The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to…

“The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God.”

Henri Nouwen

About This Quote

This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.

Human love, limited and conditional, serves as a bridge to God's boundless, unconditional love.

In simple terms: Our love opens the way to God's love.

Key Takeaway

Offer love as a gateway to divine love.

Themes

spirituality love divine

Mood

reflective hopeful

Type

spiritual inspirational

When to use this quote

counseling
church ministry
personal prayer

Key Concepts

theology mysticism

Questions to Reflect On

How can you move from conditional to unconditional love?
What role does vulnerability play in spiritual growth?

A Different Perspective

Human love can become transactional if not rooted in divine love.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

More by Henri Nouwen

We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who…

Henri Nouwen

The more we touch the intimate love of God which creates, sustains, and guides us, the more we recognize the multitude of fruits that…

Henri Nouwen

Feelings of guilt dominate our work as peacemakers we cannot last long. But when we have opened each other's eyes to the great human…

Henri Nouwen

...we all want to hear stories, from the moment we are born to the moment we die. Stories connect our little lives with the…

Henri Nouwen

I have found it very important...to let go of my wishes and start hoping.

Henri Nouwen

Simply being with someone is difficult because it asks of us that we share in the other's vulnerability, enter with him or her into…

Henri Nouwen

Somewhere we know that without silence, words lose their meaning.

Henri Nouwen

Jesus says, "Keep your heart on the kingdom first. Keep your heart on God's love. Keep focused on the fact that you are God's…

Henri Nouwen

This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without condition or limits.

Henri Nouwen

“The more preoccupied we are with security the more visible the force of death becomes, whether in the form of a pistol beside our…

Henri Nouwen

If you feel a great loneliness and a deep longing for human contact, you have to be extremely discerning...and ask yourself whether this situation…

Henri Nouwen

I choose L'Arche; L'Arche chooses me. I would be dead if I weren't here. I need people to love me and care for me.

Henri Nouwen

The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called…

Henri Nouwen

In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that…

Henri Nouwen

Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be.

Henri Nouwen

Explore all 452 Henri Nouwen quotes

More Chosen quotes

The emerging church movement has come to believe that the ultimate context of the spiritual aspirations of a follower of Jesus Christ is not…

Samir Selmanovic

My Chosen Daughter, No one can define you without your permission. I want you to be so secure in who you are in Me…

God

I would have let you shoot me without further ado! But it is not possible to hang the German Reichsmarschall! I cannot permit this.…

Hermann Goring

People have a whole lot more choices than they've had in the past, and I have only earned the right to be considered -…

Kenneth Cole

You basically have a group of four spies who are chosen for a mission they feel for the fact of how competent they are…

Matt LeBlanc

[In science any model depends on a pre-chosen taxonomy] a set of classifications into which we divide the enormous complexity of the real world...…

Kenneth E. Boulding

It seems that the whole world is beginning to decay, and that its putrefaction has chosen to spread outward from here, from the land…

Yasmina Khadra

At a time when painting itself often seems to be a threatened, even despised, form of artistic activity, Andrew Salgado emerges as a dazzlingly…

Edward Lucie-Smith

Love your country. Your country is the land where your parents sleep, where is spoken that language in which the chosen of your heart,…

Giuseppe Mazzini

You'd chosen to be an upright biped on the surface of a small planet of a minor sun on the edge of a minor…

Richard Bach

The Tao is the center of the universe, the good man's treasure, the bad man's refuge. Honors can be bought with fine words, respect…

Laozi

The Republicans have chosen to neglect young Americans who need assistance with the costs of higher education.

John Conyers

When adults come together to form an intimate relationship, each person releases into it unresolved issues from their trans-generational pool of unconscious fantasies. Partners…

Joan Raphael-Leff