black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.

Henri Nouwen

The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Life Popularity Power Rejection Success Trap
Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.
HENRI NOUWEN

Afraid Discover Empty Fear God Hold On Myself Stand
Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.
HENRI NOUWEN

Fake Illusion Solitude Transformation
Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something.
HENRI NOUWEN

God Himself Listening Open Prayer
Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
HENRI NOUWEN

Compassionate Human Power Weakness
Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.
HENRI NOUWEN

Prayer Religious Spirit
I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
HENRI NOUWEN

God Knowledge Myself Wonder
God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.
HENRI NOUWEN

Alone Compassionate Courage God Help People See Sight
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
HENRI NOUWEN

Change Offering People Space
Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.
HENRI NOUWEN

Illusion Life Property Share Violence
Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved.
HENRI NOUWEN

Experience Joy Love Yourself
The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don’t see the results.
HENRI NOUWEN

Generation Result See Trust
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
HENRI NOUWEN

Day Joy Simplicity
For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.
HENRI NOUWEN

Children Conquer Country Defeat God Man Woman
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing that is a friend who cares.
HENRI NOUWEN

Care Friendship Grief Moments Silence Time Tolerance
Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.
HENRI NOUWEN

Dare Form Invitation Listening Silence Spiritual Stranger Yourself

This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Henri Nouwen Quotes