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And He Wants You To Keep That At The Front Of Your Mind? He Wants You To Stay Focused On The Darkest Seasons Of Your Life? How Could That Possibly Do Any Good?' . . . He Wants You To Remember Who Delivered You From That Time. That's The Point Of Holding On To Memory: Delivery, Not Darkness.

-Ted Dekker

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And He Wants You

Ted Dekker

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And He Wants You To Keep That At The Front Of Your Mind? He Wants You To Stay Focused On The Darkest Seasons Of Your Life? How Could That Possibly Do Any Good?' . . . He Wants You To Remember Who Delivered You From That Time. That's The Point Of Holding On To Memory: Delivery, Not Darkness.

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Dust To Dust, Ashes To Ashes. Halleluiah Amen, You Are Dismissed.

I Think Everything We Do, On One Level Or Another, As Writers, Most Of Our Writing Is Informed By Our World View. It's Informed By Our Own Understanding Of Spirituality; Things That Matter, Things That Are Important To Us. I Write About Things That Matter For Me.

There Is Indeed Good And There Is Indeed Evil, And Both Walk The Earth. But Good Has Little To Do With The Forms Of Religion, And Evil Has As Little To Do With So Much Behavior Condemned By Religion. Both Good And Evil Vie For The Passions Of The Heart. For Love!

Most Believers Struggle To Really Believe In The Supernatural As A Meaningful, Deterministic Reality Except During Moments When They Are Drawn To It, Perhaps During A Worship Service Or While Reading A Novel Like 'adam.' Being Drawn To This Truth Is The First Step To Living A Life In Accordance To This Truth.

You’re Pretty Sharp, Clive. Do You Believe In God?” Clive Smiled. “i Don’t Know, Should I?” Actually, Approaching The Matter From A Purely Logical Perspective, Yes. All The Evidence Points To The Existence Of A Creator. The Single Greatest Body Of Evidence Is The Dismal Failure Of Man’s Desperate Attempts To Come Up With A Reasonable Alternative, Beginning With Evolution. I’ve Always Looked At The Universe And Seen A Creator As Plainly As Most People Who Look At The Ocean See Water.

No One Wanted To Look At The Common Evils Of Society. Very Few Were Willing To Put Aside Their Own Pursuit Of Happiness Long Enough To Consider The Effects Of Greed And Jealousy Around Them. From What She'd Seen, Humans Were Essentially Troubled. For Every One Behind Bars, Another Ten Deserved To Be Behind Bars, But That Would Put One In Ten Americans Behind Bars.

Pursuit Of Happiness

The Fact Is Not Kill Entire Populations Is Able To Infect Entire Regions Of Land And Control The Only Cure.

If Slater Were Someone Else, Kevin Would Merely Be The Poor Victim Of A Horrible Plot. Unless He Was Killed By Slater, In Which Case He Would Be The Dead Victim Of A Horrible Plot

God Is Obviouslt God, And Heaven Obviously Exsists, And Every Word Spoken Here On Earth Turns Heads Up There.

The Light Came Into The Darkness, And The Darkness Did Not Understand It, But That No Longer Mattered Because The Light Was Now Obliteration The Darkness.

I Think Everything We Do, On One Level Or Another, As Writers, Most Of Our Writing Is Informed By Our World View.

Thrillers Provide The Reader With A Safe Escape Into A Dangerous World Where The Stakes Are As High As Can Be Imagined With Unpredictable Outcomes. It's A Perfect Genre In Which To Explore Hard Issues Of Good And Evil, A Mirror That Allows The Reader To See Both The Good And Not So Good In Themselves.

Dangerous World

That’s It?” Jason Asked. “you Spent An Hour Talking About How Lucky You Were To Be Dying?” No, Not Dying, Son. Living.

…it’s Not That You Don’t Have The Capacity To Accept The Truth. You Don’t Want To Accept It, And You Hide Behind Your Own Logic And Intelligence While The Truth Marches By. Step Out And Join It, For Goodness’’ Sake! Shout It Out In Full Step! I Believe!

Live To Discover, As Long As Discovery Leads To A Love That Comes From The Creator... Writing Was The Mirror To Life.

. . . Your History Is No Less Important To Your Survival Than Your Ability To Breathe. In The End, You Can Only Determine Whether To Saturate Your Memories With Pain Or With Perspective. Forgetting Is Not An Option. I Tell You The Truth Now: Pain Was Not God's Plan For This Life. It Is A Reality, But It Is Not A Part Of The Plan.

