Wm. Paul Young Quotes & Sayings

I don't just want a piece of you and a piece of your life. Even if you were able, which you are not, to give me the biggest piece, that is not what I want. I want all of you and all of every part of you and your day. — Wm. Paul Young

If you try to live this without me, without the ongoing dialogue of us sharing this journey together, it will be like trying to walk on the water by yourself. You can't! And when you try, however well intentioned, you're going to sink." Knowing full well the answer, Jesus asked, "Have you ever tried to save someone who was drowning?" Mack's chest and muscles instinctively tightened. He didn't like remembering Josh and the canoe, and the sense of panic that suddenly rushed back from the memory. "It's extremely hard to rescue someone unless he is willing to trust you." "Yes, it sure is." "That's all I ask of you. When you start to sink, let me rescue you. — Wm. Paul Young

Or, if you want to go just a wee bit deeper, we could talk about the nature of freedom itself. Does freedom mean that you are allowed to do whatever you want to do? Or we could talk about all the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom. Your family genetic heritage, your specific DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff that is going on at a subatomic level where only I am the always-present observer. Or the intrusion of your soul's sickness that inhibits and binds you, or the social influences around you, or the habits that have created synaptic bonds and pathways in your brain. And then there's advertising, propaganda, and paradigms. Inside that confluences of multifaceted inhibitors," she sighed, "what is freedom really? — Wm. Paul Young

The inside house of the soul is magnificent but fragile; any betrayals and lies embedded in its walls and foundation shift its construction in directions unimagined. — Wm. Paul Young

Walls divide while boundaries honor. — Wm. Paul Young

Responsibilites and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgement, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value. — Wm. Paul Young

Mack once told me that he used to speak his mind more freely in his younger years, but he admitted that most of such talk was a survival mechanism to cover his hurts; he often ended up spewing his pain on everyone around him. He says that he had a way of pointing out people's faults and humiliating them while maintaining his own sense of false power and control. Not too endearing. — Wm. Paul Young

Perhaps there is supranatural: reason beyond the normal definitions of fact or data-based logic; something that only makes sense if you can see a bigger picture of reality. Maybe that is where faith fits in. — Wm. Paul Young

Don't ever discount the wonder of your tears. They can be healing waters and a stream of joy. Sometimes they are the best words the heart can speak. — Wm. Paul Young

Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver ... to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly. Do you think this man cares about the pain and torment you have gone through? If anything, he feeds on that knowledge. Don't you want to cut that off? And in doing so, you'll release him from a burden that he carries whether he knows it or not
acknowledges it or not. — Wm. Paul Young

Every human being is a universe within themselves. Your mother and father participated with God to create a soul who would never cease to exist. Your parents, as cocreators, supplied the stuff, genetics and more, uniquely combined to form a masterpiece, not flawless but still astounding; and we took from their hands what they brought to us, submitting to their timing and history and added what only we could bring to them- life. You were conceived, a living wonder who exploded into being. — Wm. Paul Young

[ ... ] love is much stronger than your fault could ever be. — Wm. Paul Young

I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside. — Wm. Paul Young

Once you have hierarchy you need rules to protect and administer it, and then you need law and the enforcement of the rules, and you end up with some kind of chain of command or system of order that destroys relationship rather than promotes it. Hierarchy imposes laws and rules and you end up missing the wonder of relationship that we intended for you. — Wm. Paul Young

Emotions are the colors of the soul; they are spectacular and incredible. When you don't feel, the world becomes dull and colorless. — Wm. Paul Young

Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don't misunderstand me, both are needed- but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence — Wm. Paul Young

Transformation
without work and pain, without suffering, without a sense of loss
is just an illusion of true change. — Wm. Paul Young

The Bible doesn't teach you to follow rules. It is a picture of Jesus. While words may tell you what God is like and even what he may want from you, you cannot do any of it on your own. Life and living are in him and in no other. — Wm. Paul Young

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 his 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 into the future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe that I am good not know deep in your heart that I love you. You sing about it, you talk about it, but you don't know it. — Wm. Paul Young

Something in the heart of most human beings simply cannot abide pain inflicted on the innocent, especially children. Even broken men serving in the worst correctional facilities will often first take out their own rage on those who have caused suffering to children. Even in such a world of relative morality, causing harm to a child is still considered absolutely wrong. Period! — Wm. Paul Young

It is not the nature of love to force a relationship, but it is the nature of love to open the way. — Wm. Paul Young

Women, in general, will find it difficult to turn from a man and stop demanding that he meets their needs, provides security, and protects their identity, and return to me. Men, in general, find it very hard to turn from the works of their hands, their own quests for power and security and significance, and turn to me. — Wm. Paul Young

