The Pursuit of God

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The Pursuit of God

being widely read and utilized across cultural lines. They have often been translated into many languages and gone through multiple editions. Finally, Christian spiritual classics are helpful for soul work and soul care as they aid the personal work of watering, weeding, pruning, and fertilizing the garden of one’s own soul and the pastoral work of nurturing growth in another’s friendship with God. Spiritual Classics and Soul Work Spiritual classics give us a wider and deeper vision of the Christian life. Tozer urges us to “come near to the holy men and women of the past” so that we may “feel the heat of their desire after God.” 21 They call out, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). From them we learn how to increase faithfulness and fruitfulness in our own context. We notice new ways of loving God and loving neighbors. Hidden sins are brought to light as the spiritual classic helps us identify and name things within us previously unacknowledged. Spiritual classics help us read Scripture with greater clarity. Tozer suggests “we could gain much from a little acquaintance with men and women of [Nicholas of Cusa’s] spiritual flavor and the school of Christian thought which they represent.” 22 The newest school of thought is not automatically the best one. This kind of thinking is, as C. S. Lewis puts it, chronologically snobbish. We too frequently place our (post)modern assumptions and ideas on a high pedestal at the expense of all other opinions and perceptions from across church history. This results in a reading of Scripture that is disjointed from the past two

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