Religion is a very scary thing, because a pastor is in a position of power. And if you use that power badly, you ruin people's lives, and you ruin your own life.
Eugene H. PetersonRead
When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn't go off and leave us- he enters into our trouble and saves us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that despite our mistakes, divine presence is always with us to help us through our challenges.
Eugene H. Peterson underscores the idea that even when we make mistakes and face difficulties in life, we are not abandoned. Instead, the notion suggests that a higher power actively engages with us during our struggles, providing support and ultimately guiding us towards redemption and recovery.
Themes
SinTroubleGodRedemptionSupport
In practice
Example use cases
During a church sermon on forgiveness and redemption.
More from Eugene H. Peterson
All quotes βIf you don't take a Sabbath, something is wrong. You're doing too much, you're being too much in charge. You've got to quit, one day a week, and just watch what God is doing when you're not doing anything.
Eugene H. PetersonRead
Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.
Eugene H. PetersonRead
Exile (being where we don't want to be with people we don't want to be with) forces a decision: Will I focus my attention on what is wrong with the world and feel sorry for myself? Or will I focus my energies on how I can live at my best in this place I find myself?...'I will do my best with what is here.'
Eugene H. PetersonRead
The Latin words humus, soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from which we also get our word 'humble.' This is the Genesis origin of who we are: dust - dust that the Lord God used to make us a human being. If we cultivate a lively sense of our origin and nurture a sense of continuity with it, who knows, we may also acquire humility.
Eugene H. PetersonRead
I think pastors are the worst listeners. We're so used to speaking, teaching, giving answers. We must learn to be quiet, quit being so verbal, learn to pay attention to what's going on, and listen.
Eugene H. PetersonRead
Similar quotes
AI don't make a big thing out of my race. If you try to preach, people give you a little sympathy and then they want to get out of the way. So you don't preach; you tell the story.
Jim BrownRead
What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.
Frantz FanonRead
Every improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad is another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that did not exist before.
Mark TwainRead
Surely the ass who invented the first religion ought to be the first ass damned
Mark TwainRead
All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light.
James JoyceRead
People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.
Albert EllisRead