on "The Pursuit of God"

Aaron constantly heckles me for being a "fast reader." I suppose fast is relative. But, I guess compared to him, I'm a speed reader. He reads everything and analyzes everything. I, on the other hand, just read. For example, I started reading The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes five days ago. I've read it about thirty minutes a day on average. He can't believe I've already read over 500 pages of it.

So, what with being a "speed reader," I never thought it would take me two months to read a 121-page book.

I've been reading A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God for almost two months now. It is 121 pages long. It is ten chapters. And it is so. thought-consuming.

If that's even the right word for it.

I just mean that I have to think really hard about what I'm reading. Mr. Tozer uses a lot of big words and has so many deep insights. He's been blowing my mind.

I'm really considering starting it all over again, because even underlining and journaling through it, I know I've missed a lot. I only have four pages left that I intend to finish tomorrow morning.

I've loved the whole thing. 

One passage that has really stood out to me though, is this one:

"The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast-flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relationship with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions, and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar."

Now, this book was originally published in the 1940s. And if way back then people were consumed with "push buttons and automatic machines," how much more are we consumed with them in 2013!

Talk about "fast-flowing action"...I can pull out my phone anywhere in this country and be instantly connected to the world.

I have news, photos, information, texts, e-mails and all sorts of social media streaming to my phone constantly.

Waiting? What does that even mean? Let me open this app to order a pizza. Let me open this app to see what this word is in Spanish. Let me open this app to see what is happening with my friend in California. What's the weather in Paris? Oh, here, let's see. 

Mr. Tozer is right. I often have expected my relationship with God to update like my Twitter feed.

Our culture is so used to instant gratification. We don't have to work hard for most things.

I like how the chapter ends. In encouragement, of course:

"Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there."

No matter how many times I fail, his mercy remains. And it's new every morning. 

You have said, "Seek my face." My heart says to you, "Your face, Lord, do I seek."

Psalm 27:8