"'Mackenzie you really don't understand yet. You try to make sense of the world in which you live based on a very small and incomplete picture of reality. It is like looking at a parade through the tiny knothole of hurt, pain, self-centeredness. and power, and believing you are on your own and insignificant. All of these contain powerful lies. You see pain and death as ultimate evils and God as the ultimate betrayer, or perhaps, at best, as fundamentally untrustworthy. You dictate the terms and judge my actions and find me guilty.'
'The real underlying flaw in your life, Mackenzie, is that you don't think that I am good. If you knew I was good and that everything- - the means, the ends, and all the processes of individual lives - is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me. But you don't.'
'Mackenzie, you cannot produce trust like you cannot 'do' humility. It either is or is not. Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me.'

'Then it is you who determine good and evil. You become the judge. And to make things more confusing, that which you determine to be good will change over time and circumstance. And then beyond that and even worse, there are billions of you each determining what is good and what is evil. So when your good and evil clashes with your neighbor's, fights and arguments ensue and even war breaks out.' ....
'And if there is no reality of good that is absolute, then you have lost any basis for judging. It is just language, and one might as well exchange the word good for the word evil.' ....
'The choice to eat of that tree tore the universe apart divorcing the spiritual from the physical. They died, expelling in the breath of their choice the very breath of God. I would say that is a problem!'...
'I can see now,' confessed Mack, 'that I spend most of my time and energy trying to acquire what I have determined to be good, whether it's financial security or health or retirement or whatever. And I spend a huge amount of energy and worry fearing what I've determined to be evil.' ...
'Such truth in that..it allows you to play God in your independence. That's why a part of you prefers not to see me (The Holy Spirit). And you don't need me at all to create your list of good and evil. But you do need me if you have any desire to stop such an insane lust for independence.'
'So there is a way to fix it?' asked Mack.
'You must give up our right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms. That is a hard pill to swallow; choosing to only live in me. To do that you must know me enough to trust me and learn to rest in my inherent goodness."
"Mackenzie, evil is a word we use to describe the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light or death to describe the absence of Life. Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence. I am Light and I am Good. I am Love and there is no darkness in me. Light and Good actually exist. So, removing yourself from me will plunge you into darkness. Declaring independence will result in evil because apart from me, you can only draw upon yourself. That is death because you have separated yourself from me: Life.'
'That really helps. But I can also see that giving up my independent right is not going to be an easy process. It could mean that...' (she interrupts him.) '...that in one instance, the good may be the presence of cancer or the loss of income-or even a life.'
...Surely there were some rights that he could legitimately hold on to. ...'But what about..'
'Rights are where survivors go, so they won't have to work out relationships,' she cut in.
'But what if I gave up...'
'Then you would begin to know the wonder and adventure of living in me.'
Mack was getting frustrated. He spoke louder, 'But, don't I have the right to...'
'To complete a sentence without being interrupted? No, you don't. Not in reality. But as long as you think you do, you will surely get ticked off when someone cuts you off, even if it is God.' ;)
'Mackenzie, Jesus didn't hold hold on to any rights; he willingly became a servant and lives out of his relationship to Papa. He gave up everything, so that by his dependent life he opens a door that would allow you to live free enough to give up your rights.'

'..When I dwell with you, I do so in the present -- I live in the present. Not the past, although much can be remembered and learned by looking back, but only for a visit, not an extended stay. And for sure, I do not dwell in the future you visualize or imagine. Mack, you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me with you there?'
'Why do I do that?'
'It is your desperate attempt to get some control over something you can't. It is impossible for you to take power over the future because it isn't even real, nor will it ever be real. You try and play God, imagining the evil that you fear becoming reality, and then you try and make plans and contingencies to avoid what you fear.'
'So why do I have so much fear in my life?'
'Because you don't believe. You don't know that we love you. The person who lives by their fears will not find freedom in my love. I am not talking about rational fears regarding legitimate dangers, but imagined fears, and especially the projection of those in your future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe I am good nor know deep in your heart that I love you. You sing about it; you talk about it; but you don't know it.'

'The darkness hides the true size of fears and lies and regrets. The truth is they are more shadow than reality, so they seem bigger in the dark. When the light shines into the places they live inside you, you start to see them for what they are.''




--The Shack, William P. Young.

woo. that's only from where I started back at. At the right time too. :)