David A. Powlison > Quotes

“The love of Christ for me will get last say. He is merciful to me for his name’s sake, for the sake of his own goodness, for the sake of his steadfast love and compassion (Psalm 25). When he thinks about me, he remembers what he is like, and that is my exceeding joy. My indestructible hope is that he has turned his face towards me, and he will never turn away.”
― David Powlison

“We don’t just need a perspective or a strategy. We need a Savior, right here, right now.”
― David A. Powlison, Speaking Truth in Love: Counsel in Community

“By instinct, habit, and enculturation, all of us tend to think of counseling as a human-with-human interaction. But in fact a human-with-Savior interaction must come first. When I as a counselor don’t get that straight, I inevitably offer others some sort of saviorette.”
― David A. Powlison, Speaking Truth in Love: Counsel in Community

“learn to love others intelligently rather than demand their affirmation and adoration.”
― David A. Powlison, Speaking Truth in Love: Counsel in Community

“There is grace for the humble. Grace for those who ask for it. Instead of confessing others’ sins, you can confess your own. Instead of proudly proclaiming your own rightness, you can confess your many sins, failings, and weaknesses and ask for grace. Instead of railing against God when you don’t get what you want, you can submit yourself to God and draw near to him.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“Here is the sweet paradox in how God works. He blesses those who admit that they need help: The poor in spirit are blessed (Matthew 5: 3). Sanity has a deep awareness, I need help. I can’t do life right on my own. Someone outside me must intervene. The sanity of honest humility finds mercy, life, peace, and strength. By contrast, saying we don’t need help keeps us stuck on that hamster wheel of making excuses and blaming others. The end result isn’t life and peace; it’s self-righteousness, self-justification, alienation, and bitterness.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“Every time you get angry, you make your values and point of view explicit.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“Jesus did not live a calm life. He cared too much. Yet he was not a tense person. He was not irritable, anxious, or driven. But he was not detached, cool, or aloof, either. He was no stoic or Buddhist. He plunged into the storms of human sufferings and sins. He felt keenly. At his friend Lazarus’s tomb, in the presence of death and human woe, he both bristled with anger and wept with sorrow.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“There is nothing so unromantic as love. 3 Romantic feelings of attraction and pleasure will sometimes be associated with love, but the essence of love is different: a whole-hearted commitment to act for another’s welfare.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“None of us are as bad as we could be (though some people come close). None of us are as good as we should be (and the more you know yourself, the more you see how you fall short). Each of us is a microcosm: a perpetual skirmish in the Great War between good and evil.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“It’s no accident “Love is patient” comes first in 1 Corinthians 13. Patience isn’t very dramatic, but it counts.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“On the day you die, you’ll still be somewhere in the middle. But you will be further along.”
― David A. Powlison, Making All Things New: Restoring Joy to the Sexually Broken

“Sanity has a deep awareness, I need help. I can’t do life right on my own. Someone outside me must intervene. The sanity of honest humility finds mercy, life, peace, and strength. By contrast, saying we don’t need help keeps us stuck on that hamster wheel of making excuses and blaming others. The end result isn’t life and peace; it’s self-righteousness, self-justification, alienation, and bitterness. Chapter 3 How Does That Shoe Fit?”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“Everyday complaining is so often about convenience and ease—but you can learn that other things are much more important. You want something better out of life than simply becoming one more complainer and cynic. That human kindness gives a sip of the fresh water of wisdom. God is the spring itself, the mighty river of living water. Jesus said that he went about the work of “making disciples.” That’s just a fancy way to say making us over so that we become like him in the way we treat people.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“Angry people always talk to the wrong person. They talk to themselves, rehearsing the failings of others. They talk to the people they’re mad at, reaming them out for real and imaginary failings. They talk to people who aren’t even involved, gossiping and slandering. But chaotic, sinful, headstrong anger starts to dissolve when you begin to talk to the right person—to your good Shepherd, who sees, hears, and is mercifully involved in your life.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord” (Proverbs 19: 3).”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“Whereas the world can reduce our explanations of psychiatric problems to the body, the Christian community can reduce it to Satan.”
― David Powlison, Journal of Biblical Counseling 28-2

“We are meant to live with God on the throne, with a wide-open heart to him and others. But a contentious, judgmental person has shriveled up inside, shutting down to both God and neighbor. On the outside, a contentious person speaks rotten words that tear down rather than build up and condemn rather than give grace (Ephesians 4: 29). On the inside, a person swept up in sinful anger has become demonic and diabolical—in the truest sense—an image-bearer of the hostile critic of God’s people (James 3: 15; 4: 7).”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“Mercy is an entirely different way of reacting to offenses, to things we think are wrong. Think about this: mercy is not a non-reactive indifference—because it cares. And it’s the furthest thing from approval—because what’s happening is wrong. Mercy includes a component of forceful anger, but anger’s typical hostility, vindictiveness, and destructiveness does not dominate. True mercy proceeds hand in hand with true justice. It brings mercy to victims by bringing justice. While working hand in hand with justice, it offers mercy to violators. Mercy contains a combination of attitudes and actions that proceed in a constructive, instead of destructive, way. Mercy, including its component of constructive anger, is an amazing act of love. It’s how we love in the face of something wrong. I can know something is utterly wrong, yet I can act constructively.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“No one can understand a person who isn’t willing to hold two opposites together. You can’t understand yourself without holding the creation and fall together.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“The more insoluble and heartbreaking a problem, the smaller the action that is called for in any particular moment.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“We often think that an “anger problem” must mean some major personal or interpersonal trouble. We think that the main sins to be solved are the violence, the tantrums, the arguing, the rancor, the deep-seated bitterness, the sour attitude. It’s true, these are serious business. If they remain unsolved, human life becomes a living hell. But in my experience, I’ve found that it’s often best to start with little problems. Disentangle your complaining. Come out to the clear, firm alternative. How on earth does a sour, negative attitude become a sweet, constructive spirit? Learn that and you’ve learned how to live well. You learn the secret of contentment (Philippians 4: 11–12).”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“The truth is that you can’t understand God’s love if you don’t understand his anger.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“The more insoluble and heartbreaking a problem, the smaller the action that is called for in any particular moment. We are slow to grasp this. Great suffering produces great anger, great fear, and great despair in part because no great solution is possible. But small kindnesses matter a great deal.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus.”
― David A. Powlison, Seeing with New Eyes

“Figure 1. Five Questions to Help Discern Your Calling”
― David Powlison, Journal of Biblical Counseling 28-3

“I was never meant to control the world, but that does not mean the world is random, purposeless, and out of control.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“The key to getting a long view of sanctification is to understand direction. What matters most is not the distance you’ve covered. It’s not the speed you’re going. It’s not how long you’ve been a Christian. It’s the direction you’re heading.”
― David A. Powlison, Making All Things New: Restoring Joy to the Sexually Broken

“People in conflict have distorted hearing and speaking. We tune in to the same wavelength we broadcast on. I’ll listen for and speak whatever proves you wrong and proves me right. It’s the wrong channel. Angry people are unreasonable. We don’t talk sense when we are contentious.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness

“There’s something high and mighty about anger, when distilled to its basic elements. Anger goes wrong when you get godlike. Your desires become divine law. Poke your way into every example of bad anger, and you’ll find god-playing.”
― David A. Powlison, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness