Take a Read
I fear that many people seek to hear God solely as a device for obtaining their own safety, comfort and sense of being righteous… My extreme preoccupation with knowing God's will for me may only indicate, contrary to what is often thought , that I am overconcerned with myself, not a Christlike interest in the well-being of others or in the glory of God.
(Dallas Willard, Hearing God)
Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.
Blaise Pascal, Human Happiness
No feelings, however profound, ever bring us nearer to God or God to us. In the same way, no lack of feelings can take us away from God. When all impressions fail, leaving us in "dryness, darkness, and desolation," we should not even for a moment think that God is far from us. Nothing can separate us from the love that holds us in being, least of all our feelings. This is why St John of the Cross says that God is nearest to us when we are least aware of it.
(Chris E. W. Green)