In Living We Die, In Dying We Live.

For Me, Writing Is An Experience. It's An Exercise In Which I Want To Discover Myself By Taking My Characters To The Edges Of Human Experience, To The Edges Of Themselves And Then, Asking Certain Questions - About Love, What Does It Mean To Love? What's Beauty? What Is True Beauty?

Wage War On Death. Live For Love.

Then As Now, Evil Begins Its Courtship Cloaked In Light. And The Heart Embraces What Is Should Flee. Forgetting It Once Had A True Lover. Love Will Prove Greater Than Lust. Sacrifice Will Overcome Seduction. And Blood Will Flow.

It Was There, Beyond The Skin Of This World, That A Cure Of Ugliness Could Be Found.

You Should Know Something, Miriam.... God Changed Our Futures Yesterday. There's No Other Explanation For What Happened. And It Wasn't The First God. If You Ever Need Hlep, You Might Want To Try The Second God.

I Always Managed To Get In Trouble, Like Every Kid. But I Had To Learn A Lot Of Hard Lessons On My Own, Without Parents Who Would Nurture Me And Guard Me Through That Part Of Life, At A Very Young Age.

There’s A Reason We Are Drawn To The Light. A Reason Why We Fear Darkness. It’s Important To Be Terrified And Unnerved About Certain Things. That Way We Will Choose Another Path. The Path That Leads Us To Truth And Love.

My Idea For Boneman's Daughters Came From The Loss Of My Own Daughter When She Left Home To Live With A Monster At Age 18. I Wanted To Throttle The Man, But She Was In Love, So All I Could Do Was Hope, Pray And Cry.

We Christian Writers Must Paint Evil With The Blackest Of Brushes, Not To Sow Fear, But To Call Out The Monsters To Be Scattered By Our Light. If Satan Cloaks Himself As An Angel Of White, Intent On Deceiving The World, Any Attempt On Our Parts To Minimize Evil Is Only Complicit With His Strategy... Turn To The Light; Don’t Fear The Shadows It Creates.

What Is Pure Bill? Or Excellent Or Admirable? The Death Of A Million People In A Flood? God Evidently Through So. He Is Incapable Of Acts That Are Not Admirable, And It Is He Who Brought About The Flood. How About The Slaying Of Children In Jericho? There Are A Few Bible Stories That Are Not As Terrible As They Are Happy. We Just Prefer To Leave Out The Terrible Part, But That Only Makes The Good Anemic.

This Will Wreck You! Today, Treat Everyone You Meet As If They're Going To Be Dead By Midnight. Extend All The Kindness And Understanding You Can, And Do It With No Thought Of Any Reward.

The Light Shines In The Darkness, But The Darkness Cannot Understand It

A Person Who Finds Silence And Solitude Boring Is A Person Who Is Himself Boring, Empty Of Anything Worth Consideration.

Born Of Black And White, Eaten With Worms, I'm A Saint, A Sinner, A Siren Of The Word, The Circle Knows Me, The Rest Just Wanna Trip On Grace Juice, Baby Showdown At Midnight

Black And White

Our Lives Hang In The Balance Of Unpredictable Situations. One Minute You're Driving Down The Road Whistling A Tune, The Next Moment The Car Right In Front Of You Spins Out Of Control And Crashes. How You Prepare For Those Unpredictable Occurrences Determines Whether You Live Or Die. Always Leave An Empty Lane To Your Right Or Left For Escape.

If You Could Find A Way To Peel Back The Skin Of This World So To Speak, Would You Really See This Supernatural Reality That Is Greater? Is It True That We Fight Not Against Flesh And Blood But Against Principalities And Powers? Every Young Person Wants To Know.

When You Step Away From It All, You Lose Perspective.

Anything Unnatural Was Not Naturally Believed. Faith, In Essence, Was Unnatural.

Unfortunately, The World Has Taken Some Of The Greatest Minds God Has Given Us And Locked Them Up In Cages. Most Very Brilliant Or Creative People Seem Strange To Ordinary People. Geniuses Are Almost Always Outcasts. The Intelligent Are Bullied On The Playground. They See The World Differently And Are Shunned For It. They Nearly All Turn Out To Be Lonely At The Least, Locked Up At The Worst. It's Human Nature To Encourage The Status Quo And Shun Those Who See Life Differently.

You Never Read Spider-man? Accepting Your True Identity Means Understanding That You Are A Stranger To This World. A Freak, Ostracized By The Very People You Want To Help.

