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.
When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.
There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.
Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.
The conflict that exists today is no more than an old-style struggle for power, once again presented to mankind in semireligious trappings. The difference is that, this time, the development of atomic power has imbued the struggle with a ghostly character; for both parties know and admit that, should the quarrel deteriorate into actual war, mankind is doomed.
In place of a world, there is a city, a point, in which the whole life of broad regions is collecting while the rest dries up. In place of a type-true people, born of and grown on the soil, there is a new sort of nomad, cohering unstably in fluid masses, the parasitical city dweller, traditionless, utterly matter-of-fact, religionless, clever, unfruitful, deeply contemptuous of the countryman and especially that highest form of countryman, the country gentleman.
You will not dishonor the divine perfections by judgments unworthy of them, provided you never judge of Him by yourself, provided you do not ascribe to the Creator the imperfections and limitations of created beings.
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