'Faith and Will' sprang from my personal experience with passing through a dark spiritual time.

Art used to be made in the name of faith. We made cathedrals, we made stained-glass windows, we made murals.

'Faith and Will' is aimed at the same readership as 'The Artist's Way.' The book is for spiritual seekers in all walks of life.

We can believe we are being self-reliant and independent, and yet there is still clearly an overarching destiny, a Great Maker. So when we say we have faith in ourselves, we cannot really separate the small self from the large self.

I believe that the 'dark night of the soul' is a common spiritual experience. I believe, too, that the answer is continued seeking and perseverance. It helps to know that others have endured a loss of faith.

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

Above all else, know this: Be prepared at all times for the gifts of God and be ready always for new ones. For God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive

Know that when you seek anything of your own, you will never find God, because you do not seek God purely. You are seeking something along with God, and you are acting just as if you were to make a candle out of God in order to look for something with it. Once one finds the things one is looking for, one throws the candle away. This is what you are doing.

This then is salvation - when we marvel at the beauty of created things and praise their beautiful Creator.

To be sure, our mental processes often go wrong, so that we imagine God to have gone away. What should be done then? Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure. Learn to behave thus even in deepest distress and keep yourself that way in any and every estate of life. I can give you no better advice than to find God where you lost him.

God is like a person who clears his throat while hiding and so gives himself away. God lies in wait for us with nothing so much as love.

The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.

What good is it that Christ was born [2,000] years ago if he is not born now in your heart?

In prayer, we stand where angels bow with veiled faces. There, even there, the cherubim and seraphim adore before that selfsame throne to which our prayers ascend. And shall we come there with stunted requests and narrow, contracted faith?

We do not pray to God to instruct Him as to what He should do; neither for a moment must we presume to dictate the method of the divine working.

True prayer is neither a mere mental exercise nor a vocal performance. It is far deeper than that - it is spiritual transaction with the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

Cast away your sloth, your lethargy, your coldness, or whatever interferes with your chaste and pure love for Christ, your soul's husband. Make Him the source, the center, and the circumference of all your soul's range of delight.

You will never exaggerate when you speak good things of God. It is not possible to do so. Try, dear brethren, and boast in the Lord.

In spiritual things, it is God who performs all things for you. Rest in Him, then.

All our actions, as well as our thoughts and words, should praise Him who always blesses us.

We are in a wrong state of mind if we are not in a thankful state of mind.

Think of what you are, you Christians. You are God's children; you are joint heirs with Christ. The 'many mansions' are for you; the palms and harps of the glorified are for you. You have a share in all that Christ has and is and shall be.

Nothing reflects so much honor on a workman as a trial of his work and its endurance of it. So it is with God. It honors Him when His saints preserve their integrity.

We do not wish to enter Heaven until our work is done, for it would make us uneasy if there were one single soul left to be saved by our means.