There's hope

We bring into Jesus' relationship with us a most bizarre and alien way of thinking and seeing, which, of course, makes perfect sense to us, and to which we cling with a vengeance. And as we cannot hear our own accents, neither can we see our own blindness. It is impossible for us to push aside the weeds of our fallen minds and believe anything other than what we perceive through our blindness, but Jesus has penetrated our darkness and brought the Spirit of truth with him.

The Holy Spirit is not a spectator watching from the outside, giving abstract and external instructions that she hopes we will apply to our lives. She meets us in our gardens, in our garbage cans, in our shacks, bearing witness to the “unbelievable” world of Jesus and his Father—and our world, too...But we are a hardheaded lot, strong-willed and obstinate. Like first graders who think they are college professors, we know it all and cannot be told a thing, even as we leave a trail of wreckage behind us.— The Shack Revisited, pages 233-234

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Praise God that the Holy Spirit isn't on the outside! But we are a hardheaded group of people. I like his comparison of first graders and college professors; it sums up the situation nicely.
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