He who searches for Divine Reality with all his heart and soul and finds it, becomes aware that, before he began to seek God, God was seeking him, in order to draw him into the joy of fellowship with Him, into the peace of His Presence; even as a child who has strayed, when he is safely back in his mother's arms, realises that she had been searching for him, with deep maternal love, before he had begun to think about her.

Sometimes people ask me this question: "If God does not wish us to ask for material things, but for Himself, the Giver of all good, why does the Bible never say: 'Do not pray for this or that, pray simply for the Holy Spirit?' Why has this never been clearly expressed?" I reply, "Because He knew that people would never begin to pray if they could not ask for earthly things like riches and health and honours; He says to Himself: 'If they ask for such things the desire for something better will awaken in them, and finally they will only care about the higher things.'"

A little child often runs to its mother and exclaims: 'Mother! Mother!' Very often the child does not want anything in particular, he only wants to be near his mother, to sit upon her lap, or to follow her about the house, for the sheer pleasure of being near her, talking to her, hearing her dear voice. Then the child is happy. His happiness does not consist in asking and receiving all kinds of things from his mother. If that were what he wanted, he would be impatient and obstinate and therefore unhappy. No, his happiness lies in feeling his mother's love and care, and in knowing the joy of her mother-love. It is just the same with the true children of God; they do not trouble themselves so much about spiritual blessings. They only want to sit at the Lord's feet, to be in living touch with Him, and when they do that they are supremely content.