Courtesy of the Spirituality readings section of our Web site:
You ought to know that a person with good will can never lose God. Rather, it sometimes seems to his feelings that he loses him, and often he thinks that God has gone far away. What ought you to do then? Just what you did when you felt the greatest consolation; learn to do the same when you are in the greatest sorrow, and under all circumstances behave as you did then. There is no advice so good as to find God where one has left him; do so now, when you cannot find him, as you were doing when you had him; and in that way you will find him. But a good will never loses or seeks in vain for God. Many people say: “We have a good will,” but they do not have God’s will. They want to have their will and they want to teach our Lord that he should be doing this and that. That is not a good will. We ought to seek from God what is his very dearest will.
From the writings of Meister Eckhart, quoted in Wisdom of the Cloister: A Monastic Reader, edited by John Skinner (Image Books, 1999).