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.
Happiness is in your ability to love others.
Surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything, including our own well-being or our ability to make decisions. It means loving in the deepest sense of the word. The truth is that we don't want to be saved in the way God has chosen; we want to keep absolute control over our every step, to be fully conscious of our decisions, to be capable of choosing the object of our devotion.
Why don't you ever use your strength on me?" she said. Because love means renouncing strength," said Franz softly.
Look at Love with the eyes of your Heart.
One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her.
I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.
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