The Pursuit of God

A.W. Tozer wrote The Pursuit of God on a train journey to Texas in 1948. He had no outline. He wrote the preface on his knees in the train's observation car. The book was finished before he arrived. It is 128 pages and has been in print continuously for over 75 years.

The argument begins with a distinction Tozer considered foundational: the difference between possessing truth and being pursued by God. Orthodoxy, correct belief, is necessary but not sufficient. A person can hold entirely correct theological positions and still, in the most important sense, not know God. Tozer thought this was the normal condition of a large part of the church.

He writes about the "veil" that separates the believer from the reality of God's presence, a veil he identifies not as unbelief but as the self, the ego, the habits of self-reference, the elaborate internal commentary that keeps a person's attention turned inward rather than upward. Tearing through this veil, he argues, is the work of the Christian life.

Several chapters have become quoted widely enough to function almost independently: the chapter on the blessedness of possessing nothing, which argues that the only safe disposition toward any good thing is to hold it with an open hand; the chapter on the speaking voice of God, which argues that God is still speaking and that the problem is not reception but attention.

Tozer was pastor of a church in Chicago for most of his ministry. He had no academic degree. He taught himself by reading voraciously and spending long hours in prayer. The Pursuit of God is the most complete record of what he found in those hours. It reads like a book written by someone who had been there and wanted to show others the way in.