Waiting to be Wanted

Think of a small parentless boy sitting in an orphanage. A young teenage girl sitting alone at her high school dance. The new guy watching a group of people laughing and enjoying themselves. What do all of these people have in common? They are waiting to be wanted.

I'm currently reading The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, and I'm loving every minute of it. If you have never read this book before, I encourage you to do so. Tozer's prophetic words were written in the 1940's, but are completely aplicable still today. I will warn you about buying the $2 version off Amazon however. There are, for some reason, typos and gramatical errors in every paragraph. It may not bother most people, but for the average journalist, it's a nightmare.

I've just  read through and dissected the first chapter, and am already overwhelmed by the heavy presence of God. Tozer poetically writes truth that everyone will understand. Here are some of the points I took from the first chapter.

Religious conversation has been made mechanical and spiritless. Christ can now be "received" without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. People are "saved," but they are not hungry or thirsty for more of God. How sad is this reality? People talk to God as if he is automative voice on the telephone. People are being "saved" left and right, but they aren't being discipled. They just become another number for the "saved" records. These new believers aren't being taught how to be disciplined, or how to stir up the Holy Spirit within them to produce fruit.

Sometimes I forget that God is a person. A real person. A God with a personality. In His nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires, and suffers as any other person does. Being made in His image, we have the capacity to know Him. Whhhhaaaattttt? He is the Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, with a personality like me. And, we are able to know Him. And not only just know who He is, what He has done, and what He will do, but we are able to have a passionate, loving relationship with Him. We are able to be yoked to Christ.

Tozer quotes a poem by some guy named St. Bernard. Naturally I think of the dog. It says:

"We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread,

And long to feast upon Thee still:

We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead,

And thirst our souls from The to fill."

I want to taste, touch with my heart, and see with my eyes the wonder that is God. Tozer says, "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." There has to be even the smallest desire present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. Just like the people I mentioned at the beginning, God waits to be wanted.

Here's to glance at a day in my life,
Derick