If I fear to hold another to the highest goal because it is so much easier to avoid doing so, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of striving for higher ideals in love, even when it is challenging.
In this quote, Amy Carmichael reflects on the concept of 'Calvary love', which symbolizes the ultimate sacrifice and selfless love demonstrated through Christ's crucifixion. She suggests that to avoid holding others accountable to their highest potential due to the fear of discomfort is to misunderstand the depth and challenge of true, sacrificial love.
In practice
A motivational speech about the importance of commitment in relationships.
If I am perturbed by the reproach and misunderstanding that may follow action taken for the good of souls for whom I must give account; if I cannot commit the matter and go on in peace and in silence, remembering Gethsemane and the cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
Thank God for the battle verses in the Bible. We go into the unknown every day of our lives, and especially every Monday morning, for the week is sure to be a battlefield, outwardly and inwardly in the unseen life of the spirit, which is often by far the sternest battlefield for souls. Either way, the Lord your God goes before you, He shall fight for you!
When an answer I did not expect comes to a prayer which I believed I truly meant, I shrink back from it; if the burden my Lord asks me to bear be not the burden of my heart's choice, and I fret inwardly and do not welcome His will, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I take offence easily; if I am content to continue in cold unfriendliness, though friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying "Peace, peace," where is no peace; if I forget the poignant word "Let love be without dissimulation" and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting "Who made thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou hast not received?" then I know nothing of Calvary love.
Journeys end in lovers meeting; I have spent an all but sleepless night, I have told lies and made a fool of myself, and the very air tastes like wine. I have been frightened half out of my foolish wits, but I have somehow earned this joy; I have been waiting for it for so long.
Love is my gift to the world. I fill myself with love, and I send that love out into the world.
If a lover is wretched who invokes kisses of which he knows not the flavor, a thousand times more wretched is he who has had a taste of the flavor and then had it denied him.
No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.
There was one thing my murderer didn't understand; he didn't understand how much a father could love his child.
Love is a command, not just a feeling. Somehow, in the romantic world of music and theater we have made love to be what it is not. We have so mixed it with beauty and charm and sensuality and contact that we have robbed it of its higher call of cherishing and nurturing.
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