You have judged them worthy of love, even if it cost you everything. That is how Jesus loves. — Wm. Paul Young

Freedom is an incremental process. — Wm. Paul Young

Being always transcends appearance-that which only seems to be. Once you begin to know the being behind the very pretty or very ugly face, as determined by your bias, the surface appearances fade away until they simply no longer matter. — Wm. Paul Young

Does freedom mean that you are allowed to do whatever you want to do? Or we could talk about all the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom. Your family genetic heritage, your specific DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff that is going on at a subatomic level where only I am the always-present observer. Or the intrusion of your soul's sickness that inhibits and binds you, or the social influences around you, or the habits that have created synaptic bonds and pathways in your brain. And then there's advertising, propaganda, and paradigms. Inside that confluence of multifaceted inhibitors," she said, sighing, "what is freedom really? — Wm. Paul Young

You are the root, and only God knows that the flower will be. — Wm. Paul Young

Be willing to re-examine what you believe. The more you live in the truth, the more your emotions will help you see clearly. — Wm. Paul Young

There is always risk in relationships, but bottom line? The world has no meaning apart from relationships. Some are just messier than others, some are seasonal, others are difficult, and a few are easy, but every one of them is important. — Wm. Paul Young

PIE God enters by a private door, into every individual. - Ralph Waldo Emerson — Wm. Paul Young

He was sick of God and God's religion, sick of all the little religious social clubs that didn't seem to make any real difference or affect any real changes. — Wm. Paul Young

Why would the God of the universe want to be submitted to me?'
Because we want you to join us in our circle of relationship. I don't want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me. — Wm. Paul Young

We rightly feel fury, but we must not let go of joy's embrace, which is beyond our understanding. — Wm. Paul Young

It does a soul good let the waters run once in awhile-the healing waters. -pg. 85 — Wm. Paul Young

Mistakes are a part of life, and Papa works her purpose in them too. — Wm. Paul Young

Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established. — Wm. Paul Young

Since there were three of them, maybe this was a Trinity sort of thing. But two women and a man and none of them white? — Wm. Paul Young

Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. — Wm. Paul Young

I came to give you life, real life, my life. We will come and live our life inside you, so that you begin to see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and touch with our hands, and think like we do. But we will never force that union on you. If — Wm. Paul Young

When we three spoke ourselves into human existences the Son of God, we became fully human. We also chose to embrace all the limitation that this entailed. Even though we have always been present in this created universe, we now became flesh and blood. It would be like this bird (a jay), whose nature it is to fly, choosing to only walk and remain grounded. He doesn't stop being a bird, but it does alter his experience of life significantly. — Wm. Paul Young

John, we cannot allow the shadow-sickness to find a place inside our hearts. In this broken cosmos we grieve. We rightly feel fury, but we must not let go of joy's embrace, which is beyond our understanding. To feel all of this means that we are alive. — Wm. Paul Young

This, Tony, is a living land, not a construction site. This is
real and breathing, not a fabrication that can be bullied into
being. When you choose technique over relationship and
process, when you try and shortcut the speed of growing
awareness and force understanding and maturity before its time,
this - he pointed down and over the length — Wm. Paul Young

There are millions of reasons to allow pain and hurt and suffering rather than to eradicate them, but most of those reasons can be understood only within each person's story. — Wm. Paul Young

I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later. — Wm. Paul Young

We routinely disqualify testimony that would plead for extenuation. That is, we are so persuaded of the rightness of our judgment as to invalidate evidence that does not confirm us in it. Nothing that deserves to be called truth could ever be arrived at by such means. — Wm. Paul Young

(Jesus speaking) An awful lot of what is done in my name has nothing to do with me and is often, even if unintentional, very contrary to my purposes. — Wm. Paul Young

Perhaps true hangs increased the space in one's heart, creating openness that allowed for authentic community. — Wm. Paul Young

Religion must use law to empower itself and control the people who they need in order to survive. — Wm. Paul Young

Nan is the mortar that holds the tiles of their family together. — Wm. Paul Young

Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe & powerful. — Wm. Paul Young

Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect. — Wm. Paul Young

You know that place: where there is just you alone - and maybe God, if you believe in him. Of course, God might be there even if you don't believe in him. That would be just like him. He hasn't been called the Grand Interferer for nothing. — Wm. Paul Young

What do I do now?" "You wait," declared Mary. "For the appointed time. And while you wait, your work each day is to trust Him in whatever lies before you. When time is full, my Son will come for you and take you to the grandest wedding celebration, — Wm. Paul Young

