Quotes from
9 quotes · “Controlling the Unpredictable: The Power of Promising,” Christianity Today (Jan 21, 1983), Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve, The Art of Forgiving, Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don't Deserve
The future of the human family rides on… a promise spoken and not forgotten. A man named Abraham strode off into an unpredictable future because he gambled on the loyalty of a Promise uttered by a Presence he had scarcely begun to feel. And so a new possibility for history began. Moses tried to get a better fix on the identity of this Presence: "…what is your name?" he dared to ask. And the answer came: "…I am he who will be there with you" (Exod. 3:14). …Then a man from Galilee talked to his friends about sealing this ancient promise in his blood; and a day later he spilled it… on a mound they call Golgotha. "I am he who will be there with you" was there with us — dying, then rising, and then being with us until the end of the world. …Human destiny rests on a promise freely given and reliably remembered. Whenever you and I make and keep a promise, we are as close to being like God as we can ever be. When you say to anyone that you will be there with them, you are only a millimeter beneath the angels.
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
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.
Grace is the gift of being accepted before we become acceptable.
Waiting is the hardest work of hope.
Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk.
Shame is heavy; grace is light. Shame and grace are the two counterforces in the human spirit: shame depresses; grace lifts. Shame is like gravity, a psychic force that pulls us down. Grace is like levitation, a spiritual force that defies gravity. If our spiritual experience does not lighten our life, we are not experiencing grace.
I believe that I am accepted by the grace of God without regard to my deserving. I believe that I am accepted along with my shadows and the mix of good and bad I breed in them. I believe that I am worthy to be accepted.
He is a forgiving God who recreates our pasts by forgiving them. He is a promising God who controls our future by making and keeping promises.