A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene H. Peterson
Week 10: Chapter 9 — Humility (Psalm 131)
Read Chapter 9 of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Primary text: Psalm 131.
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Psalm 131 is one of the shortest psalms and one of the most difficult to live — a prayer of relinquishment, of quieted ambition, of the soul at rest like a weaned child with its mother.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Psalm 131 has only three verses, but Peterson calls it one of the most demanding in Scripture: "My heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high." Why do you think genuine humility — not self-deprecation, but the real thing — is so rare and so hard to cultivate?
2.Peterson identifies pride — the lifted heart, the raised eye — as the root of most spiritual malfunction. He isn't talking about feeling good about yourself, but about the insistence on being at the center, on controlling outcomes. Where does that kind of pride show up most subtly in your life?
3.The image of the weaned child is striking and unusual. A nursing child cries and strains toward the breast; a weaned child simply rests with its mother — content, not demanding. Peterson uses this to describe a maturity of faith where we no longer demand that God meet our agenda. What would it look like for your prayer life to move from nursing to weaned?
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