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Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something.

Henri Nouwen

Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.
HENRI NOUWEN

Angry Blame Choice Hate Live Loss Time Wide
What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
HENRI NOUWEN

Ability Heart Human Mindset Ourselves Thinking
Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God’s eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God’s heart.
HENRI NOUWEN

Deep Eyes God Heart Place Trust Unique
Those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. LOVE is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.
HENRI NOUWEN

Fear Greatness Joy Love Pain Risk Strong Worth
My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.
HENRI NOUWEN

Complain Discover Interrupt Life Myself Work
You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer – listening to the voice of the one who calls you “the beloved.”
HENRI NOUWEN

Call Listening Prayer Voice Yourself
If you feel loved, you can do a thousand things. If you feel rejected, everything becomes a problem.
HENRI NOUWEN

Feeling Love Problem Rejection Yourself
The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Illusion Leadership Man Thinking
Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.
HENRI NOUWEN

Himself Impossible Listening Live Serious Solitude Spiritual
The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.
HENRI NOUWEN

Feeling Healing Hide Oneself
We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.
HENRI NOUWEN

Angel Drink Each Other Need Sorrow Strength
Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.
HENRI NOUWEN

Enemy Life Rejection Sacred Spiritual Voice
One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.
HENRI NOUWEN

Forget Life Ourselves Tragedy Worth
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
HENRI NOUWEN

Hard Time Inspirational Rejection Thinking
We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.
HENRI NOUWEN

Accomplishment Admission Ourselves Production Success Vulnerable Weakness
The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.
HENRI NOUWEN

Healing Hide Question Service Wound

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something.

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Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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