His delights are to be with you

The more to strengthen your confidence in God, often call to mind his loving treatment of you, and the gracious means he has used to drive you from the disorders of your life and your attachments to earth, in order to draw you to his holy love ; and therefore fear to have too little confidence in treating with your God, now that you have a resolute will to love and to please him with all your power.

The mercies he has granted you are most sure pledges of the love he bears you. God is displeased with a want of trust on the part of souls that heartily love him, and whom he loves. If, then, you desire to please his loving heart, converse with him from this day forward with the greatest confidence and tenderness you can possibly have.

I have graven thee in My hands :

thy walls are always before My eyes.

Beloved soul,

says the Lord,

what do you fear or mistrust ?

I have you written in my hands,

so as never to forget to do you good.

Are you afraid of your enemies ?

Know that the care of your defence is always before me,

so that I cannot lose sight of it.

Therefore did David rejoice, saying to God,

Thou hast crowned us as with a shield of Thy good will?

Who, O Lord! can ever harm us,

if Thou with Thy goodness and love

dost defend and encompass us round about ?

Above all, animate your confidence at the thought of the gift that God has given us of Jesus Christ: God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son? How can we ever fear, exclaims the Apostle, that God would refuse us any good, after he has vouchsafed to give us his own Son ? He delivered Him up for us all ; how hath He not also, with Him, given us all things ?

My delights are to be with the children of men.

The paradise of God, so to speak, is the heart of man.

Does God love you ? Love him.

His delights are to be with you; let yours be to be with himself, to pass all your lifetime with him, in the delight of whose company you hope to spend a blissful eternity.

Accustom yourself to speak with him alone, familiarly, with confidence and love, as to the dearest friend you have, and who loves you best.
St. Alphonsus, How to Converse Familiarly with God, Part II