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Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.

Henri Nouwen

If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.
HENRI NOUWEN

Essential Life Myself
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
Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
HENRI NOUWEN

Human Learning Morning Patience Wait
Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you’d rather not go.
HENRI NOUWEN

Easy Hard Life Radical Yourself
We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.
HENRI NOUWEN

Fall Preparation Rain See
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 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
Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.
HENRI NOUWEN

Community Food Mindset People Relationship Togetherness
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
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
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
HENRI NOUWEN

Change Offering People Space
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
Keep a space where God can let something totally new take place.
HENRI NOUWEN

God Place Space
One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.
HENRI NOUWEN

Forget Life Ourselves Tragedy Worth
Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.
HENRI NOUWEN

Prayer Religious Spirit
Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say, “I love you, too.”
HENRI NOUWEN

I Love You Life Opportunity

Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.

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Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.

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