If you are generous with your heart, you have no idea of the depth & breadth of love's reach.

We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.

We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try. (p6)

Those whom [the Lord] teaches, are always increasing in knowledge, both of themselves and of him. The heart is deep, and, like Ezekiel's vision, presents so many chambers of imagery, one within another, that it requires time to get a considerable acquaintance with it, and we shall never know it thoroughly. It is now more than twenty-eight years since the Lord began to open mine to my own view; and from that time to this, almost every day has discovered to me something which until then was unobserved; and the farther I go, the more I seem convinced that I have entered but a little way. A person who travels in some parts of Derbyshire may easily be satisfied that the country is cavernous; but how large, how deep, how numerous the caverns may be, which are hidden from us by the surface of the ground, and what is contained in them — are questions which our most discerning inquirers cannot fully answer…
And if our own hearts are beyond our comprehension, how much more incomprehensible is the heart of Jesus! If sin abounds in us — grace and love superabound in him! His ways and thoughts are higher than ours, as the heavens are higher than the earth; his love has a height, and depth, and length, and breadth, which passes all knowledge! The riches of his grace are unsearchable riches! Eph. 3:8, Eph. 3:18, Eph. 3:19. All that we have received or can receive from him, or know of him in this life, compared with what he is in himself, or what he has for us — is but as the drop of a bucket — compared with the ocean; or a single ray of light — compared with the sun. The waters of the sanctuary flow to us at first almost ankle deep — so graciously does the Lord condescend to our weakness; but they rise as we advance, and constrain us to cry out, with the Apostle, O the depth! We find before us, as Dr. Watts beautifully expresses it,
A sea of love and grace unknown,
Without a bottom or a shore!

if you want to know how free you are, ask yourself, “how far does my love extend?

The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface.

Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically -- to those who hardly think about us in return.

Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically — to those who hardly think about us in return.

Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically – to those who hardly think about us in return.

We were born in a flourishing realm, but we did not believe that its boundaries were those of our knowledge.

Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.

When first we met we did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master.

The heart hath its mystery, and who may reveal it,
Or who ever read in the depths of their own? —
How much, we never may speak of, yet feel it,
But, even in feeling it, know it unknown!

Not to know one another to a degree that went beyond all possibility of knowing one another was beautiful.