In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of our own futility, and be content to be in Him and to do whatever He wills, according to our limitations, judging our acts not in the light of our own illusions, but in the light of His reality which is all around us in the things and people we live with.
Interpretation
True self-discovery requires looking beyond oneself and aligning with a greater reality.
This quote emphasizes that to truly understand our spiritual nature and find God within ourselves, we must move away from self-centeredness and the illusions we often create about our worth and abilities. Instead of using our own flawed perceptions as a basis for judgment, we should seek to align our actions with divine will and recognize the inherent reality that exists in the world and in our interactions with others.
In practice
In a sermon about humility, a speaker might use this quote to illustrate the importance of focusing on a higher purpose.
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Life is bigger than processes and overflows and dwarfs them.
Beware of prejudice; light is good in whatsoever lamp it is burning; a rose is beautiful in whatever garden it may bloom.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
The American people need no course in philosophy or political science of church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman.
That a thing is peculiar; is no argument for its being blamable; since the most criminal actions are to a being like man not more unnatural than most of the virtues.
The modern world lies under a pervasive sense of anguish, of being abandoned, or at least experiencing God as absent. Yet events that seem to turn our lives upside down and inside out are part of God's redemptive plan, not only for us, but for the world in which we live. God may be preparing a great awakening for the world, if God can find enough people to cooperate in this mysterious plan.
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