There's Always Risk In Life's Most Rewarding Pursuits, Isn't There?

She Suddenly Began To Jump Up And Down, Screaming At The Top Of Her Lungs. "the Arks Are After Me! The Arks Are After Me! Help Me, The Arks Are After Me!" .... "the Arks! You Don't Understand, I Have The Ring And The Arks Are After Me!" .... (and So The Police Officer Is Puzzled Long Enough For Miriam And Seth To Escape)

I Believe!!!!!!!" - Johnny

My Journey Is So Similar To Everyone Elses Journey, Because We All Are Human. We All Have Been Defeated By The Powers Of Darkness, And We All Find Redemption In The Light Of Christ.

The Four Rules Of Writing... 1. Write To Discover. 2. There Is No Greater Discovery Than Love. 3. All Love Comes From The Creator. 4. Write What You Will.

Once Born Into Childlike Faith, Brimming With Belief, Typical People Begin To Lose Their Faith. Society Mocks Them. Their Friends Smirk. They Come To Change The World, But Over Time The World Changes Them. Soon They Forget Who They Were; They Forget The Faith They Once Had. Then One Day Someone Tells Them The Truth, But They Don’t Want To Go Back, Because They’re Comfortable In Their New Skin. Being A Stranger In This World Is Never Easy.

Pain Or Perspective, That's The Choice.' . . . You Choose Pain - You Choose To Fight It, Deny It, Bury It - Then Yes, The Choice Is Always Hard. But You Choose Perspective - Embrace Your History, Give It Credit For The Better Person It Can Make You, Scars And All - The Choice Gets Easier Every Time.

The Light Had Simply And Utterly Destroyed The Darkness.

My First Seven Novels Were Contemporary Spiritual Novels, My Next Nine Had Strong Elements Of Fantasy, And Now I'm Writing Thrillers, More As A Choice To Spread My Wings Than Anything. Writers, Like Good Wine, Should Mature With Age.

Suffering Is An Oxymoron. There Is Unfathomable Peace And Satisfaction In Suffering For Christ. It Is As Though You Have Searched Endlessly For Your Purpose In Life And Now Found It In The Most Unexpected Place: In The Death Of Your Flesh. It Is Certainly A Moment Worth Of Laughter And Dance. And In The End It Is Not Suffering At All. The Apostle Paul Recommended That We Find Joy In It. Was He Mad?

Living Is About Clucking Your Tongue And Enjoying The Sound. ~slater

The World Didn’t Like To Look At The Dark Underside Very Often. But That Didn’t Change The Ugliness; It Only Ensured That Those Who Perpetuated The Ugliness Were Left Alone To Kill And Maim And Rape.

Grow Up? Get Herself Straightened Out? Her Mind Reeled From The Verbal Battering. No Matter What She Did, Her Father Would Tell Her She Was Wrong. Worthless. Undeserving.

Whenever You Write On A Subject That Questions The Status Quo, There Are Bound To Be Many Who Wrestle With The Issues

Prayer May Just Be The Most Powerful Tool Mankind Has.” ~blink

The Problem With Any Philosophical Consideration Is That Once You Open A Door In Your Mind, You Can Never Close It. Once You Learn Something, You Can Never Convince Your Mind That You Didn't Learn It. If You Learn The World Is Round, You Can Never Fit In With A World That Thinks It's Flat.

She Was Having Some Difficulty Piecing Together Exactly Why She Deserved To Be In This Place, But She Wasn't Stupid Enough To Deny That In The End Life Was Cruel And Didn't Pay Attention To What Was Fair.

I Would Like My Readers To Close The Cover At The End And Say, 'wow, I Never Thought Of It Like That Before'.

Sin Thrives In The Dungeon, But Slap It On The Table For All To See, And It Withers Rather Quickly.

There’s Different Ways To Be Impacted By Truth. One Is To Read The Scriptures. Another Is To Read Other Works By Other People Who Have Read The Scriptures, Non Fiction For Example. Another Is To Do Studies. Another Is To Go To A Place Of Worship. Another Thing Is To Sit And Listen To Someone Who’s Speaking. There’s All Kinds Of Ways. Another Way Is To Write. About The Truth. Discover The Struggle Through Your Character.

Come Hither, My Dear. Come Hither, That I Mightest Protectest Thou!

How Can You Hope To Recognize Good And Evil For What They Truly Are If You Have No Belief In A Moral Authority Greater Than Yourself?

