The Sacred Pursuit: Learning to Long for God Again

 

 Inspired by The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer

In this season of my life, I feel a deep longing to pursue God in a way that touches every part of my body, soul, and heart. It's more than prayer or routine. It's a hunger. A real one. The kind that doesn't go away when I stay busy or scroll past it.

I want to experience Him fully. To let my gaze linger on the One who saves, not just know about Him, not just sing about Him on Sundays, but actually know Him. In the quiet. In the mess. In the hidden places of my life that no one else sees.

That longing is what led me back to A. W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God. And it hasn't let me go since.

Maybe you're here because you feel it too, that quiet ache beneath the surface of your days. The one that shows up when everything else goes quiet, and you're left alone with your thoughts. The one that no achievement, no relationship, no distraction has ever quite reached.

That ache isn't something to fix. I think it's an invitation.

"Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God." — A. W. Tozer · The Pursuit of God

I've been giving God glances, not a gaze.

When I read that line, I sat with it for a long time. A gaze. Not a glance.

I know what a glance looks like in my life. A quick prayer before the day swallows me. A scattered thought before bed. A song in the car that I sing without really meaning the words. Enough to feel like I checked in, but not enough to actually be changed by the encounter.

A gaze is different. A gaze lingers. It returns. It chooses to fix its attention even when everything else is competing for it. And if I'm honest, that's not what I've been offering.

I've been believing in God without beholding Him. And there's a difference.

"Faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God." — A. W. Tozer · The Pursuit of God

That's the kind of faith I want. Not a box checked years ago. Not a habit I maintain out of obligation. A heart that keeps turning back daily, deliberately even on the days when the gaze feels more like a squint through fog.

Love doesn't stop at finding.

This is the tension I keep coming back to.

I've already found God. Through grace, through Jesus, through salvation, I know I am His, and He is mine. That part is settled in me.

And yet… there's still this pull in my heart to keep seeking Him. Not because I have to earn anything. Not because He's distant or hiding from me. But because something in me knows that's what love does.

Love doesn't stop once it's found. It keeps moving closer. It leans in. It listens. It makes space, even when life feels full and time feels tight.

I see it in the relationships that matter most to me. I don't stop wanting to know the people I love. I keep showing up. I keep asking. I keep choosing them.

And I'm realizing  I want that same kind of pursuit in my relationship with God. But so much deeper.

"To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love."— A. W. Tozer  ·  The Pursuit of God

The drift I didn't see coming

I want to be honest about something. My distance from God has never looked like rebellion. It's never been a dramatic turning away. It's always been quieter than that.

It creeps in slowly. Life fills up. My mind fills up. And before I realize what's happened, my awareness of God has gone from a living, present reality to something more like background music, technically on, but not really listened to.

I never rejected Him. I just stopped paying attention.

And the fire cooled. Not because God moved. But because I did.

If you've felt that too, that slow fade, that quiet distance, I want you to know it doesn't have to be the end of the story. A heart that has grown cold can grow hungry again. Distance from God is never the final word.

Desire can be rebuilt.

The hardest thing Tozer said to me was this: the problem was never God's nearness. It was my desire.

I had trained myself, without even realizing it, to reach for what was quick, loud, and instantly satisfying. Social media. Noise. Distraction. And somewhere in all of that, I lost my appetite for what is slow and deep and eternal.

But I'm learning that desire can come back. It starts smaller than you'd think, turning off the noise, opening the Word on a morning when I really don't feel like it, sitting in silence even when my mind won't stop running.

Hunger for God doesn't always show up before you start seeking. More often, it wakes up in the middle of it. So I stopped waiting until I felt ready. I just began. And slowly, something started to stir.

God has met me in the car. In the kitchen. In the middle of weeks when I had nothing polished to bring Him. He was never waiting for me to have it together. He was already there, woven into the ordinary, waiting to be noticed.

Surrender: an ongoing exchange

My heart feels like it's in a constant state of surrender. Not a one-time moment, but an ongoing exchange.

As my thoughts sometimes whisper, sometimes are loud and restless, I find myself bringing them before Him. I vent. I wrestle. I lay them out honestly. And then, little by little, I release them, leaving them in His hands.

It's a daily turning. A constant re-centering of my mind, my heart, and my soul. Choosing again to align with His will to think, to live, and to move according to Him, not my emotions, not my circumstances.

And in that surrender, I'm learning this: everything becomes about Him. Every thought redirected. Every step offered. All of it so that my life, in the seen and unseen, would give Him glory.

"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more."— A. W. Tozer  ·  The Pursuit of God

He never stopped pursuing me.

The most humbling part of all of this? I didn't start the pursuit. He did.

Long before I felt the ache. Long before I turned back. God was already moving toward me.

I think of moments I had drifted without even realizing it, busy, distracted, going through the motions. And then, in the middle of an ordinary day, something would pull at my heart. A quiet conviction. A sudden stillness. A moment where everything else faded, and I simply knew He was near.

Not condemning. Not distant. Just present. Calling me back.

There have been times I've sat in that awareness with no perfect words and no polished prayer, just the quiet weight of knowing He never left, even when my attention did.

He comes with perfect love, bringing hope where there is despair, freedom where there is bondage, peace where there is unrest. Patient. Persistent. Personal. He keeps coming.

Everything I have reached toward Him with is only ever a response to how far He already reached toward me.

I think, more than anything, I want this to stay with you:

That pursuing God isn't about striving harder or getting it all right. It's about turning your heart back to Him again and again.

It's about choosing to linger rather than rush. To stay instead of drifting. To bring your real thoughts, your real struggles, your real life before Him.

Not perfectly. Just honestly.

Because faith isn't a moment, it's a movement. A daily return. A constant surrender.

And if you walk away with anything, I hope it's this:

Not when life settles. Not when you feel worthy. Not when you've finally got it together.

Now. Here. As you are.

Your longing is not a burden, it's a compass. And it's pointing somewhere.

So let your heart move toward Him. Not perfectly. Not with all the right words. Just honestly. Just willingly.

Because He has never once turned away a heart that was simply trying to find its way back.

He is already waiting. He has always been waiting.

Go to Him.

The Pursuit of God

by A. W. Tozer

If something in this stirred you that quiet hunger, that pull toward something deeper, this is the book it came from. Tozer doesn't write like a theologian behind a desk. He writes like someone who has actually sat in the presence of God and can't stop talking about what he found there.

It's short. It's honest. And it will take you further than this blog ever could.

Get the Book →