Quotable on Tuesday

I read this during my study for the retreat I did over Thanksgiving weekend.  It's been with me a while and I figured it's a good time to roll it out.  O, for more God-knowers with pens like this...

A.W. Tozer on the Holiness of God

...A new channel must be cut through the desert of our minds to allow the sweet waters of truth that will heal our great sickness to flow in.  We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of.  God's holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered.  We know nothing like the divine holiness.  It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible, and unattainable.  The natural man is blind to it.  He may fear God's power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine.


I'm with Tozer here.  Nothing in our concept of God would dream up holiness.  And yet our hearts long for something "other."  Therein is the deep calling to deep.  We were made for admiring the beauty of holiness and worshipping the Holy One, yet sin twists our minds so that we would never create it on our own.  But it's there, built into our imago Dei and reflected in the yearnings and desires of our hearts that we may only sense when it's very still and the only thing moving at 3am is the ceiling fan.

But that's just me (and Tozer) thinking thoughts...