It's The Sorrow You Feel That Allows You To Crave Love. Without The Suffering, There Would Be No True Pleasure. Without Tears, No Joy. Without Deficiency, No Longing. This Is The Secret Of The Human Heart, Rom.

I Studied Philosophy, Religious Studies, And English. My Training Was Writing Four Full-length Novels And Hiring An Editor To Tear Them Apart. I Had Enough Money To Do That, And Then Rewriting And Rewriting And Rewriting.

In The End You Will Be Your Own Undoing. You Can't Escape You.

I Never Write My Stories As A Wake-up Call As Such. I Simply Explore The Kinds Of Situations That I Find Personally Challenging By Placing Characters Into Situations That Challenge Them In Similar Ways.

But Sometimes Imperfect Tools Lead Us Toward Perfect Ends.

Where Is God? Where Can I Find Him?" We Ask. We Don't Realize That's Like A Fish Swimming Frantically Through The Ocean In Search Of The Ocean

Like All Of My Fictions, 'sinner' Is A Mirror. Look Into It And You Will Find Yourself. What You Do With What You See Is Your Choice.

Finding Yourself

I Think A Woman Is Born With The Desire To Hear She Is Beautiful.

Some Would Say The Creator Is A Lamb. Some Would Say He's A Lion. Some Would Say Both. The Fact Is, He Is Neither A Lamb Nor A Lion. These Are Fiction. Metaphors. Yet The Creator Is Both A Lamb And A Lion. These Are Both Truths.

Writing Wasn't About Making Money. I Wanted To Find Fulfillment In Writing And Telling Stories, And That's What's Driven Me.

My Research For 'adam' Affected Me Profoundly, Particularly The Research Into Evil's Underbelly. We Tend Not To Think About Evil Until It Pokes Its Head Out Of The Air About Us And Then It Tends To Scare Us Silly. As Well It Should.

Evil Was Predictable, Always Painfully Expected.

Who’s To Say That It Takes Something Like A Drug To Mess With Your Perception Of Reality? How Did Hitler Deceive A Nation? How Can One Group Of People Look At The World And See One Thing, And Another See Something Completely Different? One Sees A Town, Another Sees A Desert. One Sees Beauty, Another Sees Chaos.” The Skin Of This World,” He Said Quietly.

Adrenaline Dulls Reason; Panic Kills It.

Dive Deep. Drown Willingly

All My Books Are Very Spiritual. I Started Out Writing What Was Most Natural To Me, Many Years Ago, Which Is Religious, Because I Grew Up In The Jungle, The Son Of Missionaries. I Want To Know, Is God Real? What's A Priest's Role?

If Readers, Young And Old, Would Take Even A Moment To Reflect On Our Rapidly Shifting Culture And Ideology, I Would Be Happy. Many Leaders Of The Older Generation Dismiss Emerging Culture. Those Leaders Are At Risk Of Becoming A Feeble Voice-piece Without Followers. Most Of The Younger Generation Is Going Deaf To The Truth.

And To Understand How Love Unfolds, You Must Understand How Elyon Loves.

To Love In Any Way Is To Be Like A Child—it Means To Be Vulnerable, To Be Wide-eyed, To Be Selfless. There Is No Such Thing As Free Love; Love Is The Most Costly Expression In The World. To Love Romantically Is To Give Of Oneself Fully And Completely, A Merging And Meshing Of Souls So That The Twain Become A Unity. It Is To Allow The Sense Of Wonder To Fully Enrapture.

The World’s Bumper Sticker Reads: Life Sucks, And Then You Die. Perhaps Christian Bumper Stickers Should Read: Life Sucks, But Then You Find Hope And You Can’t Wait To Die.

The Pain Was So Deep And So Raw. There Were Days I Would Have Died Just To Forget. The Problem Was, I Couldn't Figure Out How To Get Her Out Of My Mind. How Do You Kill That Kind Of Pain?

And Does Man Simply Choose Evil, Or Does He Create It?

Knowing You’re Worthless Doesn’t Give You Value Any More Than Knowing You Are A Captive Sets You Free.

I've Already Said You Can't Take Anything From Me That I Wouldn't Freely Give You.

You'll Have To Learn To Control Your Emotions. They're New, Like Achild's Now, Bursting With Passion. Never Let Them Fade, Or Part Of You Will Die. But They Cal Also Destroy You. Hold Them Dear, But Don't Let Them Take Hold Of You.

What Matters Is Discovering Myself Under The Veneer, Under The Layers That Are Wrapped Around Me. There Are Two 'yous'; There's 'you', The Real You, And Then There's The Image.

