114 Quotes by Lewis B. Smedes

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.

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

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.

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.

There are some things about God that, were I to stop believing them, my world would change color, my hope would turn sour, and the meaning of my life would be yanked inside out.

True, the apostles did not expressly say that people will be saved only if they repent, believe, and confess. But most evangelicals assume with good reason that this is what the apostles implied.