(Photo by Daniel Reche, pexels)
To know you is to know the King!
To love you is to learn to sing
the praise song that will never end!
You’ve called me daughter, servant, friend!
I’ve longed to find you, so I ran
this strong pursuit—into your hand!
Holy One, you draw me in,
and clean me up from wandering, sin.
You pour love into my thirsty soul
and live there, making the broken whole.
You have a priority: unity,
the bond of eternal community.
Together we walk this rugged slope
holding hands, eyes on the hope
that lies ahead: my forever home,
where I’ll join the saints around your throne.
To love you is to open a door
that shows me nothing matters more
than to be all yours, following through,
completing what you tell me to do.
When I was a young teen at Ivory Coast Academy, our mission’s boarding school, I was going through a phase of intense spiritual hunger. It had been encouraged by my dorm parents, Don and Glenna Bigelow, during my eighth-grade year through rich Bible devotions each evening. I became convinced that I was spending too much of my time reading every novel I could get hold of (bookworm that I was), so tried something new: I checked out Christian books about spiritual growth.
The one that truly fueled my journey was The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer. I’ve read it at least two other times in my life as well. What intrigued me was Tozer’s clear teaching that we have an important part to play in maturing spiritually: we must actually chase after knowing God! He wrote: “The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him.”[1]
If we need examples of what it means to literally run after knowing God, they are easy to find in the psalms. The longing to experience his presence may become especially strong when we go through hard times, waiting for a way out of grief or suffering:
A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. 8 I cling to you; your right hand upholds me. (Ps. 63:1-7 NIV)
David was desperate (“perhaps this refers to the period described in 1 Sam 23–24 or to the incident mentioned in 2 Sam 15:23.”)[2] Nevertheless he was seeking God with everything that was in him, citing him as his only hope. And even this search was turning his heart to praise as he remembered other times when he had experienced God.
I love the way Tozer explains this kind of longing and pursuit that is laced with such comfort:
“To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.”[3]
The “children of the burning heart”! Does this resonate with you? Our part in this paradox is to love our God and seek him with passion. He promises that then we will move into intensely intimate relationship:
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jer. 29:13 NIV)
Paul was an example of what this means when this burning desire is lived out:
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. . . . 10 I want to know Christ– yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. (Phil. 3:8,10-12 NIV)
Nothing is worth as much as knowing Jesus! It requires pressing forward, every moment set apart for him. We English speakers have access to the Word, and truly digesting it is an essential element—but not sufficient by itself. We must live it out, obeying what the Lord underlines for us there and in our experiences. Remember the way Jesus told his disciples, and us, what we must do to be able to live in loving relationship with him:
10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. (Jn. 15:10 NIV)
The key to remaining in this love relationship with our Lord is to do what he says, to complete what he gives us to do. Then we will remain firmly attached to him, getting to know him better and better as we experience his love and direction.
So let’s press on, responding to his invitation and promise that we will indeed find him personally when we pursue him with all that is within us! There is nothing worth more than knowing him—even when it requires suffering. Yes, we can almost run out of breath when we run with all our might, physically. But he will reach out to us and help us run straight into his loving heart, showing us increasingly who he is. He will satisfy our hunger for him with the “richest of foods” (Ps 63.5)—spiritual sustenance beyond anything earth can offer!
[1] A.W.Tozer, The Pursuit of God, (Christian Publications,1993), 11.
[2] NET study note, Ps. 63.1.
[3] Tozer, 14.
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