Step By Step

Thanks to the generous gift of Seattle Pacific University I am now reading, along with many others in the SPU community, the latest book by Eugene Peterson entitled, THE PASTOR: A MEMOIR. I have read through about one-third and already know I will be sad when it is done!

“Pastor Pete” sets out to show us, the reader, how he came to be a child of God and a pastor of people. I am realizing, quickly, this book is not just for pastors. It is for anyone who seeks to follow Christ into a world full of opportunities and challenges to be transformed and be His servant in the life-change of others.

Over the next several blogs I will be reflecting on his writings as they relate to my life. Peterson quotes one line of a poem by Denise Leverov where she uses the phrase, “every step an arrival.” He says, “I recognized in her phrase a metaphor for my own formation as a pastor: every step along the way – becoming the pastor I didn’t know I was becoming, and the person I now am, an essential component that was silently and slowly being integrated into a coherent life and vocation – an arrival.”

I have had many steps and many arrivals. I pray my reflections will cause you to look at your own steps and arrivals to where you are today and see the possibilities for where God will take you.