Henri Nouwen Quotes

When you turn to God you discover He has been facing you all the time.

I had a deep experience of God's love for me.

I have gone through a period of seeking to understand what or how strong or what are the connections I have to God.

If only we can open our eyes, we'll see God's love everywhere.

I used to say, 'There is a God-shaped hole in me.' For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important.

Love God and find him within - the only treasure worth finding.

The outer world, with all its phenomena, is filled with divine splendour, but we must have experienced the divine within ourselves, before we can discover it in our environment

My greatest desire is that I may perceive the God whom I find everywhere in the external world, in like manner also within and inside myself.

In order to see Jesus, we first need to let him look at us!

God in heaven holds each person by a string. When you sin, you cut the string. Then God ties it up again. Making a knot, bringing you a little closer to Him. Again and again your sins cut the string and with each knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer.

Experience has taught me that I connect best with others when I connect with the core of myself. When I allow God to liberate me from unhealthy dependence on people, I listen more attentively, love more unselfishly, and am more compassionate and playful. I take myself less seriously, become aware that the breath of the Father is on my face.

The heart that knows God can find God anywhere.

We need prayer to understand God's love for us. If we really mean to pray and want to pray we must be ready to do it now. These are only the first steps towards prayer but if we never make the first step with determination, we will not reach the last one: the presence of God

Basic reality seems to be that the more you try to be like God by radiating unlimited love, the more you become flooded by waves of love from others and from God.

Doesn't every encounter with God only cause us to thirst for Him more?

When you are wired to God in a unique way, nothing can separate you from the love of God

What I really wanted was to fall in love with God. It's amazing what obstacles there are within us, or at least in me, that seem to slow this process.

Really, the greatest compliments about a book [One Thousand Gifts] are never about the book, or the author of the book, but about the reader and God and how the pages helped them connect at a deeper level.

You find God the moment you realize that you don't need to seek God

We need no wings to go in search of Him, but have only to look upon Him present within us.

I think that 'Little Angels' provides the gateway into that conversation about faith and about the Lord and about God's love for us. Remembering that the angels are just the messengers and the message is the message of love.

I seek a deeper truth, but I don't think I have to go to a building designated for worship to find it.

When trying to remember my share in the glow of the eternal present, in the smile of God, I return to my childhood, too, for that is where the most significant discoveries turn up.

One of the values of centering prayer is that you are not thinking about God during the time of centering prayer so you are giving God a chance to manifest. In centering prayer there are moments of peace that give the psyche a chance to realize that God may not be so bad after all. God has a chance to be himself for a change.

And God is always calling me to open myself to all kinds of people that I've never thought about before and also calling me on this inward spiritual journey.