“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 alive now and capable of sharpest sight and most sensitive hearing.” – AW Tozer

I have been ruminating on the above passage from “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer for several days now. In honor of this being my 190th post, the first post of 2015, and the last passage from 1 Kings I thought it was time for a Rabbit Trail. Tozer’s short book contains amazing insights. As I have been reading this book, and writing this blog, it has occurred to me that the spiritual environment in which we live is a bit like a cave.

We are isolated from the Kingdom of God (the spiritual realm) in a physical body which exists in the material world. Occasionally we have glimpses of the rich spiritual world which is taking place parallel to the physical world. Our five senses inform us about the physical world, but sensing and experiencing the spiritual world requires different eyes and ears, with the gift of site and hearing given by Jesus.

Tozer’s main point is that we have spiritual senses that our souls use to sense and interact with the spiritual realm, but many of these faculties have atrophied due to disuse. This is similar to the way many cave dwelling creatures have adapted to live their entire lives underground in caves. For example, the organs that were formerly used to sense light are not needed and become non-functional.

These cave-dwelling creatures, referred to as troglofauna, have adapted to living in darkness. They often look similar to creatures that live outside of caves, but their sensory apparatus is either non-functional or hyper sensitized to deal with survival in a low light environment. Although these creatures are well adapted to living in a cave they are practicality helpless outside the cave. Caves can be beautiful and magical places, but most of us would not choose to live in one.

I think our existence on earth, in our bodily vessels, is a bit like living in a “spiritual cave” of sorts. We are isolated from the pure light of God’s kingdom. Jesus entered our “spiritual cave” to help us learn to see outside the “cave”, in the light. But our souls have become accustomed to the cave that is our existence here on earth — in our earthy bodies. The spiritual senses which our souls use to sense this spiritual world have “grown feeble due to disuse”.

We see glimpses of the “outside” world (i.e. God’s spiritual kingdom) and it sometimes seems foreign and scary to us. When God shows up in our “cave”, and shines his light into our lives, it sometimes hurts or is scary because we are not used to it — our spiritual “eyes” are not used to such light. We must seek out opportunities to experience God’s presence so that we can become accustomed to the light.

Prayer: God help us to become accustomed to the spiritual realm so that we can see and hear your kingdom on earth.