book review by Carol Lee

What is a "God Chaser"? Paul put it this way, "…I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." (Phil 3:12). Tommy Tenney, author of this month’s featured book, The God Chasers, draws a vivid analogy for us to describe the essence of "chasing God":

"It’s like playing chase with my daughter…When she comes and tries to catch me, even with my hulking frame, I really don’t have o run. I just artfully dodge this way and then that, and she can’t even touch me, because a six-year-old can’t catch an adult. But that’s not really the purpose of the game because a few minutes into it, she laughingly says, "Oh daddy", and it’s at that moment that she captures my heart, if not my presence or body. And then, I turn and she’s no longer chasing me, but I’m chasing her and we tumble in the grass with hugs and kisses. The pursuer becomes the pursued…And if we catch His heart, then He turns and chases us. That’s the beauty of being a God chaser. You’re chasing the impossible, knowing it’s possible." (emphasis mine)

So then what does it mean, in practical terms, to be a "God Chaser"? How does one become a God chaser? What are the purposes and fruits of chasing and, ultimately, catching God? Mr. Tenney makes three main points:

1. A God Chaser seeks the real and manifest presence of the living God instead of merely following in His footsteps
2. God chasing brings about true revival, and
3. True revival needs to begin in our churches, but it does not happen because there is no "bread" in the house.

A God Chaser seeks the real and manifest presence of the living God instead of merely following in His footsteps

There is no question that there is infinite value in reading and knowing the Word of God as found in Scripture. However, Tenney says, many churches and religious leaders would stop there. They desire to know "what God wants" and "what Jesus would do". But a God chaser is not satisfied with knowing about God; a God chaser wants God, right here, right now. Tenney relates one experience when his church hosted the manifest presence of God Himself. Prior to one service, the presence of God was so thick that the pastors, himself included, were rendered uncontrollably tearful and speechless. When the senior pastor finally did speak at God’s prompting, the podium split into two with the sound of a thunderclap (it was built of a plexiglass known to withstand thousands of pounds of pressure). Businessmen climbed over each other to get to the pulpit; the senior pastor was rendered motionless for hours, and people in the parking lot, even non-believers who were just passing by the church, fell to the ground weeping in repentance. That service lasted for days, with people just going home for food and sleep and coming back for more. The pastors did not have to do anything. The worship team did not have to do anything. God, Himself, did everything. The point is, "God doesn’t really care about anything you can ‘do’ for Him; he only cares about your answer to one question: ‘Do you really want me’?"

God chasing brings about true revival.

Tenney’s book speaks insightfully about the root cause of the barriers preventing true revival in our churches and in our cities. He articulates and brings to life the message that true revival occurs so rarely because we lack the true Presence of God Himself in our midst. And why do we lack His presence? Because we do not hunger for it:

"If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Instead, we rely too much on our own human efforts and "anointing" to bring about revival when what we desperately need is to hungrily beg God to come to us, in His unmistakable, manifest Glory, to make Himself known to us in the life-changing way that only He can. True revival, he says, does not occur by catchy tunes and touching sermons in our churches, but occurs when the Reviver Himself is sought after hungrily and His presence, in response to our hunger, manifests itself in the streets, in bars and in shopping malls. Often churches make the mistake of seeking revival while neglecting to seek the Reviver. When the Reviver is present, He will do all the work.

True revival needs to begin in our churches - the Houses of God, but it does not happen because there is no "bread" in the house.

There is a saying amongst educators that goes, "when students fail, it is our failure, but when they succeed, the success is all theirs". Tenney has a similar conception with respect to churches and unsaved people:

"People have come to the House of Bread time and again only to find there was simply too much of man and too little of God there…It should convict and shame the Church to see So many hurting and searching people turn to psychics, astrology, and spiritists for guidance and hope in their lives!"

True revival must begin in churches as churches are the Houses of God. Tenney says that the glory of God can’t flow into our cities if it doesn’t first flow down the aisles of our churches: "…I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple…" (Ezek. 47:1 NIV). This said, I think it is also important to note that this shame is not confined to "leaders" but extends to all who, collectively, make up the body of the Church — those of us who have come to know Jesus but who have not allowed the full power of His love to saturate our lives, our very beings. I am so challenged by Tenney’s remarks that if we truly had the manifest God in our lives, we would not need to say a word to non-believers to bring them to God. Our very presence, God’s presence within us, would be enough to convict a non-believer with the knowledge that he needs to get right with God. Recently, during my internship at Yonge Street Mission, I had first-hand knowledge of this need of God’s presence within me, not necessarily His words, to minister to street-involved youth. Somehow, my words of comfort and salvation felt so inadequate, so…flat. I wondered why. Then I heard God’s voice telling me to just be quiet and to let His presence fill me and overflow from me. These kids have had "lip-service" all their lives; what they needed was to feel love, and sometimes, most of the time, human language just truly gets in the way. I have come to realize that seeking and allowing God’s manifest presence flow from within us is likely the most powerful form of testimony possible. His Word, although immensely powerful, may not always be the first thing to convict; His Word can, and often should, come later, when God’s Holy Spirit has already been invited by prayer and has made its presence known (Tenney calls this "presence evangelism"; but also see Pastor Che Ahn’s remarks on "power evangelism" at Chapter 6 of his book, Into the Fire).

Asking God to "Stay"

Tenney’s book hit me like a huge truck. I knew I wanted God, that feeling I get when I feel totally alone in His presence and I begin to cry for no apparent reason but for the joy I feel that He is visiting me. But why, I wondered, were such incredibly precious moments so few and far between? How do I get more of God, to have Him not merely visit me, but to inhabit my very being? How do I get God to stay? One thing I knew was that such moments only occurred when I allowed myself the unhurried time to simply sit and invite His presence. Recently, upon completing my studies for the year, I had an extended opportunity to do just this – to sit and wait and just be. At first, I was admittedly uncomfortable with the situation, feeling somehow guilty that I wasn’t doing anything. I thought of throwing myself into more volunteer work, to begin training for a marathon, to ask for more work as a freelance writer, anything. Alas, God foiled my efforts: the schedule for my evening job was messed up due to a miscommunication so that I had no evening work for a month, and freelance work slowed down to a virtual halt for the month of June. Rats. No money. No "busy-ness". So then why did my heart so rejoice? I heard God speak: "If you love me, why are you so afraid to be with me? Why can’t you sit still and just spend time with me?" Then I picked up this book, and I understood why my heart cried joy while my mind and physical body writhed in the unfamiliar stillness. My heart, the one that God had made for me, remembered the now faint, almost indiscernible reason that I came into being: to be in fellowship with Him. In the stillness of my body and the quiet of my thoughts, the innate yearnings of my soul were allowed to surface. I understood, possibly for the first time, that there was nothing more important, nothing more essential to my very being – not earning a living, not being "useful" to society, not serving my family and community – than simply being with my Father. And how do I get more? By acknowledging and accepting my hunger for Him as something more essential to my life than breath itself. By prayerfully desiring more of this hunger, and by never ceasing to ask Him to be and stay with me, to both fuel and feed my hunger for His presence. More than prayer, more than worship, even more than reading His Word, "chasing God" is built into our human desires because we once had Him. Like Tenney says, if we are ever going to overcome living "beneath our privilege", we must hunger after and actively seek His presence. And like a child playing chase with her earthly father, we will soon find ourselves no longer the chaser, but the chased. Believe it. The impossible is possible.