Receiving God with Pure Intention

There are people who savour God in one way but not in another, and they want to possess God according to one manner of devotion and not another.  I can tolerate this, but it is quite wrong.  If we are to take God correctly, then we must take him equally in all things: in tribulation as in prosperity, in tears as in joy.  He should always be the same for you.

If you believe, without having committed a mortal sin, that you lack both devotion and serious intent and that, not having devotion or serious intent, you do not have God, and if you then grieve over this, this itself becomes your devotion and serious intent.

Therefore you should not confine yourself to just one manner of devotion, since God is to be found in no particular way, neither this one nor that. That is why they do him wrong who take God just in one particular way.  They take the way rather than God.  Remember this then: intend God alone and seek him only. Then whatever kinds of devotional practice come to you, be content with those.  For your intention should be directed at God alone and at nothing else.

– Meister Eckhart, in Selected Writings