Missions Conference, a second day of prayer and all the little moments that come and go in between, plus my daily devotions.
But something that I've been finding more and more each day as I come before Him is how to seek. How to pursue while still being content with what I know.
Some really good insights came from one of my textbooks that I cracked open during day of prayer - The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer.
Often when I think of pursuing God, what comes to mind is not a finding, but rather a grasping that always brushes against a glimmer and then grabs hold of nothing.
When opening up this book, however, written in rich language and resonating a traditional feel, it called me to something that I had longed for before, but could never put into words.
"to seek God does not narrow one's life, but bring it, rather, to the level of highest possible fulfillment" (pg. 6)
Have I been the only one during that one moment of wondering to ponder the question of whether it's all worth it? Whether denying self and seeking after God will all that I am instead of only part of me will really pay off in the end?
Then I look at all the goodness He's brought to my life and all the guilt and shame I feel when I purposely sin and I know the answer is yes. Indubitably yes.
We long for fulfillment. *I* long for fulfillment. And He promises it, to fully fulfill us in ways that we didn't even know we were lacking.
"To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too easily satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart." (pg. 15)
To have found God and still to pursue Him. What a paradox!
"and when they {holy men and women of the past} found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking." (pg. 15)
Too often I find myself fixating on the goal of finding Him without enjoying the journey. He needs to become the ends and the means, instead of just one or the other. I need to learn to revel in the pursuit,in the learning, in the renewing, and in the finding.
"We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him, we need no more seek Him." (pg. 16)
It's scary and yet wonderful to take my eyes off the life-long search of perfection in myself and instead to fixate my eyes on Him whom I will always be discovering more of (which will, incidentally, lead to me being made more and more like Christ).
"They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God." (pg. 17)
How often I have longed the same thing and have just not been able to express it. I want to know, inside and out, in that moment between being still myself and brushing against something so much bigger, who God is. To revel in His majesty, to rapture in His love, to be known and to know.
"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." (pg. 17)
And although I have no words to sum up what I have been learning recently, and although my "connected feelings" towards God change from day to day (and just as often I remind myself that it's not about feelings and then wonder about the balance of the two, etc.), I think that this desire to seek Him out more fully, to always be in pursuit and yet to revel in what I do know of Him and to realize that He wants to be wanted, is what I have been learning recently.
He is so sweet. And He longs to show me just how sweet He can be.
Sweeter than the world, sweeter than sin, sweeter than my own inclinations, sweet enough to be more than bread to me.
I long to constantly pursue, knowing I will find Him sweeter still.
* * * * *
O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both
satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am
painfully aware of my need of further grace.
I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God,
I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing;
I thirst to be made more thirsty still.
Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may
know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work
of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my
love, my fair one, and come away." then give me
grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty
lowland where I have wandered for so long.
In Jesus' Name.
Amen.
{A.W. Tozer - The Pursuit of God}
No comments:
Post a Comment