Quotes about Reconciliation

When we forgive someone, it doesn't justify what they've done. It releases them into God's hands so He can deal with them.

He could not bear the thought that a barrier of words should drop between them again

If you know you have been forgiven, you will forgive and reconcile with others.

We may reconcile ourselves to the world at our peril, but it will never reconcile itself to us. . . . This unwillingness to die, doth actually impeach us of high treason against the Lord : is it not a choosing of earth before him ; and taking these present things for our happiness, and consequently asking them our very God (469)?

Truth is not always about pragmatic problem solving and making things "work," but about reconciling contradictions. Just because something might have some dire effects does not mean it is not true or even good. Just because something pleases people does not make it true either.

Forgiveness is to let go of our hope for a different or better past.

Seventy times seven is a medicine for a healing community, not for a community with all the answers beforehand and all the appropriate punishments afterwards.

Christ can hold together everything. In fact, Christ already does this; it is we who resist such wholeness, as if we enjoy our arguments and our divisions into parts.

It's time for Christianity to rediscover the deeper biblical theme of restorative justice, which focuses on rehabilitation and reconciliation, not punishment.

True transcendence always includes the previous stages and does not dismiss them or punish them, as most reforms and revolutions have done in history. This is true reconciliation, healing or forgiveness and always characterizes mature believers. They afterward seem to thank God for the pain and the trial.   good

What I am calling in this book an incarnational worldview is the profound recognition of the presence of the divine in literally "every thing" and "every one." It is the key to mental and spiritual health, as well as to a kind of basic contentment and happiness. An incarnational worldview is the only way we can reconcile our inner worlds with the outer one, unity with diversity, physical with spiritual, individual with corporate, and divine with human.

What, then, does it mean to follow Jesus? I believe that we are invited to gaze upon the image of the crucified Jesus to soften our hearts toward all suffering, to help us see how we ourselves have been "bitten" by hatred and violence, and to know that God's heart has always been softened toward us.