Jeanne Guyon

Your way to God begins on the day of your conversion, for conversion marks your soul’s initial return to God. From that moment you begin to live and have your being by the means of His grace.

After your conversion, your own spirit—the human spirit (which is deep within your inmost being)—is touched by God and is made alive and functioning. Your spirit—in turn—invites your soul to compose itself and to turn within, there to find the God who has newly come to reside at the center of your being.

Your spirit instructs your soul that, since God is more present deep within you, He cannot be found anywhere else. Henceforth, He must be sought within. And He must be enjoyed there, alone.

There are several steps involved in coming to know the depths of Jesus Christ. The first two are quite simple: praying the Scriptures and just beholding the Lord in quietness and trust. After pursuing this level of experience with the Lord for a considerable length of time, you should be ready to go on to a deeper level of knowing Him.

But in this deeper encounter with the Lord, you must move outside the realm of prayer alone; or, to state it more clearly, you must move away from just the one or two times a day you set apart for prayer with the Lord.