Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer (1897-1963) traveled by train in the early 1940s on a speaking engagement in Texas from his Chicago home. Once he commenced writing, he couldn’t put it down. He wrote furiously all night long. By the time the train pulled into the McAllen, Texas station, the first draft of The Pursuit of God was complete. A.W. was disheartened by what he perceived to be a lack of desire for God in American churches. “Complacency is the deadly foe of all spiritual growth,” he wrote. His book challenged “the spurious logic which insisted that if we have found him, we need no more seek him.” He coined the phrase “following hard after God” to express this desire. David described his desire in the Psalms as being hungry and thirsty for God (Psalm 42, 63). A. W. wrote in plain style that we pursue God because God has first placed this desire in us. He described it as “a glorious pursuit,” the happy discovery of those who find their delight in God. When the book was released in 1948, it quickly became a devotional classic. The magazine Christianity Today rated it one of the one hundred most influential books of the twentieth century. Not too shabby for someone with only a sixth-grade education. A. W. lacked any formal high school, college, or seminary education, yet he pastored three churches over forty-four years and wrote fifty books. He closed the first chapter, appropriately titled “Following Hard After God” with the prayer:
A.W. Tozer
O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God.
Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.