If you want God, then you must be prepared to let go of all - absolutely all - substitute satisfactions, intellectual and emotional. You must recognise that God is so unlike whatever can be thought or pictured that, when you have got beyond the stage of self-indulgent religiosity, there will be nothing you can securely know or feel. You face a blank and any attempt to avoid that or shy away from it is a return to playing comfortable religious games... If you genuinely desire union with the unspeakable love of God, then you must be prepared to have your 'religious' world shattered. If you think devotional practices, theological insights, even charitable actions give you some sort of purchase on God, you are still playing games.
From a sermon by Rowan Williams, quoted by John Humphrys in his book 'In God We Doubt' (Part 2 'The Battle Lines').
