Spiritual Awareness: Excerpt from AW Tozer

Excerpt from "The Pursuit of God: A 31-Day Experience" by AW Tozer:
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If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive
of a place where He is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated
fact of the world? The patriarch Jacob, “in the waste howling wilderness,” gave the answer to that
question. He saw a vision of God and cried out in wonder, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I
knew it not.” Jacob had never been for one small division of a moment outside the circle of that allpervading
Presence. But he knew it not. That was his trouble, and it is ours. Men do not know that
God is here. What a difference it would make if they knew.
The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one
without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as
we are aware of His Presence. On our part there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work
it is to show us the Father and the Son. If we co-operate with Him in loving obedience God will
manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life
and a life radiant with the light of His face.
Always, everywhere God is present, and always He seeks to discover Himself. To each one he
would reveal not only that He is, but what He is as well. He did not have to be persuaded to discover
Himself to Moses. “And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed
the name of the Lord.” He not only made a verbal proclamation of His nature but He revealed His
very Self to Moses so that the skin of Moses’ face shone with the supernatural light. It will be a great
moment for some of us when we begin to believe that God’s promise of self-revelation is literally
true: that He promised much, but promised no more than He intends to fulfill.
Our pursuit of God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us.
The revelation of God to any man is not God coming from a distance upon a time to pay a brief and
momentous visit to the man’s soul. Thus to think of it is to misunderstand it all. The approach of
God to the soul or of the soul to God is not to be thought of in spatial terms at all. There is no idea of
physical distance involved in the concept. It is not a matter of miles but of experience.
To speak of being near to or far from God is to use language in a sense always understood when
applied to our ordinary human relationships. A man may say, “I feel that my son is coming nearer to
me as he gets older,” and yet that son has lived by his father’s side since he was born and has never
been away from home more than a day or so in his entire life. What then can the father mean? Obviously
he is speaking of experience. He means that the boy is coming to know him more intimately
and with deeper understanding, that the barriers of thought and feeling between the two are disappearing,
that father and son are becoming more closely united in mind and heart.
So when we sing, “Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,” we are not thinking of the nearness
of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for
a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence. We need never shout across the spaces to an
absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.
Why do some persons “find” God in a way that others do not? Why does God manifest His
Presence to some and let multitudes of others struggle along in the half-light of imperfect Christian
experience? Of course the will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within His household.
All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. The difference lies
not with God but with us.
Pick at random a score of great saints whose lives and testimonies are widely known. Let
them be Bible characters or well known Christians of post-Biblical times. You will be struck instantly
with the fact that the saints were not alike. Sometimes the unlikenesses were so great as to be
positively glaring. How different for example was Moses from Isaiah; how different was Elijah from
David; how unlike each other were John and Paul, St. Francis and Luther, Finney and Thomas a
Kempis. The differences are as wide as human life itself: differences of race, nationality, education,
temperament, habit and personal qualities. Yet they all walked, each in his day, upon a high road of
spiritual living far above the common way.
Their differences must have been incidental and in the eyes of God of no significance. In some
vital quality they must have been alike. What was it?
I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they had in common was spiritual receptivity.
Something in them was open to heaven, something which urged them Godward. Without attempting
anything like a profound analysis I shall say simply that they had spiritual awareness and
that they went on to cultivate it until it became the biggest thing in their lives. They differed from the
average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it. They acquired
the lifelong habit of spiritual response. They were not disobedient to the heavenly vision. As David
put it neatly, “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I
seek.”
As with everything good in human life, back of this receptivity is God. The sovereignty of God
is here, and is felt even by those who have not placed particular stress upon it theologically. The
pious Michael Angelo confessed this in a sonnet:

My unassisted heart is barren clay, That of its native self can nothing feed: Of good and
pious works Thou art the seed, That quickens only where Thou sayest it may: Unless Thou show to
us Thine own true way No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.

These words will repay study as the deep and serious testimony of a great Christian.
Important as it is that we recognize God working in us, I would yet warn against a too-great
preoccupation with the thought. It is a sure road to sterile passivity. God will not hold us responsible
to understand the mysteries of election, predestination and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest
way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, “O Lord, Thou
knowest.” Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God’s omniscience. Prying
into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints.

Receptivity is not a single thing; it is a compound rather, a blending of several elements within
the soul. It is an affinity for, a bent toward, a sympathetic response to, a desire to have. From this it
may be gathered that it can be present in degrees, that we may have little or more or less, depending
upon the individual. It may be increased by exercise or destroyed by neglect. It is not a sovereign and
irresistible force which comes upon us as a seizure from above. It is a gift of God, indeed, but one
which must be recognized and cultivated as any other gift if it is to realize the purpose for which it
was given.

Dude... It's Just the Doorbell

Our baby boy is afraid of the doorbell...

...along with anything else that is loud enough to hear one room away.

Today I was walking in the front door with my two boys when we returned from the gym. Daniel, the baby, was already in. Gabe, 3 years old, was still making his way in from the car. Gabe stopped to ring the doorbell a couple times and Daniel screamed as if his big toenail was being ripped off. Did he fall and hurt himself? Does he have some kind of internal bleeding? No. He was afraid of the doorbell. The Doorbell.

I've been gripped with fear the past two weeks. We are living in a season of fear and insecurity as a nation, but this fear is much closer to home... like...in it. My wife and I are in our 10th year of marriage and it has been the most difficult to date. We are in a rocky stage in the ministry that I lead. And, as most of the rest of the nation, our family's financial foundation is cracked.

