The Devotional Life Is Almost Crowded Out

     By A. W. Tozer

    And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business. . .
    That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without. . . .
    1Thessalonians 4:11, 12

        We Christians must simplify our lives or lose untold
    treasures on earth and in eternity!

        Modern civilization is so complex as to make the
    devotional life all but impossible, multiplying distractions
    and beating us down by destroying our solitude.

        "Commune with your own heart upon your bed and
    be still" is a wise and healing counsel, but how can it be
    followed in this day of the newspaper, the telephone,
    the radio and the television?  These modern playthings,
    like pet tiger cubs, have grown so large and dangerous that
    they threaten to devour us all.  No spot is now safe from
    the world's intrusion.

        One way the civilized world destroys men is by
    preventing them from thinking their own thoughts.  Our
    "vastly improved methods of communication" of which
    the shortsighted boast so loudly now, enable a few men
    in strategic centers to feed into millions of minds alien
    thought stuff, ready-made and predigested.

        The need for solitude and quietness was never greater
    than it is today.  Even the majority of Christians are so
    completely conformed to this present age that they, too,
    want things the way they are.

        However, there are some of God's children who have
    had enough. They want to relearn the ways of solitude
    and simplicity and gain the infinite riches of the interior
    life. They want to discover the blessedness of what has
    been called "spiritual aloneness"---  a discipline that
    will go far in making us acquainted with God and our
    own souls!

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    Yours in Christ,
   Paul N. F.