Quotes about Acceptance

When people can cease having to be for us everything, we can accept the fact they may still have a gift for us.

But there are many other voices, voices that are loud, full of promises and very seductive, pushing me to do everything possible to gain acceptance. They deny loudly that love is a totally free gift. It is not very hard for me to know when this is happening. Anger, resentment, jealousy, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonisms, and rivalries are the obvious signs that I have left home.

If you believe that you are the beloved, you can offer forgiveness, even when it cannot be received.

Every time you do something that comes from your needs for acceptance, affirmation, or affection, and every time you do something that makes these needs grow, you know that you are not with God. These needs will never be satisfied; they will only increase when you yield to them. But every time you do something for the glory of God, you will know God's peace in your heart and find rest there.

The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realized.

To be chosen as the Beloved of God is something radically different. Instead of excluding others, it includes others. Instead of rejecting others as less valuable, it accepts others in their own uniqueness. It is not a competitive, but a compassionate choice.

Yes, God dwells in my innermost being, but how could I accept Jesus' call: "Make your home in me as I make mine in you"? The invitation is clear and unambiguous. To make my home where God had made his, this is the great spiritual challenge. It seemed an impossible task.

Here is a home for you; maybe you need us." All my desires to be useful, successful, and productive revolted.

Our lives can indeed be seen as a process of becoming familiar with death, as a school in the art of dying. I do not mean this in a morbid way. On the contrary, when we see life constantly relativized by death, we can enjoy it for what it is: a free gift.

When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply.

Whether I am the younger son or the elder son, God's only desire is to bring me home.

The basis of all ministry is the experience of God's unlimited and unlimiting acceptance of us as beloved children, an acceptance so full, so total, and all-embracing, that it sets us free from our compulsion to be seen, praised, and admired and frees us for Christ, who leads us on the road of service.