Hence the aim of meditation, in the context of Christian faith, is not to arrive at an objective and apparently 'scientific' knowledge of God, but to come to know him through the realization that our very being is penetrated with his knowledge and love for us. Our knowledge of God is paradoxically a knowledge not of him as the object of our scrutiny, but of ourselves as utterly dependent on his saving and merciful knowledge of us. It is in proportion as we are known to him that we find our real being and identity in Christ. We know him and through ourselves in so far as his truth is the source of our being and his merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence. We have no other reason for being, except to be loved by him as our Creator and Redeemer, and to love him in return. There is no true knowledge of God that does not imply a profound grasp and an intimate personal acceptance of this profound relationship. Thomas Merton
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  2. Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves. - Joni Eareckson Tada

  3. No woman wants to be in submission to a man who isn't in submission to God! - T.d. Jakes

  4. His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, "I think, " he says, "my heart is going to explode, " and I wish, more than ever, that I... - Tahereh Mafi

  5. Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best? - Jacqueline Carey

More Quotes By Thomas Merton
  1. The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then...

  2. Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.

  3. If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully...

  4. If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.

  5. To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it...

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