How God Changes Us
Aside from death and taxes there are very few things in this life that come to us automatically, not the least of which is a meaningful and intimate relationship with God.
This is an important reminder to us whenever we make the effort to refocus on spiritual formation as it can be easy to conclude that if we simply read a few books on personal spirituality and increase our bible reading and prayer time that we will, automatically, find a deeper connection with God.
Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.
As A.W. Tozer writes in The Pursuit of God…
“The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and the abnegation of all things.”
Later, in this same book, he expands this thought, focusing on the immense barrier that exists between us and true and meaningful intimacy with God. He calls it an ancient curse, by which he is referring to the spiritual pride and arrogance that constantly suggests to us that we know better than God.
“The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart.”
Tozer’s prescription for spiritual intimacy with God is hardly one that most of us would choose to undertake willingly. Nor should or could we. One cannot simply choose to undergo a painful trial, this is God’s work to do and the truth is that He will use whatever means He deems most appropriate to jolt us out of our spiritual malaise and more often than not this jolt is, indeed, going to be jarring.
Jarring experiences are often the most effective means to wake us up to our spiritual malaise. As C.S. Lewis says in The Problem of Pain…
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
In my own life I can think back to a few jarring and painful experiences that the Lord used to deepen my faith. One was the divorce of my parents. Another was a devastating knee injury. Still another was the end of a long-term relationship. My list could go on but what all these jolting experiences had in common was that they made my soul desperate enough to listen for God.
Let me invite you to think back with me to the most recently jarring experience you’ve had in your own life. What did you hear from God in the midst of it? If you recall nothing, have you wondered why? If you heard something, what has happened in your life in response? Did you change?
Tozer leaves us with a painfully insightful question about these jarring moments…
“So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.”
Are you ready for God to change you?