I want to fear. I feel like I should worry. But, every time I take it to God, He just returns peace. Don't get me wrong, my face has broken out (as a 35 year old man!) and my teeth hurt from grinding together at night. But, I just have this calmness deep inside.

The obstacles that feel insurmountable day-to-day are simply "doorbells" to Him. We feel defeated by the terrifying bells ringing in our ears. However, God wants to use the ringing as a tool to teach us how to trust! He wants them to be like sound bytes that remind us that He is at the door... knocking... waiting... like the delivery man bearing the package we've been anticipating for so long.

I looked at Daniel and said, "Dude, it's just the doorbell." Then the echoing of God arose from deep within and said to me, "Dude, it's just the doorbell! Chill out."

I'm going to go open the door. When I look out I will see our scattered patches of daffodils that have opened their sleepy eyes this week excited about turning the corner to find the promise of Spring. And I will remember Who clothes them and Who covers them with vivid shades of yellow. I will remember that if he cares so much for the flowers of the field, how much more must He care for me. I think I will then go step into the beautiful garment of Grace prepared especially for me and remember that I haven't purchased it, but it was freely given, even in my state of unworthiness. Then maybe I'll lay down and rest. When I awake, I will know Him more and fear things less. Yeah, that's what I'll do.

Maybe you should go answer your door.

Just a thought...

Choosing to Chase the Dream

The anticipation of the free-fall was more than I could bear.

I never was a huge fan of roller coasters. As a child I was deathly afraid. My friends would stand in line for hours, strap in for two and a half minutes, then chase each other to the end of the line wobbling back and forth like a candidate for an early morning DUI and then wait again. My first experience on a roller coaster was not of my own free will. I was tricked! It was an indoor roller coaster at Dollywood and I had no idea that near the end of the ride the bottom would drop out and we would be thrust into a death defying descent into a bottomless pit (so it seemed). You know what I did, I unstrapped myself and began a mad dash chasing my friends to the end of the line just to wait again. From that point forward, anytime I heard the “rachety-rachety-rachety” of the train climbing to the sky, my stomach tied itself in knots as it awaited the pending dive into breathlessness. I hated being out of control. But the thrill of the hill was worth the fear of not knowing.

And now I am riding another roller coaster. One without wheels and track. One that is somewhat self-imposed by my decision to live life to the fullest. When we lean into our dreams, the price is steep. Maybe more steep than the hill at Dollywood. Most dreams cost far more than dollars and cents. We are charged security, stability, and peace. We trade the tangible for the elusive and control for occasional chaos. We step into an unknown destiny and a fragile future. When we chase after a new dream, the anticipation of the climb ties our stomach in knots. At some point along the journey we realize that there is no turning back and we brace ourselves for what lies just over the top of the next hill.

I watched a short sketch at church yesterday about Martin Luther King, Jr. As he was awakened from a doze, two characters were conversing with him. One was trying to convince that a black man should not try to attend college, while the other was giving him glimpses of the future that would await him if he took the road less travelled. The latter told him stories of a man who would face jail time, the bombing of his home and an eventual bullet in his right cheek that would take his life at the age of 39. The decision was his... would he take the path leading to security and “peace” for himself or would he dive headlong into a ride laden with free-falls that would bring the peace of a nation. Can you imagine the anticipation of waking each day to threats on your life. Can you imagine a daily stare contest into the bloody eyes of hatred. Of course, Dr. King could not have known exactly what lie ahead when he made that decision to step through the doors of higher education, but I think we can safely assume that he would have said “yes” to his destiny.

What about me? What about you? We all have a seed planted deeply in our hearts. It requires nurture and resources. Whether it will thrive is determined by our daily decision to give it room to flourish.

What will it take for you to strap in? Seriously, what would it take? Let’s talk about it. I’ll be waiting for your comments.

Vices and Loneliness... a recipe for death!

My vices wrap their wretched arms around me most tightly in loneliness. And loneliness wrings the life out of my heart like a soggy towel when my vices are tamed.

This is new information for me. I have been on a pursuit to tame my vices the past 3 months. In the meantime, I am just now noticing that my heart is experiencing a larger dose of loneliness. For some time I thought those two were unrelated. Just today I realized they are soul mates.

This revelation came simply because I asked, “Why?” Why am I so lonely these days? Why is my heart drained of life? Why am I so deeply disturbed when people cannot follow through with commitment and loyalty? Why?

My heart has a gaping hole in it that I’ve filled with vices for years. These addictions range from finite to fierce. From a seemingly harmless glance at forbidden fruit to mind numbing trips into fantasy to silly hobbies that pass the time and provide an escape route from the routine of life, they’re all the same. Food is one of those vices, and when it is digested, the hunger remains, even intensifies. The other vices work the same. When they are gone, the void manifests as an empty canyon, with me standing at the bottom screaming for a way out. I stand lonely staring at the top of the hole and waiting for a savior. I cling onto false saviors.

I’ve also come to realize as of late that no pilgrim on this planet can fully know me. My wife can know most of me, apart from those locked chambers that warn of danger if they are opened. My best of friends have access to some of those pits, but can never know the intimacy of marriage partners. Furthermore, if there was a single person who could fully know “about” me, he would still not be able to experience life in the clothing of history in which I walk. I’ve never before realized that I’m alone... apart from One! One knows me fully. One knows my experience. One has been with me from before the beginning.

I want to throw myself fully into One. It’s so intimidating. It’s so dangerous. It’s so seemingly intangible.

May I fall headlong into the reckless, raging fury that we call the Love of God!

Just a thought...