The Pursuit of God

Introduction

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casual seeker. It also requires a corresponding detachment for all other less worthy and distracting affections. Tozer reinforces this point by using the difficult, bracing, yet thoroughly biblical imagery of dying to self-love and self interest. The price may be high, but the prize is worth it. One thing, he believed, is certain: such a pursuit requires a hard shift in the orientation of every soul. It involves refocusing away from oneself and toward God in self forgetful adoration. Here Tozer takes up his pen to attempt the impossible—to lay out the attributes of God that ought to evoke “a burning adoration” and delight in him. But his effort here is far too brief, and I suspect Tozer knew it. Later on in life, he would describe the God he had come to adore in considerably more detail. In The Knowledge of the Holy (1961), he was able to evoke a compelling vision of God with much greater success. Still, Tozer realized that we dare not settle for God being a mere logical inference from evidence. That kind of religion is seriously deficient, and can never sustain us for very long. One of the great deceptions of Tozer’s time, and ours, is the notion that God is far off and detached from our reality—basically hidden and virtually inaccessible. Tozer counters such a distorted view of reality by reminding us that God is always and everywhere fully present, and closer to us than our own breath. Moreover, he is not a god who prefers his own privacy, but is constantly reaching out to us in loving efforts to communicate. God continues to speak in the here and now, so that it will be to our great advantage to learn the long-forgotten disciplines of becoming still, of listening, and eventually hearing his voice with unmistakable clarity.