Crazy!

I’m so thankful for my friend Rob who shared the book “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer with me.  As I was reading the text below, I just kept saying OUT LOUD, “This is crazy!  This is crazy!” – Crazy because of how DEAD ON it is.  Crazy because of the journey God has had me on for the last 4 ½ yrs or so.  Crazy because over the years, there have been times when I’ve tried to explain this thing... tried to write it out and make it clear… tried to share it with those closest to me… with sometimes little to no success.

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