There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood Drawn From Immanuel's Veins. And Those Plunged Beneath That Watery Grave To Drink Of His Blood Will Never Be The Same.

My Writing Is A Very Authentic Journey Of Discovery. I'm Going Out There To Learn Who I Am. My Readers, Consequently, Take The Same Journey As My Protagonist.

What Was Once Obvious To Them Was No Longer Quite As Obvious. Why Was It That Humans Lost Sight Of Truth So Quickly?

Perfect, That's Our Plan Then. But You'll Have To Give Up Being A Priest First. I Wouldn't Want To Just Sit Around Whispering And Sipping Hot Chocolate.

The Sun Began To Set Behind Bethlehem And The Beams Were Breaking Through Some White And Gray Clouds. There Was A Slight And Beautiful Chill From The Autumn Air. I Gave Thanks For That Beautiful Day And For The Fact That The Sun Does Not Know Palestinian From Israeli, Christian From Muslim Or Jew, And Asian From American Or African, And I Asked Myself: If The Sun Shines On All Of Us As One, How Much More Does The Sun's Creator See And Love Us All As One?

And He Wants You To Keep That At The Front Of Your Mind? He Wants You To Stay Focused On The Darkest Seasons Of Your Life? How Could That Possibly Do Any Good?' . . . He Wants You To Remember Who Delivered You From That Time. That's The Point Of Holding On To Memory: Delivery, Not Darkness.

He Read Reports, Examined Evidence, And Poured More Reports Up The Chain Than The Pentagon Could Read. Nothing Short Of A Human Sieve. But In The End He Was Just One Small Piece On This Game Board Called War. End Of Story

But What Was Possible Or Practical Had Been Replaced By A Far Baser Impulse. Hope.

God Is With Me. Jesus Is Near. The Spirit Is Greater Than My Fear.

It Is Critical That Writers Who Embrace The Light Of Christ's Redemptive Love Characterize The Darkness Arrayed Against Us In A Way That Is Consistent With Its True Nature.

He Was As Needy As She Was. Alvin Finch Only Wanted To Be Needed. Loved. And Absent Of Either, He Resorted To Deflecting His Pain By Killing. Just Like A Teenager Might Resort To Deflecting The Pain Of Rejection By Cutting. People Did A Lot Of Crazy Things To Be Wanted.

My Stories Are Not Christianized At All. I Don't Even Have Any Christians In My Stories. What They Are, Are Stories About Ordinary People Going Through Extraordinary Circumstances In Which I'm Exploring Truth. How Light Overcomes Darkness In A Way That's Unmistakable To Anyone Who Has Any Kind Of Faith.

It's Critical That We Use A Very Dark Brush To Paint Evil. When You Bring The Light Into That Darkness As Characterized In John 1, That Light Is Very Vivid. When It Dispels The Darkness, We See The Brilliance That's There.

I Sell Ideas. Actually, If You Think About It, Everything Is Really No More Than Idea. The Past Is Nothing More Than A Memory, Which Is One Kind Of Idea. The Future Is Still A Hope, Another Kind Of Idea. The Present Is Fleeting And Becomes A Memory Before You Can Put Your Hands On It. All Ideas. I Sell Ideas.

The Battle Over Flesh And Blood Cannot Compare To The Battle For The Heart.

Keep Your Words. This Pain Is No Life." "you Only Feel Pain Because You're Alive, Boy!" The Keeper Thundered. "this Is The Mystery Of It. Life Is Lived On The Ragged Edge Of The Cliff. Fall Off And You Might Die, But Run From It And You Are Already Dead!

...most Men And Women Will Yield To The Strong Currents Sucking Them Into The Seas Of Ruin. Only The Strongest In Mind And Spirit Will Swim Against That Current.

Turn To The Light. Don't Fear The Shadow It Creates.

When I Sit Down To Write A Novel, I Am Exploring My Own Relationship With God, With The Struggle Between Good And Evil, My Own Purpose.

So Where Does Stan Fit In This Equation?... We Are Told To Meditate On Scripture, Even The Hald That Details The Consequences Of Evil, The Consequent Of Jericho And All. Not To Pretend Out God Has Somehow Changed Since The Time Of Christ. Obviously, Paul's Idea Of Admirable And Noble Is Quite Different From Ours. God Forgives Us, Bill. We Have Mocked His Victory By Whitewashing The Enemy For The Sake Of Our Neighbirs Approval." No Greater Love Has Any Man.

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