Lewis B. Smedes Quotes - Page 3

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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".

  9 Copy quote

• If you cannot free people from their wrongs and see them as the needy people they are, you enslave yourself to your own painful past and by fastening yourself to the past, you let your hate become your future.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hate, Past, People

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• We feel properly embarrassed when we are caught doing something that makes us look inept, knuckleheaded, or inappropriate. Maybe the difference is this: we feel embarrassed because we look bad, and we feel shame because we think we are bad. When we are embarrassed, we feel socially foolish. When we are shamed, we feel morally unworthy.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Thinking, Differences, Looks

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• Some people ask who they are and expect their feelings to tell them. But feelings are flickering flames that fade after every fitful stimulus. Some people ask who they are and expect their achievements to tell them. But the things we accomplish always leave a core of character unrevealed. Some people ask who they are and expect visions of their ideal self to tell them. But our visions can only tell us what we want to be, not what we are

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Character, Self, Flames

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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

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  56 Copy quote

• We forgive freely or we do not really forgive at all.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Forgiving

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• Not even God can make something fair out of what is intrinsically unfair. Only one thing can be done. Something must break through the crust of unfairness and create a chance for a new fairness. Only forgiveness can make the breakthrough.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Break Through, Done

  10 Copy quote

• Because arrogance is born in personal vanity, arrogant people are driven without mercy. They can never get enough power to fill the soul's needs or enough respect to overcome the fear that they deserve less than they are getting.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Vanity, People, Soul

  Lewis B. Smedes (1978). “Love Within Limits: Realizing Selfless Love in a Selfish World”, p.35, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• The only way to heal the pain which will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiveness heals the memory's vision. ... You set a prisoner free, but you discover the real prisoner was yourself.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hurt, Pain, Memories

  6 Copy quote

• Gandhi was right: if we all live by 'an eye for an eye' the whole world will be blind. The only way out is forgiveness.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Eye, World

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• Their pain [the injurer's pain at having injured you] and your pain create the point and counterpoint for the rhythm of reconciliation. When the beat of their pain is a response to the beat of yours, they have become truthful in their feelings...they have moved a step closer to a truthful reunion.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Pain, Feelings

  9 Copy quote

• The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Past, Names

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• I am personally thankful that we live together in a large moral house even if we do not drink at the same fountain of faith. The world we experience together is one world, God's world, and our world, and the problems we share are common human problems. So we can talk together, try to understand each other, and help each other.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Our World, House, Community

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• My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed - and each of the five has been me.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Men, Wife, Different

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• Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That one thing is forgiveness.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Release, Inevitable

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• A wise judge may let mercy temper justice but may not let mercy undo it.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Wise, Judging

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• The secret of grace is that it can be all right at the center even when it is all wrong on the edges.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Grace, Secret, Edges

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

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• Can you stop your memory on a dime, put it in reverse, and spin it in another direction the way you can reverse direction on a tape recorder? We cannot forget on command. So we just have to let the forgetting happen as it will; we shouldn't rush it, and we certainly should not doubt the genuineness of our forgiving if we happen to remember. The really important thing is that we have the power to forgive what we still do remember.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Memories, Doubt, Forgiving

  4 Copy quote

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