Excerpt from Pursuit of God (chapter 2):
“There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in the life. Because it is so natural it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is; but its outworkings are tragic. We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety; this is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed….Let us never forget that such a truth as this cannot be learned by rote as one would learn the facts of physical science. They must be experienced before we can really know them. We must in our hearts live through Abraham’s harsh and bitter experiences [in his sacrifice of Isaac] if we would know the blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart.”
Oh the paradox of Christianity! God whispers “if you want it all, you must give up all.” Um…what?!? But yes, this is the reality of God. Our life group tonight explored chapter two in A.W. Tozer’s “Pursuit of God” where he discusses the blessedness of posessing nothing. Yet at times we think about the story of the rich young ruler in the New Testament giving up all he owned and following after Christ, and while God does want control and rule over all material things we own, our life group took note that our posessions really arent the essentials of what God wants. God wants us, our personhood, our whole being…because in reality, we are not our own, but Gods. Everything we posess, dream, think, desire, have, know, do…all is from God, and all IS God’s.
We talked about times when God has completely broken us, taken away all our sense of security and comfort and shook us to realize that He is all that matters in life. For Megan it was losing her husband and also her voice back in college, another girl shared losing her ability to play for a winning soccer team, Jennifer lost her reputation as the intelligent one when entering college and not making straight A’s, several others shared life stories, and I was reminded and shared how God broke me right before college, when He called my best friend to another state for school. I lost a roommate, my best friend, my life as I knew it as a highschooler…and all was changed. God stripped me bare, and as all the other girls can testify to as well, we lost our identities. We lost the “star singer” identity, the “lead soccer player” identity, the “smart kid” identity, and in my case “Angie, Megan’s best friend” identity. Who am I? Why am I here? What purpose do I serve? Why me? Where do I go from here? All brutally painful questions that we had to ask ourselves. And we realized that we are not our own. Our identities do not lie in what we can do, how much we know, or who we are associated with…but our identity is in Christ, and Christ alone. Not only is God calling us to give up our plans and wills to Him, or to surrender our relationships to Him to do with accordingly, but he also calls us to give up those dreams for ministry that He’s given us, those talents that he wants us to use to glorify Him, those desires to increase His kingdom…He wants it ALL. Because they aren’t OUR talents or dreams for ministry, they are not our great achievements, ambitions, or desires….He has given ALL of it to us.
The act of letting God strip everything away is one that is scary and utterly and horribly painful. Ive only seen a glimpse of the pain and sadness that comes when someone of such importance is ripped from my close surroundings. I can’t imagine losing someone by death, or losing all my talent of design in a blink of an eye. But in a sense, its something that needs to be done. Not saying that we dont use those talents anymore and have no contact with anyone and just shut up your life, sell it all and become a silent monk for your entire life….but spiritually surrenduring ALL that you have, ALL that you desire, ALL that you can do, ALL that you can think…everything. Because when we realize that nothing is ours, and our life is not ours, it just starts the process of opening our eyes that God is beyond us, our time, our space…and that He has a master plan, and that we will have ALL of God when he has ALL of us.
This book is amazing, and feel free to read along at http://www.theboc.com/freestuff/awtozer/books/the_pursuit_of_god/index.html
This week we will be reading chapter 3!
