more Shack lessons and...

I am continuing to read the Shack, I am almost finished. I really need to get new glasses though, I keep getting headaches and seeing very blurry pages after about a half an hour!!! UGH Otherwise I could have been done with this book by now. However, it has made me slow down and take everything I can from this book and all that it has to offer, so some good is comng out of being lazy and putting off an eye exam :)
last night in my readings I came across this quote for starters "God is a verb"- Buckminster Fuller
In chapter 14 page 195 the middle of the page Sarayu (God) is saying to Mack "For you to know or not," she exclaimed, "has nothing at all to do with whether I am actually here or not. I am always with you; sometimes I want you to be aware in a special way- more intentional." That really hit home with me. I know in my heart and everything that I have that God is always with me. I appreciate that He wants me to know at special times that He is VERY present. Growing up so many times He has revealed Himself to me that He and His presence are with me and that I am not alone. Whether entering into battles of all sorts or just being alone in the moment, He has shown Himself and reflecting back on that gives me a simple tingle of the spine and a a bit of a knock on the brain as to say, how many times has He been trying to tell you He is here with you and I may have not heard Him. So going forward I pray that I am more in tune and deep in my relationship with my Heavenly Father that when He calls me or shows Himself to me in all sorts of different circumstances that I will be listening and ready!

A couple pages further and God is helping Mack to understand that he is afraid of his emotions, and Mack asked God if He created all emotions or "...just the good ones?"
Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions. (Paradigms as per the dictionary: A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.) Most emotions are responses to perception- what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions, and beyond that check the truthfulness of your paradigms-what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn't make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe. The more you live in truth, the more your emotions will help you to see clearly. But even then, you don't want to trust them more than ME. (God)
Next They continue the conversation and God says this to Mack... "Mack, religion is about having the right answers, and some of their answers are right. But I am about the process that takes you to the LIVING ANSWER and once you get to him, he will change you from the inside. There are a lot of smart people who are able to say a lot of right things from their brain because they have been told what the right answers are, but they don't know me at all. So really, how can their answers be right even if they are right, if you understand my drift? So even though they might be right they are still wrong."
Needless to say this book has reopened my eyes in many way, and in other ways... well opened them truly to My God and what He wants for my life.