Blog 56 / Our High Calling
April 28, 2022
A Life in Pursuit of Knowing God
A dear friend and coworker recently passed away. I worked with him for over 40 years. During that time, I grew to greatly respect his abiding love for God. When he prayed, it was obvious he was intimately acquainted with the One to whom he was praying. It was obvious also that his chief ambition in life was to know God.
If I were ever to write his biography, I would entitle it, “A Life in Pursuit of Knowing God.”
I like the phrase “in pursuit of.” It implies we are intentional about going after something we want desperately. An example might an athlete willing to get up every day at 5 am to train in pursuit of his dream to set a new Olympic record. He would need to forsake lesser goals to gain his prize.
For followers of Christ, we should be setting our hearts on loftier pursuits. And it doesn’t get more lofty than the pursuit of knowing God. It’s a quest with an eternal prize. But we can grow in the knowledge of God only to the extent we are willing to die to self.
Our self-life is our greatest obstacle to knowing God. What it takes to know God is too hard on the flesh and self is not willing to pay the price to know God more deeply. The self-life always gravitates towards a life of ease and worldly pleasures. On the other hand, the life of Christ in us will always want to spend time with the Father and set its affections on things above.
Am I willing for self to die for the sake of knowing God? Am I willing to choose a life where I grow in my knowledge of God no matter how difficult it is on the flesh? Am I willing for a life like Paul the Apostle, who counted all things as loss for the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ?
Down through the ages, there have been those who have made it their life’s ambition to know God. It cost some their lives. I believe my friend who recently passed into Glory will be numbered among these saints. His life bore a shining witness that a long time ago, he too must have made a life choice: to invest his life in the pursuit of knowing God.
Colin Stott
GRN Global Prayer Coordinator
