How does this work? It means that, like Jesus, who made himself nothing by coming from heaven to earth, who humbled himself and became obedient to death on a cross, we in humility should consider others better than ourselves, and we should "look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:4) This goes against our unredeemed nature. There exists in us the desire to feel better than others, and to pursue our own goals. Love requires the power of the Spirit to overcome those selfish desires.

How does this work out in practical terms? For those of us who are so self-directed that we can be oblivious to the needs of others, we have to slow down and begin to notice other people instead of ignoring them. We begin to greet them and engage them in conversation, enquiring about their life, and health and well-being. Instead of seeing people as a means to our own ends, people who can help us fulfill our own needs, we begin to see them as people for whom Christ has died, and to whom you are called to serve in his name.

That requires conversation that takes a genuine interest in the lives of others. It requires the patience of listening, the kindness of asking caring questions about their well-being. It means sacrificing the need to boast about your own achievements, or your own experiences, in order to affirm and encourage the sharing of the life experiences of others. Instead of always dominating the conversation with your own stories, get them to tell you about themselves. St. Paul teaches us to "clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." (Colossians 3:12) That means extending sympathy to the other person, it means affirming him, let him increase and you decrease, offering advice only when requested and not conveying the impression that no challenge is too great that you have not overcome, and offering platitudes to provide superficial solutions to complex problems. It means listening longer than you want, and resisting the temptation to break away and be distracted by other people you would prefer to meet. Hard as it is for you, in order to establish an atmosphere of mutual trust it is necessary to convey in your attitude that you do not have it all together, that you too, are aware of your own inadequacies.

Henri Nouwen was a psychologist and a theologian who was ordained as a Catholic priest. He studied at the Menninger Clinic, taught at Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard, and influenced many people through his speaking and writing. He resigned his position at Harvard in order to work with the seriously disabled at a L'Arche home in Toronto. He was noted for making himself available to many people who sought help from him. He responded at length to their questions, never giving the impression that they were interrupting his life or keeping him from more important things. Bob Buford recalled that "He approached me, as he approached everyone he met, as if I were the most interesting person he'd ever met." He had the gift of giving full attention, all of himself to whomever he was with.

Philip Yancey writes about listening to three young women who spoke in a church service about the effect reading Henri Nouwen's book, Life of the Beloved, had on them.

"The first speaker, Elizabeth, had a sheaf of notes, which she followed closely. She told of her determined efforts to become a super-achiever. In high school she strove to make all A's, to win a state tennis championship, to head up the Student Council, to join every club she could. Reading Nouwen's book, she recognized herself in his own super-achieving phase. She realized that she, like Nouwen, had all the while been thirsting for God's love, and trying desperately to earn it. From him, she got a glimpse of what it might mean to see herself as God's beloved, as one loved from the beginning of time, with no need to prove herself worthy.

"The second speaker, Kate, carried a laptop computer to the podium, and started working on the mouse to find her manuscript. That morning, her printer had refused to cooperate. 'This is kind of a symptom of my life,' she said. 'Everything always goes wrong.' Unlike Elizabeth, she had no resume of super-achievement. In fact her counselor once told her, 'Kate, I see some people with a Messiah complex, people who think they can save the world. You have a Satan complex. You think you are singlehandedly destroying the world.' She truly believed herself cursed, incapable of goodness. From Nouwen she was learning for the first time to imagine herself as blessed, not cursed.

"Kate made a few self-effacing comments and shut down her laptop computer as everybody laughed. Then Cathy stood up. Her lip trembled, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes. The congregation grew still. 'Most of you don't know my story. I was molested as a child. Then in college I was drugged and raped. I kept asking, 'Why me?' I had tried to be good. I went to church every week and all that. So I just gave up. I took to alcohol to cover the pain. Of course it just brought on more pain, so I drank more alcohol. I was on a spiral to nowhere, feeling old before I had finished being young. One day I stopped by my old church just to see what might have changed inside. In the empty building, without planning to at all, I began to pray. I started bawling like a baby.

'Not everything got resolved that day, of course. The pain did not go away. It was my brokenness that I was confronting in church, not my healing. But through Henri Nouwen I learned that suffering and joy can go together, that God can use everything in our lives, even the pain that never goes away. I learned to claim my brokenness.

'Am I glad these bad things happened to me? No. But I do realize they have helped make me the person I am today. I can be a true friend to others. I can offer a safe place for other people going through tough times.'

"Cathy closed her talk with her own paraphrase of Luke 4, a dramatic scene where Jesus enters the synagogue and announces, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has sent me to heal the broken-hearted.'

"For several minutes after she sat down no one moved, except to reach for tissues and handkerchiefs. The traffic outside, the sunny day, the plans for Sunday at the beach - none of that mattered anymore. God was in that place.

"Then the three women who had spoken stood and offered communion elements to each other. 'This is Christ's body, broken for you,' Kate said, handing bread to Elizabeth. 'Christ's blood, shed for you,' Elizabeth said, holding out a cup to Cathy. And the rest of us formed two ragged lines down the center aisle, to eat and drink of God's brokenness." (Soul Survivor, pp.317,318)

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." (1 John 3:16)

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