A pilgrim starts to wonder whether or not he’s losing his
mind. But occasionally, he’ll encounter
people like Art Katz, Leonard Ravenhill, A.W. Tozer, and other less-known
pilgrims who speak life into a weary soul.
Crazy indeed!
Here is the portion of text I was referring to:
In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice
to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument,
and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, ‘O God, show
me thy glory.’ They want to taste, to
touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.
I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after
God. The lack of it has brought us to
our present low estate. The stiff and
wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy
desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of
all spiritual growth. Acute desire must
be present or there will be no
manifestation of Christ to His people.
He waits to be wanted. Too bad
that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.
Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious
complexity. The simplicity which is Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods,
organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and
attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the
hollowness of our worship, and the servile imitation of the world which marks
our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only
imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.
If we would find God amid all the religious externals we
must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity.
Now as always God discovers
Himself to ‘babes’ and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the
prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they
will be found to be blessedly few).
We must put away all effort to
impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly
respond.
When religion has said its last word, there is little that
we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from
finding God in full revelation. In the ‘and’ lies our great woe. If we omit the ‘and’, we shall soon find God,
and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly
longing.
A.W. Tozer (emphasis mine)
Once you’ve tasted, touched, sensed, seen the Glory of God,
you are ruined for anything less. There
is no and. There is only God. Will we resist when we are presented with an and? Will we resist the urge to put our hands all
over God’s perfect work? Will we resist
the perpetual mending of the veil which has blinded us from divine
reality? Awaken, prophets of the Lord…
Amen
