This Is Beyond Me

What if the admission "This is beyond me" is where we begin to receive?

We often come before God carrying our knowledge, experience, plans and expectations. Yet a bowl already full has little room to receive.

In This Is Beyond Me: The Empty Bowl, Peter Chung explores the spiritual posture of coming before God with humility, an open heart and a willingness to listen. Drawing from Scripture, personal testimony, everyday observations and stories from Chinese history, he reflects on what it means to depend upon God when our own understanding and strength are insufficient.

Across fifteen chapters, Peter considers pride, stillness, spiritual discipline, restraint, discernment and spiritual warfare. He examines how we respond to weakness, how we hold our plans before God, and how we faithfully witness to others while trusting the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts.

Writing as a student who is still learning, Peter shares his struggles with insecurity, ambition and the desire to appear capable. The empty bowl becomes a simple expression of dependence: we come honestly before God, ready to receive what we cannot provide for ourselves.

For Christians seeking a deeper life of prayer and reflection, this book offers an invitation to become still, examine the heart and walk faithfully with God.

An empty bowl has nothing to boast of, yet everything to receive.