I’ve shared it with the various teams and individuals that I serve with, so here it is for you!

“Prayer is the way we work our way out of the comfortable but cramped word of self, into the self-denying but spacious word of God.  It’s getting rid of self so that we can be all soul – God-aware, God-dimensioned.” 

Let’s live in the spacious place, that Christ has secured for us!

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