Lewis B. Smedes Quotes

Quotes about:

• To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Inspirational, Happiness, Inspiring

  108 Copy quote
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  Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Broken Heart, Forgiveness, Heartbroken

  "Healing by Degrees" by Jean-Paul Bedard, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 1, 2014.

  114 Copy quote

• Hope is to our spirits what oxygen is to our lungs. Lose hope and you die. They may not bury you for awhile, but without hope you are dead inside. The only way to face the future is to fly straight into it on the wings of hope....hope is the energy of the soul. Hope is the power of tomorrow.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hope, Oxygen, Wings

  41 Copy quote

• You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything...We don't have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive them for doing it. Forgiving heals us personally. To tolerate everything only hurts us all in the long run.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Running, Hurt

  77 Copy quote

• When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was yourself.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Life, Freedom, Real

  "Forgiveness: You Can’t Have It Both Ways" by Maria Mayo, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 22, 2012.

  84 Copy quote

• Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And He invites us all to forgive each other.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, People

  73 Copy quote

• Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, People, Risk

  67 Copy quote

• You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Forgiving

  106 Copy quote

• Forgiving does not usually happen at once. It is a process, sometimes a long one, especially when it comes to wounds gouged deep. And we must expect some lapses...some people seem to manage to finish off forgiving in one swoop of the heart. But when they do, you can bet they are forgiving flesh wounds. Deeper cuts take more time and can use a second coat.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Time, Heart

  53 Copy quote

• You and I were created for joy, and if we miss it we miss the reason for our existence. If our joy is honest joy, it must somehow be congruous with human tragedy. This is the test of joy's integrity. It is compatible with pain. Only the heart that hurts has a right to joy.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hurt, Pain, Integrity

  60 Copy quote

• The difference between guilt and shame is very clear--in theory. We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are. A person feels guilt because he did something wrong. A person feels shame because he is something wrong. We may feel guilty because we lied to our mother. We may feel shame because we are not the person our mother wanted us to be.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Mother, Lying, Differences

  63 Copy quote

• When forgiveness is necessary, don't wait too long. We must begin to forgive, because without forgiving, we choke off our own joy; we kill our own soul. People carrying hate and resentment can invest themselves so deeply in that resentment that they gradually define themselves in terms of it.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hate, Long, People

  9 Copy quote

• We attach our feelings to the moment when we were hurt, endowing it with immortality. And we let it assault us every time it comes to mind. It travels with us, sleeps with us, hovers over us while we make love, and broods over us while we die. Our hate does not even have the decency to die when those we hate die-for it is a parasite sucking OUR blood, not theirs. There is only one remedy for it. [forgiveness]

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Hate

  10 Copy quote

• With a little time, and a little more insight, we begin to see both ourselves and our enemies in humbler profiles. We are not really as innocent as we felt when we were first hurt. And we do not usually have a gigantic monster to forgive; we have a weak, needy, and somewhat stupid human being. When you see your enemy and yourself in the weakness and silliness of the humanity you share, you will make the miracle of forgiving a little easier.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Stupid

  41 Copy quote

• Forgiving is, first of all, a way of helping yourself to get free of the unfair pain somebody caused you.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Pain, Forgiving, Way

  Lewis B. Smedes, Jeff Crosby (2007). “Days of Grace Through the Year”, p.237, InterVarsity Press

  31 Copy quote

• Forgive a wife-slammer if you can. But you don't have to live with him. Forgive a husband who is abusing your children if you can. But only after you kick him out of the house. And if you can't get him out, get help. It's available. In the meantime, don't let him near the kids, and don't let anyone tell you that if you forgive him it means you have to stay with him. [There's an important difference between forgiving a person and tolerating their bad behavior.]

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Husband, Children

  47 Copy quote

• Forgiveness is the key that can unshackle us from a past that will not rest in the grave of things over and done with. As long as our minds are captive to the memory of having been wronged, they are not free to wish for reconciliation with the one who wronged us.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Memories, Past, Keys

  13 Copy quote

• Waiting is the hardest work of hope.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Waiting, Hardest

  25 Copy quote

• The problem with revenge is that it never gets what it wants; it never evens the score. Fairness never comes. The chain reaction set off by every act of vengeance always takes its unhindered course. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain...Why do family feuds go on and on?...the reason is simple: no two people, no two families, ever weigh pain on the same scale.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Pain, Revenge

  18 Copy quote

• The first and often only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness... When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiving, Doe, Firsts

  6 Copy quote

• Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind...And each time it plays you feel the clap of pain again...Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory Forgiving sets you free.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Pain, Memories

  29 Copy quote

• Happy people are not their own enemies, do not carry on an endless war with their souls. We may be fiercely at odds with the wrongs of the world around us. But inside ourselves, near the core, if we are happy, we are at peace.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Happiness, Peace, War

  22 Copy quote

• Spoken forgiveness, no matter how heartfelt, works best when we do not demand the response we want. I mean that when we tell people we forgive them, we must leave them free to respond to our good news however they are inclined. If the response is not what we hoped for, we can go home and enjoy our own healing in private.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Healing, Home

  28 Copy quote

• The longer we hate, the harder it is to heal us.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hate, Bitterness, Heal

  10 Copy quote

• The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Heart, Hands, Grace

  19 Copy quote

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