Wanting God’s Gifts Instead of God

Today’s 201 post is from Pete Wilson’s blog, Without Wax…

I used the following  A.W. Tozer quote from The Pursuit of God in Plan B but hadn’t read it in quite some time until last week. It’s been messing with me ever since.

There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always possess. It covets “things” with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns “my” and “mine” look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant…

They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one root lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God’s gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature  is upset by the monstrous substitution.

I’m saddened by how often I fall for the monstrous substitution allowing God’s gifts to take the place of God.

The pitiful reality is…

My worship.

My prayer.

My crying out.

It’s often not about God at all. It’s about what I want Him to give me.

I don’t want more of God. I want more of what I think He can give me.