So no, I'm not too big on religion ... and not very fond of politics or economics either ... And why should I be? They are the man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about. What mental turmoil and anxiety does any human face that is not related to one of those three? — Wm. Paul Young

Mackenzie, this world is full of tears, but if you remember I proimsed that it would be Me who would wipe them from your eyes. — Wm. Paul Young

God's voice has been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while the educated Westerners' access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just a book — Wm. Paul Young

Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn't mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don't ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors. — Wm. Paul Young

It is so easy to get sucked into the if-only game, and playing it is a short and slippery slide into despair. — Wm. Paul Young

Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. — Wm. Paul Young

This garden is your soul. This mess is you! Together, you and I, we have been working with a purpose in your heart. And it is wild and beautiful and perfectly in process. To you it seems like a mess, but I see a perfect pattern emerging and growing and alive - a living fractal. — Wm. Paul Young

The dark wave had receded, but he knew it wasn't gone, just a monster in waiting, lurking for another opportunity. For the moment it was tamed by the presence of this woman. This was no longer only a game or lighthearted adventure. This was war, and it seemed that the battlefield was in his own heart and mind; something old and hurt was in conflict with something that was beginning to emerge. — Wm. Paul Young

In some sense every parent does love their children. But some parents are too broken to love them well& others are barely able to love them at all.. — Wm. Paul Young

I," she [the Holy Spirit] opened her hands to include Jesus and Papa, "I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active and moving. I am a being verb. And as my very essence is a verb, I am more attuned to verbs than nouns. Verbs such as confessing, repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, singing, and on and on. Humans, on the other hand, have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules. Nouns exist because there is a created universe and physical reality, but the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless 'I am' there are no verbs and verbs are what makes the universe alive. — Wm. Paul Young

You don't play a game or color a picture with a child to show your superiority. Rather, you choose to limit yourself so as to facilitate and honor that relationship. — Wm. Paul Young

But without wisdom, imagination is like a cruel taskmaster. — Wm. Paul Young

One never knows if anything's a good idea. You just make a choice and go with the flow and see what happens. You only get one day's worth of grace, so why not spend it extravagantly. — Wm. Paul Young

Such a lie is unloving. In the name of caring about her, your lie became an inhibitor in your relationship with her, — Wm. Paul Young

Freedom involves trust and obedience inside a relationship of love. — Wm. Paul Young

Mackenzie, judgment is not about destruction, but about setting things right. — Wm. Paul Young

There is something joyful about storms that interrupt routine. Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules. And unlike illness, it is largely a corporate rather than individual experience. One can almost hear a unified sigh rise from the nearby city and surrounding countryside where Nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview. All those affected this way are united by a mutual excuse, and the heart is suddenly and unexpectedly a little giddy. There will be no apologies needed for not showing up to some commitment or other. Everyone understands and shares in this singular justification, and the sudden alleviation of the pressure to produce makes the heart merry. — Wm. Paul Young

Responsibilities and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgement, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value ... Honey, I've never placed an expectation on your or anyone else. The idea behind expectations requires that someone does not know the future or outcome and is trying to control behavior to get the required result. Humans try to control behavior largely through expectations. I know you and everything about you. Why would I have an expectation other than what I already know? And beyond that, because I have no expectations, you never disappoint me ... What I do have is a constant and living expectancy in our relationship, and I give you an ability to respond in any situation and circumstance in which you find yourself. To the degree that you resort to expectations and responsibilities, to that extent you neither know me nor trust me ... — Wm. Paul Young

It (trying to keep the law) grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainly out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse. — Wm. Paul Young

You need boundaries ... even in our material creations, boundaries mark the most beautiful of places, between the ocean and the shore, between the mountains and the plains, where the canyon meets the river. — Wm. Paul Young

God asks for trust," Eve declared. "I was wrong to turn." "But why didn't God stop you? Why did God let you turn your face away?" "Lilly, I have learned that God has more respect for me than I do for myself, that God submits to the choices I make, that my ability to say no and turn my face away is essential for Love to be Love. Adonai has never hidden His face from me, nor has He kept from me the consequences of my choosing. That is why many of my sons and my daughters curse the face and name of God. But God refuses to be like what we have become and take power and dominion. He has the audacity to consent and even submit to all our choosing. Then He joins us in the darkness we create because of all our turning. — Wm. Paul Young

Many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. Love is just the skin of knowing. — Wm. Paul Young

