scriptureprayer

I just finished reading Eugene Peterson's "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction." Awesome book that I'm sorry I took so long to read.  Below is a quote from the Epilogue in the newest edition which summarized and affirms for me some of the things I have been learning this year working with students:

"The second conviction was that my primary pastoral work had to do with Scripture and prayer.  I was neither capable nor competent to form Christ in another person, to shape a life of discipleship in man, woman or child.  That is supernatural work, and I am not supernatural.  Mine was the more modest work of Scripture and prayer - helping people listen to God speak to them from the Scriptures and then joining them in answering God as personally and honestly as we could in lives of prayer.  This turned out to be slow work.  From time to time, impatient with the slowness, I would try out ways of going about my work that promised quicker results.  But after a while it always seemed to be more like meddling in these people's lives than helping them attend to God...Scripture and prayer are not two separate entities,  My pastoral act was to fuse them into a  single act: scriptureprayer, or prayerscripture."

I don't know about you but I am so tempted by the "quicker" ways, the new ideas.  But time and again I reach a point where I realize that I'm actually trying to make this mine own thing, rather than let it be God's.  This past year has been all about exposing to students to Scripture and seeing what happens.  I remember when we started on this course, there was one particular student who grew up in the church, had the "answers" to everything but didn't love the Bible.  She was a sophomore this year and clearly said to me in the beginning "I don't want to lead a Bible study - I'm just not excited about it."  I remember praying "Jesus, I want to see her love your word!"  Just last week we were sitting and debriefing the year together and one of the things she noted is that the Bible has come alive to her in ways that it never had before.  WOOT!  I managed to maintain my composure but inside I was bursting with joy because God had answered my prayers!  She's even leading a Bible study next year.  

Scriptureprayer.  God has already given us what we need.  Let's learn how to hold it out to people and let them be transformed by the Holy Spirit.  I won't be with these students forever.  My hope is that they leave this place with a love for God's Word and for prayer.  Those are things they can take with them for the rest of their lives - and it will have a much more profound impact than if they were to take me everywhere with them!