What is important is how well we love. God will make our _x000D_ love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not.
Interpretation
The essence of love lies in its quality, not in its outcome. True love is valuable regardless of the visible results.
Henri Nouwen emphasizes that the true measure of love is not in the tangible results or fruits it produces, but in how deeply and sincerely we love others. He suggests that God's influence will ensure that this love bears fruit, even if we are not able to witness or recognize that fruitfulness in our lives.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a wedding ceremony to emphasize the importance of love in relationships.
The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. God loves us, not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love.
The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides in the immense sorrow that has gone before....our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering β for us. And calling us to share in Godβs suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept.
Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. (Finding My Way Home)
Becoming the beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour.
Physics is not the most important thing. Love is.
Now they are a circle, and they vibrate together, they pulsate together. Their hearts are no longer separate, their beats are no longer separate, they have become a melody, a harmony. It is the greatest music possible, all other musics are just faint things compared to it, shadow things compared to it.
Your love to me was like an unread book.
Love properly understood is Godβthe font of all creation and the ultimate goal of all desires; God properly understood is love.
Venus, thy eternal sway_x000D_ _x000D_ All the race of men obey._x000D_ _x000D_ Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis._x000D_ _x000D_ He is not a lover who does not love for ever.
I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.