Evil is the word that discribes the abscense of God , simply the same as the word darkness discribes the abscense of light , and the word death the abscense of life .Evil and darkness can only be understood in their relations with the good and the light, because in fact they don't exist .I'm the light and I am God . I am love and in Me there's no darkness . The light and good really exist .That's why when U avoid Me , you fall into the darkness .Showing independence leads to evil , cause without Me you can only rely on your self . That's death because you are walking away from Me , The life . — Wm. Paul Young

Don't forget that in the midst of all your pain and heartache, you are surrounded by beauty, the wonder of creation, art, your music and culture, the sounds of laughter and love, of whispered hopes and celebrations, of new life and transformation, of reconciliation and forgiveness. — Wm. Paul Young

Mack likes to say that they all got their good looks from him, ... cuz Nan still has hers. — Wm. Paul Young

Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. — Wm. Paul Young

When I am your life, submission is the most natural expression of my character and nature, and it will be the most natural expression of your new nature within relationships. — Wm. Paul Young

Through ... lies you try to run your life and manipulate others ... Lies become an inhibitor in your relationship ... — Wm. Paul Young

Love will never condemn you for being lost, but love will not let you stay there alone, even though it will never force you to come out of your hiding places. — Wm. Paul Young

Why do children love to hide and seek? Ask any person who has a passion to explore and discover and create. The choice to hide so many wonders from you is an act of love that is a gift inside the process of life. — Wm. Paul Young

Each relationship between two persons is absolutely unique. That is why you cannot love two people the same. It simply is not possible. You love each person differently because of who they are and the uniqueness that they draw out of you. — Wm. Paul Young

If a rainbow makes a sound, or a flower as it grows, that was the sound of her laughter. — Wm. Paul Young

This life is only the anteroom of a greater reality to come. No one reaches their potential in your world. — Wm. Paul Young

You are wise in the ways of real love, Mackenzie. So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. Love is just the skin of knowing. Mackenzie, you love your children, whom you know so well, with a wonderful and real love. — Wm. Paul Young

Don't ever think that what my Son chose to do didn't cost us dearly. Love always leaves a significant mark," she stated softly and gently. "We were there together."
Mack was surprised. "At the cross? Now wait. I thought you left him - you know - 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" It was a Scripture that had often haunted Mack in The Great Sadness.
"You misunderstand the mystery there. Regardless of what he felt at that moment, I never left him."
"How can you say that? You abandonded him just like you abandoned me!"
"Mackenzie, I never left him, and I have never left you."
"That makes no sense to me," he snapped.
"I know it doesn't, at least not yet. Will you at least consider this: when all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me? — Wm. Paul Young

Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself- to serve. — Wm. Paul Young

All I want from you is to trust me with what little you can, and grow in loving people around you with the same love I share with you. It's not your job to change them, or to convince them. You are free to love without an agenda. — Wm. Paul Young

You ... were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around ... Living unloved is like clipping a bird's wing and removing its ability to fly ... A bird is not defined by being grounded but by his ability to fly. Remember this, humans are defined not by their limitations, but by the intentions I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image. Love is NOT the limitation; love is the flying. I AM love. — Wm. Paul Young

Cabby was saying
"someday" ... someday Tony would love him. He hoped it might
be true. Perhaps Cabby knew things that he didn't — Wm. Paul Young

Image and appearance tell you little. The inside is bigger than the outside when you have the eyes to see. — Wm. Paul Young

Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want. — Wm. Paul Young

The right book, like the right song or the right love, can change the entire cosmos, for the right person, of course. And then it spills out from there. — Wm. Paul Young

Remember, that choosing to stay on the ground is a choice to facilitate a relationship, to honor it. You don't play a game or color a picture with a child to show your superiority. Rather, you choose to limit yourself so as to facilitate and honor that relationship ... It is not about winning and losing, but about love and respect. — Wm. Paul Young

God gently reached around His son, embracing him.
"Love takes risks, dear one. You have the freedom to say no to Us, no to Love, to turn your face away."
Adam frowned. "And if I did such a thing, what would happen?"
"In turning you would find within yourself a shadow. This darkening would become more real to you than I am. From then, until you re-turned your face to Mine, this empty nothingness would deceive you about everything, including who We are to you, and who you are to all creation. — Wm. Paul Young

Jesus picked up the conversation. As the crowning glory of creation, you were made in Our image, unencumbered by structure and free to simply 'be' in relationship with Me and one another. If you had trully learned to regard one another's concerns as significant as your own, there would be no need for hierarchy. — Wm. Paul Young

Home is not as much about a place you belong, as people you belong to. — Wm. Paul Young

I am what some would say 'holy, and wholly other than you.' The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn't much, and then call that God. And while it may seem like a noble effort, the truth is that it falls pitifully short of who I really am. I'm not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think. — Wm. Paul Young