Meister Eckhart on How We Can Always Find God by Surrendering to His Will

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From The Talks of Instruction, by Meister Eckhart

You should know too that a good will cannot fail to find God, although the mind sometimes feels that it misses him and often believes that he has departed. What should you do then? Do exactly the same as you would if you were experiencing the greatest consolation: learn to so the same in the greatest suffering, and behave in exactly the same way as you did then. There is no better advice on how to find God than to seek him where we left him: do now, when you cannot find God, what you did when last you had him, and then you will find him again.

But a good will can never lose God or fail to find him. Many people say that their will is good when they do not have God's will but wish to have their own will and to instruct our Lord to do this or that. But that is not a good will. We should seek from God what his most precious will is. And it is God's wish in all things that we should give up our own will. […]

And nothing makes us true so much as the giving up of our will. Truly, without giving up our will in all things, we can achieve nothing at all for God. Indeed, if we went so far as to give up the whole of our will, daring to abandon all things for God's sake, both inner and outer, then we would have accomplished everything, and not before.[...]

Indeed, the more we are our own possession, the less we are God's possession. If someone has gone out of what is theirs, then they can never fail to find God in all that they do. But if such a person were to make a slip or speak out of turn, or unjust things were to happen to them, then, if it was God who was the origin of the deed, it is he who would have to take the hurt upon himself; although in no way should you let up in your efforts. In this life we can never be entirely free of such assaults. But just because tares sometimes grow among the corn is no reason to throw away the good corn. Truly, whoever is in the right state of mind and knows God's ways, all such suffering and assaults will prove to be for their profit, since for the good all things work to the good.

Simone Weil on The Journey to God, or the Seed of Divine Love in the Soul

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From Waiting for God, by Simone Weil

The infinity of space and time separates us from God. How are we to seek for him? How are we to go towards him? Even if we were to walk for hundreds of years, we should do no more than go round and round the world. Even in an airplane we could not do anything else. We are incapable of progressing vertically. We cannot take a step toward the heavens. God crosses the universe and comes to us.

Over the infinity of space and time, the infinitely more infinite love of God comes to possess us. He comes at his own time. We have the power to consent to receive him or to refuse. If we remain deaf, he comes back again and again like a beggar, but also, like a beggar, one day he stops coming. If we consent, God puts a little seed in us and he goes away again. From that moment God has no more to do; neither have we, except to wait. We only have not to regret the consent we gave him, the nuptial yes. It is not as easy as it seems, for the growth of the seed within us is painful. Moreover, from the very fact that we accept this growth, we cannot avoid destroying whatever gets in its way, pulling up the weeds, cutting the good grass, and unfortunately the good grass is part of our very flesh, so that this gardening amounts to a violent operation. On the whole, however, the seed grows of itself. A day comes when the soul belongs to God, when it not only consents to love but when truly and effectively it loves. Then in its turn it must cross the universe to go to God. The soul does not love like a creature with created love. The love within it is divine, uncreated; for it is the love of God for God that is passing through it. God alone is capable of loving God. We can only consent to give up our own feelings so as to allow free passage in our soul for this love. That is the meaning of denying oneself. We are created for this consent, and for this alone.