I have been slow on my book reading/listening this year. Very slow.

And they’ve all been re-reads/listens.

The latest was Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson. It was refreshing to my soul. I had been in a prayer retreat over a weekend and allowed that time to be spent in Lectio Divina. I prayed the Word much of the time.

“We don’t form our personal spiritual lives out of a random assemblage of favorite texts in combination with individual circumstances; we are formed by the Holy Spirit in accordance with the text of Holy Scripture. God does not put us in charge of forming our personal spiritualities. We grow in accordance with the revealed Word implanted in us by the Spirit.”

I allow the Spirit to dig deep wells through the Word. I re-dig some of the wells that have grown over, and fresh water appears. My spirit comes alive and my mind is refreshed.

“We are part of a holy community that for three thousand years and more has been formed inside and out by these words of God, words that have been heard, tasted, chewed, seen, walked. Reading Holy Scripture is totally physical. Our bodies are the means of providing our souls access to God in his revelation: eat this book. A friend reports to me that one of the early rabbis selected a different part of our bodies to make the same point; he insisted that the primary body part for taking in the Word of God is not the ears but the feet. You learn God, he said, not through your ears but through your feet: follow the Rabbi.”

All I have is Jesus. All I want is to cling to him.

I am grateful for these holy reminders.