When you have become God's in the measure he desires, then he himself will bestow you upon others; unless, to your greater glory, he chooses to keep you all to himself.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that achieving a close relationship with God can lead to being valued and shared with others, or cherished solely by Him.
Saint Basil's quote reflects on the nature of divine relationship and purpose. It implies that when one attains a level of spiritual fulfillment that meets God's desires, there may be a dual outcome: being granted to others as a source of guidance or support, or being retained in a special way by God for His own glory. This highlights the idea that one's spiritual growth can have broader implications beyond the individual, impacting both personal connections and community dynamics.
In practice
During a sermon on community service, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of spiritual growth in helping others.
Now, if you notice how the swan, putting its neck down into the deep water, brings up food for itself from below, then you will discover the wisdom of the Creator, in that He gave it a neck longer than its feet for this reason, that it might, as if lowering a sort of fishing line, procure the food hidden in the deep water.
What is there astonishing in the death of a mortal? But we are grieved at his dying before his time. Are we sure that this was not his time? We do not know how to pick and choose what is good for our souls, or how to fix the limits of the life of man.
I heard many discourses which were good for the soul, but I could not discover in the case of any one of the teachers that his life was worthy of his words.
To lovers of the truth, nothing can be put before God and hope in Him.
If every man took only what was sufficient for his needs, leaving the rest to those in want, there would be no rich and no poor.
When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.
Suddenly Yankel was overcome with a fear of dying, stronger than he felt when his parents passed of natural causes, stronger than when his only brother was killed in the flour mill or when his children died, stronger even than when he was a child and it first occurred to him that he must try to understand what it could mean not to be alive -- to be not in darkness, not in unfeeling -- to be not being, not to be.
If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn’t the whole airplane made out of that stuff?
Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.
There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.
Because dogs and cats still live in the original state of connectedness with Being, they can help us regain it. When we do so, however, that original state deepens and turns into awareness.
She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness.
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