Quote

The hard work of sowing seed in what looks like perfectly empty earth has a time of harvest. All suffering, pain, emptiness, disappointment is seed: sow it in God and He will, finally, bring a crop of joy from it.

Eugene H. Peterson

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Eugene H. Peterson
Age: 85 †
Born: 1932
Born: November 6
Died: 2018
Died: October 22
Author
Bible Translator
Theologian
Translator
University Teacher
Stanwood
Washington
Like
Bring
Seed
Suffering
Emptiness
Pain
Disappointment
Earth
Perfectly
Looks
Seeds
Sowing
Hard
Finally
Crop
Work
Empty
Crops
Time
Joy
Harvest

More quotes by Eugene H. Peterson

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I didn't write because I had anything to say, but in order to find out what there was to say.
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We've all met a certain type of spiritual person. She's a wonderful person. She loves the Lord. She prays and reads the Bible all the time. But all she thinks about is herself. She's not a selfish person. But she's always at the center of everything she's doing.
Eugene H. Peterson
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I believe God takes the things in our lives - family, background, education - and uses them as part of his calling. It might not be to become a pastor. But I don't think God wastes anything.
Eugene H. Peterson
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If you keep the Sabbath, you start to see creation not as somewhere to get away from your ordinary life, but a place to frame an attentiveness to your life.
Eugene H. Peterson
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You're here to be LIGHT... Shine! Be generous with your lives.
Eugene H. Peterson
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The most important thing a pastor does is stand in a pulpit every Sunday and say, 'Let us worship God.' If that ceases to be the primary thing I do in terms of my energy, my imagination, and the way I structure my life, then I no longer function as a pastor.
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We cannot be too careful about the words we use we start out using them and they end up using us.
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My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.
Eugene H. Peterson
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That's the whole spiritual life. It's learning how to die. And as you learn how to die, you start losing all your illusions, and you start being capable now of true intimacy and love.
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When you are part of a megachurch you have no responsibility to anybody else.
Eugene H. Peterson
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The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.
Eugene H. Peterson
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All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Isn't it interesting that all of the biblical prophets and psalmists were poets?
Eugene H. Peterson
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Love is not a word that describes my feelings it is not a technique by which I fulfill my needs it is not an ideal, abstract and pure, on which I meditate or discourse. It is acting in correspondence with or in response to God in relation to persons.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Prayer is the disciplined refusal to act before God acts.
Eugene H. Peterson
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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. Peterson
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The life of faith isn't meant for tourists. It's meant for pilgrims.
Eugene H. Peterson
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If we get our information from the biblical material there is no doubt that the Christian life is a dancing, leaping, daring life.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Church is the textured context in which we grow up in Christ to maturity. But church is difficult. Sooner or later, though, if we are serious about growing up in Christ, we have to deal with church. I say sooner.
Eugene H. Peterson