NOTE >>> This could be subtitled, pausing while reading scripture when the Spirit gives you pause ... a helpful resource that will help you lead fresh prayer times.
An invitation to seek the sacred space of Scripture's words and phrases
Well-known biblical phrases — "in the fullness of time," "fearfully and wonderfully made," "in the beauty of holiness," and others — suggest and evoke and invite. In this book Marilyn Chandler McEntyre offers brief reflections on more than fifty such scriptural phrases that prompt readers to pay attention, to pause where we sense a beckoning.
Some of these select phrases are devotional, some speculative, some whimsical, some edgy. McEntyre encourages us to see such "words within the Word" as invitations and, in doing so, to discover that they are places of divine encounter, epiphany, or unexpected guidance.
The three sections of the book "Assurance," "Invitation," and "Surprise" — organize the reflections by tone as well as theme. Rich with eloquence, wisdom, and wonder, these reflections will lead readers to enter the sacred spaces of Scripture, play with possibilities, and connect the biblical word with the ordinary — and extraordinary — lives we've been given to live.
—author of Idiot Psalms
"With her profound summonings, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre recovers for many contemporary readers an ancient practice that is reminiscent of rabbinic attention to the dark sayings of Scripture, those compelling, curious, often challenging passages that would nudge us into seeing more, would have us glimpse the inexhaustibility of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, even the inexhaustibility of His Word."
—author of Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists
"McEntyre has again written with conspicuous grace and truth. She sees deeply into the Christian life. She writes simply and nobly, but with an enormous weight of discernment and suggestion. Some passages here are as powerful and lovely as any I've encountered in years."
—coauthor of Prayer: A History
"Seamlessly blending exegesis, philology, lectio divina, and prayer, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre teaches us how to listen for the divine word in all times and circumstances."
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