The Pursuit of God

Resources for Application

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eventually lie facedown on the floor, singing praises to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. . . . And more than one of [his coworkers] mentioned that Tozer was weeping or moaning facedown in the old carpet. 1 One thinks of [Tozer’s] practice of worshiping prostrate on the sandy south Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan in the early dawn, even being kicked by a policeman who assumed he had lain there drunk all night. 2 As you read these descriptions of Tozer putting on his “prayer pants” or facedown in worship at dawn and being mistaken for a drunk, what feelings arise in your heart? Do you desire to experience “the manifestation of the Presence” of God like Tozer did? Do you long to dwell deeper in God’s love? The Pursuit of God offers resources to expand our vision and intention to know God the way that Tozer did. Contemplative prayer provides a means toward that expanded vision. There is much confusion about contemplative prayer today, and before discussing the “means” of Christian contemplation, a brief orientation may be helpful. First, Christian contemplation always “begins with the word of Scripture, and whatever rung we are on, we are never beyond this hearing of the word.” 3 Just as believers can never leave Jesus’s humanity behind in theological 1 Lyle Dorsett, A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer (Chicago: Moody, 2008), 121–22. 2 Glen G. Scorgie, “A Distinctively Christian Contemplation: A Comparison with Other Religions,” in Embracing Contemplation: Reclaiming a Christian Spiritual Practice , ed. John Coe and Kyle Strobel (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 273. 3 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986), 9.