Henri Nouwen Quotes

Faith is Doubt.

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief' is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.

To my mind, faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like you, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can’t. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?

God, how I ricochet between certainties and doubts.

When you have a dark side, nothing is ever as good as it seems.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

I've realised I need a gnawing, nagging, anxious doubt when I wake at 4 A.M.

Believing in God is a very intense inner struggle of mine. It's something I worry about a lot, but which I don't have the answer to.

We forget that the human spirit, the spirit of goodness and truth in the world, is still only an infant crying in the night, and that the struggle with darkness is as yet mostly an unequal struggle.

I spend a lot of time balancing between faith and disbelief.

After 'The Hurt & The Healer', we kind of hit a wall. I grew up in a somewhat legalistic church and it taught me that faith is enough, but here's three more things left just in case. There's always things left to do to be closer to God.

There's a thing that if you - somebody in faith is always troubled by doubt, and somebody by doubt is always wanted by faith. So it's a kind of paradox.

Faith embraces itself and the doubt about itself.

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on.

Do I believe? God only knows.

I do not know what is happening. The reason of my waking mind tells me that great evil has befallen and we stand at the end of days. But my heart says nay; and all my limbs are light, and a hope and joy are come to me that no reason can deny. [...] I do not believe that darkness will endure!

She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.

How can one love the light and live in darkness?

When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.

We all have in our hearts some areas of unbelief. Let us say to the Lord: I believe! Help my unbelief.

You can't walk in faith and fear at the same time.

Going in faith does not necessarily mean going with serenity or without doubts. Faith can be difficult.

If thy faith have no doubts, thou has just cause to doubt thy faith; and if thy doubts have no hope, thou hast just reason to fear despair; when therefore thy doubts shall exercise thy faith, keep thy hopes firm to qualify thy doubts; so shall thy faith be secured from doubts; so shall thy doubts be preserved from despair.

Faith is one foot on the ground, one foot in the air, and a queasy feeling in the stomach.