Blessed Riddance

I was reading a book by a man named A. W. Tozer tonight and it truly stirred something deep with in me. Below I paraphrased some of it. I hope that you read it not just on an intellectual level, but let it sink deep down into your soul. Let it move you and penetrate your heart.

"I had rather exercise faith than know the definition thereof." - Thomas a Kempis

Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all.

While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves- blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures, will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done with in him. It will be God working in him to will and to do.

For the merit lies not in the one who has the faith, but the merit is in the One toward Whom it is directed. Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls in line.

For when the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes God looking in, heaven has begun right here on earth. For those are the eyes of the one who has cleansed us with his own precious blood, and made us inwardly pure, so that with unveiled eyes we may gaze upon him all the days of our earthly life.

God is truly nearer than our own soul and closer than our most secret thoughts. Thus the question therein lies, when you feel the inward longing in your soul; when you feel the itching in your heart for something bigger, better, sweeter; when everything inside is crying out for something more, will you do something about it?

Faith creates nothing, it is not to be confused with imagination, faith simply reckons upon that which was already there.

"You have made us, O Lord, for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." – Augustine

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. - C. S. Lewis

**I paraphrased and eddited this exert from Tozer's " The Pursuit of God." Its an incredible and inspiring book, I truly recomend it.