Out of greatest loss, the purest gains do spring up. To be committed to know no other thing than Christ, is to have the advantage of knowing more than all these lesser things put together.
Christ knows our emptiness and our apathy towards life and Him, He would simply have us know this — which He then accomplishes through some of the most fiery trials we have come to know.
But, what are the benefits that so motivate this God of love to approach us through such difficult means? They are meeting God, they are knowing God for the One Who transcends all earthly majesty and comfort; they are seeing the emptiness inside too deep to be bridged by mortal effort, but only by divine love.
This is what makes our mortal experience worth completing — God is working in us, on behalf of our greatest happiness, to bring us nearer to His side; to seek for His face, which cleanses our hearts from all God-less pursuits that begin and end in vanity.
Can we deign to thank God for less, to request that He would do less for us, so that we might not be so bound up in Him? Such would be a vain and rebellious limitation on our God. We should grieve His Spirit and hold Him afar off from us.
No, that we would rather He shake us than leave us alone, that He would approach us in our misery, then deny us in our bliss. Nothing less can be knowing God, loving Him with all our hearts.
At Home with God 