Lewis B. Smedes Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

Bitterness Fairness Feelings Forgiveness Giving Grace Gratitude

I worry about fast forgivers. They tend to forgive quickly in order to avoid their pain. Or they forgive fast in order to get an advantage over the people they forgive. And their instant forgiving only makes things worse... People who have been wronged badly and wounded deeply should give themselves time and space before they forgive... There is a right moment to forgive. We cannot predict it in advance; we can only get ourselves ready for it when it arrives... Don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Pain, Order

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Forgiving is tough. Excusing is easy. What a mistake it is to confuse forgiving with being mushy, soft, gutless, and oh, so understanding. Before we forgive, we stiffen our spine and we hold a person accountable. And only then, in tough-minded judgment, can we do the outrageously impossible thing: we can forgive.

Lewis B. Smedes

Mistake, Impossible Things, Understanding

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When you give up vengeance, make sure you are not giving up on justice. The line between the two is faint, unsteady, and fine...Vengeance is our own pleasure of seeing someone who hurt us getting it back and then some. Justice, on the other hand, is secure when someone pays a fair penalty for wronging another even if the injured person takes no pleasure in the transaction. Vengeance is personal satisfaction. Justice is moral accounting...Human forgiveness does not do away with human justice.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Hurt, Giving Up

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God invented forgiving as a remedy for a past that not even he could change and not even he could forget. His way of forgiving is the model for our forgiving.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Past, Forgiving

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It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.

Lewis B. Smedes

Inspirational, Forgiveness, Letting Go

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The problem with revenge is that it never evens the score. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain. Both are stuck on the escalator as long as parity is demanded, and the escalator never stops.

Lewis B. Smedes

Pain, Revenge, Ties

"Why Charging People With Homicide For Overdose Deaths Is Revenge And Not Justice" by Brooke M. Feldman, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 12, 2017.

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Self control is about being in charge of the direction our lives are taking. Now for the paradox: We get control of our lives, ultimately, not by will power but by surrender.

Lewis B. Smedes

Self, Surrender, Paradox

Lewis B. Smedes (2002). “A Life of Distinction: What It Takes to Live with Courage, Honesty, and Gratitude”, Shaw

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Don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long... If we wait too long to forgive, our rage settles in and claims squatter's rights to our souls.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Rights, Long

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If we say that monsters [people who do terrible evil] are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have...they are given the power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered most. We give them power to condemn their victims to live forever with the hurting memory of their painful pasts. We give the monsters the last word.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Hurt, Memories

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I have discovered that most people who tell me that they cannot forgive a person who wronged them are handicapped by a mistaken understanding of what forgiving is.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, People, Understanding

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None of us wants to admit that we hate someone... When we deny our hate we detour around the crisis of forgiveness. We suppress our spite, make adjustments, and make believe we are too good to be hateful. But the truth is that we do not dare to risk admitting the hate we feel because we do not dare to risk forgiving the person we hate.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Hate, Believe

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Human sexuality includes more than hormones, organs, and orgasms; it runs through the psychic and spiritual ranges of our lives. We experience our sexuality on the spiritual level as a yearning for another person. We want to reach out and stretch ourselves into the depths of another. We want to bring the other person into the orbit of our deepest selves. We want to probe into the mystery of the other.

Lewis B. Smedes

Running, Spiritual, Self

Lewis B. Smedes (1976). “Sex for Christians: the limits and liberties of sexual living”, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

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When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Letting Go, Evil

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When I feel the joy of receiving a gift my heart nudges me to join creation's ballet, the airy dance of giving and receiving, and getting and giving again.

Lewis B. Smedes

Heart, Giving, Dancing

Lewis B. Smedes (2002). “A Life of Distinction: What It Takes to Live with Courage, Honesty, and Gratitude”, Shaw

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Once we have forgiven, however, we get a new freedom to forget. This time forgetting is a sign of health; it is not a trick to avoid spiritual surgery. We can forget because we have been healed. But even if it is easier to forget after we forgive, we should not make forgetting a test of our forgiving. The test of forgiving lies with healing the lingering pain of the past, not with forgetting the past has ever happened.

Lewis B. Smedes

Spiritual, Pain, Lying

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I learned that gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living.

Lewis B. Smedes

Gratitude, Joy, Feelings

"A Life of Distinction: What It Takes to Live with Courage, Honesty, and Gratitude".

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The moments of grace usually give us more than one good thing we can do, and we do well if we manage a pretty good batting average. ... It is an opportunity that God sews into the fabric of a routine situations - It is a chance to do something creative, something helpful, something healing, something that makes one unmarked spot in the world better off for our having been there.

Lewis B. Smedes

Healing, Opportunity, People

"A Life of Distinction: What It Takes to Live with Courage, Honesty, and Gratitude".

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How many times should you forgive your household bruiser? You should not even think about forgiving him. Not yet. Not as long as he has his foot on your neck. Your problem at this point is not forgiving. Your problem is how to get out of his reach. Once you get away from him, you can think about forgiving him.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Thinking, Feet

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Kindness is the power that moves us to support and heal someone who offers nothing in return.

Lewis B. Smedes

Kindness, Moving, Support

Lewis B. Smedes (1978). “Love Within Limits: Realizing Selfless Love in a Selfish World”, p.12, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Memories, Healing

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

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...Forgiving is not having to understand. Understanding may come later, in fragments, an insight here and a glimpse there, after forgiving.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Understanding, Forgiving

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To miss out on joy is to miss out on the reason for your existence.

Lewis B. Smedes

Happiness, Joy, Missing

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Forgiving is an affair strictly between a victim and a victimizer. Everyone else should step aside...The worst wounds I ever felt were the ones people gave to my children. Wrong my kids, you wrong me. And my hurt qualifies me to forgive you. But only for the pain you caused me when you wounded them. My children alone are qualified to forgive you for what you did to them.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Hurt, Pain

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I am certain that people never forgive because they believe they have an obligation to do it or because someone told them to do it. Forgiveness has to come from inside as a desire of the heart. Wanting to is the steam that pushes the forgiving engine.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiveness, Believe, Heart

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Any moment that opens us up to the reality that life is good is a parable of the supreme end for which we were made.

Lewis B. Smedes

Gratitude, Life Is Good, Reality

Lewis B. Smedes (2000). “How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong?”, Shaw

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Born: 1921
Died: December 19, 2002
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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