Sunday, February 3

A Deeper Way of Loving

"How do we befriend our inner enemies, lust and anger? By listening to what they are saying. They are saying "I have some unfulfilled needs" and "Who really loves me?". Insted of pushing our anger and lust away as unwelcomed guests, we can recognise that our anxious, driven hearts need some healing. Our restlessness calls us to look for the true inner rest where lust and anger can be converted into a deeper way of loving.
There is a lot of unruly energy in lust and anger! When that energy can be directed towards loving well, we can transform not only ourselves but even those who might otherwise become the victims of our anger and lust. This takes patience, but it can be done."
Elsewhere he also says that patience it is not waiting for something out of our control to happen, like waiting for it to rain, but "Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We act like as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later or somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand."

I found this quite inspirational and I thought I'd share it with you all. Words from my most cherished late author, Henry JM Nouwen, "Bread for the Journey".

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

notice there are no comments yet, but maybe that's cos I have to sit and work it out!!!
Interesting tho eh??

Tanya Heasley said...

Love it Yvonne, there's so much I could add to what you have written, but I feel God wants me to say something else instead.

Yesterday morning in a word for the day booklet I read, 'God hears our cries and helps us in His perfect way and in His perfect time', also in my cell group yesterday afternoon we were discussing Psalm 40 and the first verse reads, 'I waited PATIENTLY for the Lord to help me, and He turned to me and heard my cry.'

I guess He wants us to be patient and to wait on Him.