Prayer requires that we stand in God's presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing. As disciples, we find not some but all of our strength, hope, courage, and confidence in God. Therefore, prayer must be our first concern.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of prayer and reliance on God for strength and guidance.
Henri Nouwen conveys that true prayer involves humility and vulnerability, recognizing our own limitations and the omnipotence of God. In this state of openness, we declare our dependency on divine strength, suggesting that prayer should be our primary focus as it is in this connection that we find encouragement and courage to face life's challenges.
In practice
During a spiritual retreat, this quote can be shared to emphasize the importance of prayer in personal growth.
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 – for us. And calling us to share in God’s 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.
How glorious it is - and also how painful - to be an exception.
I learned the most important lesson of my life: that the extraordinary is not the birthright of a chosen and privileged few, but of all people, even the humblest. That is my one certainty: we are all the manifestation of the divinity of God.
One of them is knowing the difference between Morality and Wisdom. Morality is temporary, Wisdom is permanent… Ho ho. Take that one to bed with you tonight.
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.
Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation.
The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.