Tozer on Simplicity

In keeping with the theme of this blog (and of my life), I try to post anything I find related to living a simple faith. This is from The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer:

"Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.
If we would find God amid all the religious externals, we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. Now, as always, God discovers Himself to "babes" and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to the essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without a doubt God will quickly respond.
When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectivey prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the and lies our great woe. If we omit the and we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.
We need not fear that in seeking God only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts. The opposite is true. We can well afford to make God our All, to concentrate, to sacrifice the many for the One."

The bold is mine, the italics are Tozer's. At the risk of adding anything to dilute the strength of Tozer's words, I must at least say that I agree. I love the church that I attend, the preaching, the hearts that people have for sharing their lives, the worship that we experience... but I also have to stop sometimes and realize that all the excess is exactly that - excess. No activity that we partake of is essential to the work that has been completed by Christ. I am not an opponent of the church by any means. It is essential to our unity as a body of Christ, but it is not a substitute for our pursuit of God in Christ.