I have never seen gravity, but I believe it exists and live accordingly. I believe in gravity because I have repeatedly seen the effects that gravity has on this world. I believe in gravity because its nature has been explained to me by people I consider smarter than myself. I believe in gravity because it seems foolish not to.
According to Tozer, for many people those same reasons explain (and limit) their belief in God:
To most people, God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate, but He remains personally unknown to the individual.
By reality, Tozer means something that exists regardless of whether anyone sees, knows or cares it exists. A piece of chalk or a cup of coffee exist, not because we see and touch them, but simply because they are. That we can see and touch them only means that we are aware of them…they are a reality regardless of us.
Part of pursuing God is coming to grips that the spiritual is just a real as the physical.
We must shift our interest from the seen to the unseen. For the great unseen reality is God.
To often, we push the spiritual world out into the future. We think of it as being real to us at some point in the future, perhaps when we die and go to heaven. It is most certainly not in the future…it is very much in the present. We must believe it is here and now, and ask God to allow us to see it more clearly.
The soul has eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear. Feeble they may be from long disuse, but by the life-giving touch of Christ they are now alive and capable of sharpest sight and most sensitive hearing. As we begin to focus on God, the things of the spirit will take shape before our inner eyes. Obedience to the Word of Christ will bring an inward revelation of the Godhead. It will give acute perception enabling us to see God even as is promised to the pure in heart.
That is my prayer. That you and I would believe in God not only because of the evidence of His existence, but because we have seen Him for ourselves. It is the same prayer I have for my kids as they grow up. I don’t want their faith to exist because of what they have learned about God from Michele or me or anywhere else. I don’t want them to have my faith, because then their faith will not be their own. I want them to be able to have the same experience as the Samaritans in John chapter 4:
Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!” When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.” – John 4:39-42 (NLT)
