Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

From “The Four Loves”

Students often ask me, “How can I prepare to be a missionary?” I usually answer by urging them to stick to the group they are part of, and to go through the pain of being there without giving up. That will make them skilled in facing the frustration and pain that is an unavoidable aspect of the missionary call. There is an unprecedented amount of study today on cultural anthropology and contextualisation, and I praise God for that. These studies are very helpful for incarnational ministry. But more helpful even that that is the ability to die, to die for those we are called to work with: our families, our churches and our mission fields.

Ajith Fernando, “An Authentic Servant”