Friday, July 30, 2021

To trust unreservedly that you are loved (Henri Nouwen)


    The word faith is often understood as accepting something you can’t understand. People often say: Such and such can’t be explained, you simply have to believe it. However, when Jesus talks about faith, he means first of all to trust unreservedly that you are loved, so that you can abandon every false way of obtaining love. That’s why Jesus tells Nicodemus that, through faith in the descending love of God, we will be set free from anxiety and violence and will find eternal life. It’s a question here of trusting in God’s love. The Greek word for faith is pistis, which means, literally, trust. Whenever Jesus says to people he has healed: Your faith has saved you, he is saying that they have found new life because they have surrendered in complete trust to the love of God revealed in him. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Rudolf von Ems, The Israelites Collecting Manna from Heaven (13th century), https://www.thetorah.com/article/manna-and-mystical-eating
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