Category: Renewal

Children of the Burning Heart

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“To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionists, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart…

“Come near to the holy men and the holy women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God…

“David’s life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and His Psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder…

“We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him, we need no more seek Him…In the midst of this great chill, there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will NOT be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, “O God, show me Thy glory!” They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.”

A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, pp. 15-17

Either Way…I Still Praise Him.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
(David, Psalm 139:5)

We are distressed/hard-pressed/troubled/squeezed on every side…
(Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:8)

Nobody puts ‘Baby’ in a corner.
(Johnny Castle, Dirty Dancing)

I’m feeling ‘hemmed in’ these days. Diminished. Limited. Grounded, like a teenager: no keys, no car, no friends. Just school, then home.

On top of that, I feel cornered. Outnumbered.

It’s redolent of a scene in Thor where the Viking hero and his compatriots infiltrate the Frost Giant’s lair and are met by a relentless enemy in wave after wave, each giant becoming more formidable than the last and more numerous than before.

Yeah, that captures it nicely.

On every front a vexing battle is being waged and it seems like I am losing ground.

Ministry.

Family.

Finances.

Friends.

Health.

Some fronts are more like skirmishes while others border on “Shock and Awe.” These days I look like the Arizona border, Iraq (in March, 2003) and Afghanistan all rolled into one. Continue reading Either Way…I Still Praise Him.