more thoughts from A.W. Tozer
So I’m reading some of A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God this week and it is rockin’ my world. Today the chapter was on “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing” and it used the story of Abraham and Isaac as an illustration which was really powerful. Very challenging and thought-provoking …. and hopefully life-change provoking. He writes about the danger of things … and of our human inclination towards possessing them. It really refocused my perspective – especially appropriate during this time of year. Here are some of Tozer’s quotes from the chapter that spoke to me:
“There is within the human heart a tough, fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess.”
“Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended.”
- regarding Abraham’s relationship with his son, Isaac
“As he watched him grow from babyhodd to young manhood, the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love.”
- after Abraham’s obedience and God sparing Isaac
“Now he [Abraham] was a man wholly surrendered, a man utterly obedient, a man who possessed nothing … I have said that Abraham possessed nothing. Yet was not this poor man rich? Everything he had owned before was his still to enjoy: sheep, camels, herds, and good of every sort. He had also his wife and his friends, and best of all he had his son Isaac safe by his side. He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation. The books on systematic theology overlook this, but the wise will understand.”
“There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in the life. Because it is natural, it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is. But its outworkings are tragic.”
