“The desire for beauty and the good is infinitely frustrating, for mostly we are aware of what we are not. When we do things well, there is satisfaction in it. When we are well, we are unconscious of it and so get no satisfaction, at least not in the sense of ego gratification, which is the kind of satisfaction most of us have such a huge appetite for. And since mostly we are not well (holy), we mostly live with a deep sense of inadequacy. The only reason we continue to aspire to holiness is that the alternative is so insipid…
“Putting the mirror up to us and showing us our failure would be a severe and unbearable burden if it were not for this other dimension in the story — that God works his purposes through who we actually are, our rash disobedience and our heartless obedience, and generously uses our lives as he finds us to do his work.”
Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant
