Over the past few months I read this with a long-time family friend. Thought I'd post some quotes from some of the chapters....
"It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.... This intercourse between God and the soul is known to us in conscious, personal awareness. It is personal: that is, it does not come through the body of believers, as such, but is known to the individual, and, to the body through the individuals which compose it. And it is conscious: that is, it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness and work there unknown to the soul,… but comes within the field of awareness where the man can "know" it as he knows any other fact of experience" (1).
"To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love" (1).
"God wills that we should push on into His Presence and live our whole life there....
God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is" (3).
"Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.... Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction" (3).
"…we have in our hearts organs by means of which we can know God as certainly as we know material things through our familiar five senses.... More and more, as our faculties grow sharper and more sure, God will become to us the great All, and His Presence the glory and wonder of our lives" (4).
"He promised much, but promised no more than He intends to fulfill" (5).
"[God] is by His nature continuously articulate. He fills the world with His speaking Voice.... The why of natural law is the living Voice of God immanent in His creation.... [it] is the only force in nature.... The tragedy is that our eternal welfare depends upon our hearing, and we have trained our ears not to hear (6).
"The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word" (6).
"Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. Sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding. Unbelief has put self where God should be, and is perilously close to the sin of Lucifer who said, 'I will set my throne above the throne of God.' Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line" (7).
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