Discussion Board

I am starting this thread to serve as source of encouragement for those who follow Jesus as they McDougall.

Please share your favorite inspiring, encouraging quotes and your comments about them here!

Henri Nouwen:

"The divine love of God reveals to us that fruitfulness is more important than success, that love of God is more important than the praise of people, that community is more important than individualism and compassion more important than competition."

Oh, I so love the Corrie Ten Boom books. It is so sad that I waited so long to read them. I thought they would be depressing. Although I did cry through much, it was joyful crying, if that makes sence.

Henri Nouwen:

"Prayer is in many ways the criterion of Christian life. 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."

Henri Nouwen:

"Our desire for God is the desire that should guide all other desires. Otherwise our bodies, minds, hearts and souls become one another's enemies and our inner lives become chaotic, leading us to despair and self destruction."

Tending Our Own Wounds First

Our own experience with loneliness, depression, and fear can become a gift for others, especially when we have received good care. As long as our wounds are open and bleeding, we scare others away. But after someone has carefully tended to our wounds, they no longer frighten us or others.

When we experience the healing presence of another person, we can discover our own gifts of healing. Then our wounds allow us to enter into a deep solidarity with our wounded brothers and sisters.

--Henri Nouwen

Is that from "The Wounded Healer"? I read that several years ago. Great book!

Michael

I think it is from that book, Michael. I have read many of Henri's books. He was brilliant in so many ways.

You may enjoy this:

http://www.henrinouwen.org/

A Time to Receive and a Time to Give

It is important to know when we can give attention and when we need attention. Often we are inclined to give, give, and give without ever asking anything in return. We may think that this is a sign of generosity or even heroism. But it might be little else than a proud attitude that says: "I don't need help from others. I only want to give." When we keep giving without receiving we burn out quickly. Only when we pay careful attention to our own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs can we be, and remain, joyful givers.

There is a time to give and a time to receive. We need equal time for both if we want to live healthy lives. --Henri Nouwen

Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him and expect help from Him, He will never fail you. An older brother who has known the lord for forty-four years, who writes this, says to you for your encouragement that He has never failed him. In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, He has never failed me; but because I was enabled by His grace to trust Him He has always appeared for my help. I delight in speaking well of His name.

George Mueller.

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.

~Charles Swindoll

The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. . .It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.

~C.S. Lewis

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

~Søren Kierkegaard

What We Feel Is Not Who We Are

Our emotional lives move up and down constantly. Sometimes we experience great mood swings: from excitement to depression, from joy to sorrow, from inner harmony to inner chaos. A little event, a word from someone, a disappointment in work, many things can trigger such mood swings. Mostly we have little control over these changes. It seems that they happen to us rather than being created by us.

Thus it is important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of God within us. As we feel our emotions shift we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are. We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children.--Henri Nouwen