“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.”
– Henri J.M. Nouwen
Before you give, receive from Him who has every good thing to offer you. Before you love, allow yourself to be loved.
It is only by being loved first that our love can be grateful, humble and pure. For we do not love anymore in order to be loved. We do not love in order to boast of our righteousness. And we do not love merely because we have an obligation to do so.
We love because we have been loved. We give because we have been given much. We make others happy because we are filled with joy!
There Is No Greater Love
You’ve got to allow God to LOVE You
From the very core of you;
Not the form that everybody sees,
Not the mask that you want
Everybody else to see.
You’ve got to allow God to enter
The innermost chambers
Of who you are;
To taste and see the real essence
Of your being,
Not the strength that gets sapped up
In your difficulties,
Not the outer beauty that ages
And soon fades away.
For you are not your height
Nor your stature.
You are not the color of your skin.
You are not your capabilities
Or your disabilities.
You are not the tone of your voice,
Or the power of your stride.
You are not your health,
You are not your sickness.
You are not your wealth,
Or the greatness of your name.
You are not your good deeds,
You are not your sins.
You are not the fears
That cripple you,
Or the courage
That makes you win.
You are whom God made you to be.
You are a spark from that
Unquenchable Flame.
You are His,
You’ve always been and always shall be.
You are the apple of His eye,
You are His delight,
You are the vessel that catches
The great outpouring of His love.
You are His beloved,
The one He awaits and longs for,
The one He teaches,
The one He leads,
The one He watches over
As you slumber,
The one He rejoices over
As you awake.
What greater joy is there than to know
How marvelous you are
In His sight?
What greater peace than knowing
You will never be alone?
That you are pursued,
That you are most of all desired
By the One who changes not,
And fails not
With all the burning passion of His LOVE!
We love him, because he first loved us. – 1 John 4, WEBBE
The thing about hope is that it’s a positive force that shines the most when it’s dark. When everything’s going well, we hardly notice it’s there. But when things go against us, when our dreams fade and when we see no immediate reprieve from our troubles, that’s when hope does its best work for us.
"Where Hope Can Be Found"