“No matter how hard you strive...you will never arrive!”

I have begun, once again, to read that most amazing book, The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer. If you have a heart that hungers and thirsts for God, it is a ‘must read’. I find that each time I read it, I underline more of it than I had previously underlined. Before I know it, I will have underlined it completely. Then, I suppose, I will have to get another copy and start all over again.

As I read this morning, I found my heart beating faster and faster as I was stirred to go deeper with God than ever. I want to go deep with God. I want to know Him more each day than the day before. I am easily discouraged by the times I fail to do this.

I am continually amazed at how much of God there is to discover. I will always remember, what I once heard a pastor say about the striving to discover God. He said, “No matter how hard you strive...you will never arrive.” I remember thinking that this was a depressing thought, much like going on a trip where you know you will never arrive at your final destination. As I pondered on his statement, I soon discovered its truth, realizing that the reason you never arrive is because there is so much of God to discover.

In the opening pages of The Pursuit of God, there is an introduction entitled Tozer’s Legacy. In it the writer writes, “Perhaps the continued usefulness of this book can be attributed to the writer’s (Tozer’s) great spiritual discovery that to seek God does not narrow one’s life, but brings it, rather, to the level of highest possible fulfillment.” Oh what a wonderful truth this is!

I pray that the Lord will never grow tired of my fumbling through attempts to discover the depths of who He is. I thank Him for His love and patience with me through that process. He is so good!

In the coming weeks, I will be sharing different things that the Lord stirs deep within my heart as I read through the pages of The Pursuit of God once again. My hope and prayer is that you might be encouraged by it and drawn into the exciting journey of discovering that there is more of God to be discovered, than we will ever fully discover.

The prophetic word of God...

Truly one of the most amazing things to me about the word of God is that it is absolute truth. This especially hit me as I was reading through the first three chapters of the gospel of Luke. The things that happened in the those chapters are so profound. Angels speaking and then man speaking, writing down things that could not have known, apart from the directing of the Holy Spirit. Things as it says in Peter, To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us. 1 Peter 1:12. It is so profound to me...that when we read the Word of God, that we are reading things that were revealed to people who didn’t even fully understand what they were writing and that they were written for our advantage. Wow! I love thinking about it.

“It was unbelievable...at least the part I remember!”

Some dear friends of mine, a married couple, recently fulfilled one of their dreams by going ‘skydiving’. I was a little nervous for them, though not excessively, figuring people do it all the time, and live to tell the story. However, I will admit that I was relieved once I knew that they were safe and sound and back on the ground.

I spoke with the husband first, who proceeded to tell me what an amazing experience it was. He described how the ‘skydiving company’ was running so far behind schedule that they ended up having to jump in the dark of the night. I must say, that it did sound awesome as He was describing the peacefulness of it all, once the parachute opened...the full moon, the flash of the lightning bolts that they could see off in the distance, and the thin red line of the horizon as the last hint of sunlight was fading away. Then I talked to his wife!

She explained that the instructor, whom she was harnessed to, had to wrap his arms and legs around her arms and legs to keep them from flailing about and hitting him in the face. She then began to describe how she didn’t remember the first several seconds of the jump. She said that they explained to her that the body reacts to the ‘shock’ of jumping out of the plane in much the same way as it does to being in a ‘car accident’...in that you don’t remember what happened.

After she enthusiastically explained the thrill of her skydiving experience...the part she could remember...I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. Two people, harnessed together, plunging to earth at a very high rate of speed, with one of them being in a semi-conscious state, needing to have their arms and legs held...so as not to knock the instructor unconscious. Now, call me crazy, but I am thinking that if God designed your body in such as way that you do not remember the initial shock of such things as car accidents or jumping out of planes, you probably shouldn’t be doing it!

I so want to be like Jesus!

"I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness." David, Psalm 17:15. I think that this is one of the most beautiful sentences in Scripture. What a picture of a heart for God. I want to have this kind of heart. I don't want to be satisfied with anything less than being like Jesus. I know that this won't fully happen until I pass from this life and awake in His presence. The apostle John said, "Beloved, we are now children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him as He is." 1 John 3:2. However, I also know, in the depth of my being, that as I seek to know Jesus...I will find Him, and as I draw near to Him...He will draw near to me and in so doing, I will become more like Him. The apostle Paul said, "...when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away...we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." 1 Corinthians 3:16, 18. And so, I will seek, I will draw near and each day...I will awake looking more like Jesus than the day before.

What is a 'defining moment'?

By simple definition, a defining moment would be ‘moments in our lives that define who we are’. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about such moments in my own life. Partly because, as I am getting older I am facing the realization that I have fewer of those ‘moments’ than I once had. Greg Laurie, in his book Lost Boy, said, “Someone has calibrated the years of one’s life to the hours of the day. If you are 15, the time is 10:25 A.M. If you are 20, it’s 11:34; 30, it’s 1:51 P.M. If you are 40 years old, your time is 4:08; at 50, it’s 6:25; and so on.” What was so funny (maybe not so funny after all) is that Greg and I are the same age (55) and he went on to say, “So for me, the time is about 7:30 P.M-which is sad, because I’ve been going to bed by about 9:30 these days.” This has been precise time that I start yawning and thinking it might be time to turn in...to bed that is.

Another reason I have been thinking about such ‘defining moments’ is as a result of an introductory study I recently did in teaching through 1 Peter. I entitled the study, “Defining Moments of a Fisherman”, in which I took a look at 7 defining moments in Peter’s life. Moments that transformed him from the fisherman he was...to the man whom God wanted him to be. Each of those moments contained a wide variety of emotions to include excitement, confusion, shame and forgiveness. And, each of those moments...built one upon the other to ultimately mold Peter into the man we read about, the man whom most everyone knows something about.

And so it is with each of us! We come out of the womb, being defined by our surroundings, our family and any number of things. Initially we have little or no control over what defines us. Our parents make us go to school, make us eat our peas and so forth. However, eventually we complete control such moments, and that is when the challenge of life really begins!

Over the relatively short 55 years that I have been alive, I have lived through numerous moments that have defined, not only my life, but our nation and our world. I have watched many transitions...black and white televisions to flat screen color; computers the size of a large room...to handhelds; landline phones heavy enough to give you a hernia...to cell phones the size of a credit card; the first man to orbit the earth...to regular trips to the moon and back...and I could go on, but I won’t put you through such nostalgia.

So what does all this have to do with my blog? Simply this, in all of the years that I have observed people’s lives and the various events that define them, including my own, I have come to the place of having what feels like an insatiable need to write about them. Thanks to modern technology, I see “DEFINING MOMENTS” as an opportunity to do just that.

And so I will write, and if people read...cool...but if not, I will at least have enjoyed the process of putting my thoughts about the defining moments in my life and the world around us into words.