Often you will catch yourself wanting to receive your loving God by putting on a semblance of beauty, by holding back everything dirty and spoiled, by clearing just a little path that looks proper. But that is a fearful response—forced and artificial. Such a response exhausts you and turns your prayer into torment.

Jesus, of course, had this capacity to see truly. For example, Saint John tells us, Jesus did not want to entrust himself to them because he knew what was in every heart (John 2:24). Such intuitive and perceptive knowledge is the nature of discernment.

I will see great things when I am willing to be seen. I will receive new eyes that see the mysteries of GOD's own life, but only when I allow God to see me, all of me, even those parts that I myself do not want to see.

How much of our energy goes into defining ourselves by deciding "I am what I do," "I am what others say about me," or "I am what I have"? When that's the case, life often follows a repetitive up-and-down motion.

If you see in me more than my function or job, then I can slowly communicate to you on a deeper level. I can become a person to you.

Even people who are immensely praised and have made an enormous amount of money, who have awards, success, and applause, can be deeply depressed. If you get closer and you prick the balloon, you realize they are just as insecure as everyone else. Underneath all that wealth, all that success, and all that praise, they are still a little person who asks, "Do you love me?" Nouwen, Henri J. M.. Following Jesus (p. 53). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.

It is the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see.

There is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected.

Is not the poet bound to write his own biography? Is there any other work for him but a good journal? We do not wish to know how his imaginary hero, but how he, the actual hero, lived from day to day.

In our daily intercourse with men, our nobler faculties are dormant and suffered to rust. None will pay us the compliment to expect nobleness from us. Though we have gold to give, they demand only copper.

When God "chooses" a person for His purposes, He does so according to the person's heart! The person must have a loyal heart full of trust and faith. God must have a person who loves Him "with all [the] heart, with all [the] soul, and with all [the] strength" (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37).