Kobe Bryant.....I can relate....it's all about trust!

"He knew he wasn't going to beat teams by himself," Odom said. "He's so good that it makes sense for him to think that because I've seen him do it before. I've seen him have [62 points] against Dallas, I've seen him get 81 on Toronto and just dismantle a team, but he understood that we had to get better. When he did that, when Kobe starts trusting you, that makes you play even better because when someone that good trusts you and drives you, you can't help but to get better."

I don't know if Lamar Odom could've said it better. I love the last part of what he says. It's the ability of trusting others that elevates the people around you and they can't help but get better because of that trust you have in them.

I look around and wonder how selfish I have looked over these years. I've masked it with my ability to open up enough, but however, there hasn't been that freedom to find my own sense of expression. My own reluctance was caught up with my inability to trust God, others, and in my failures, to trust myself. This lack of trust fragmented the sense of who I am and helped to allow myself to dichotomize my own being.

The haneous result of that is the fact that as I had chopped myself up, I did that to others. It is the lens by which we see ourselves that we ultimately see the rest of this world. However, I think the expression of that is most seen in those that reside the closest to our hearts.

"This is the way of the pharisees. They follow the law impeccably in order to induce God's love. The initiative is theirs...the pharisee must pursue a lifestyle that minimizes mistakes. Then, on Judgment Day, he can present God with a perfect slate and the reluctant Diety will have to accept it. The psychology of the pharisee makes a religion of washing cups and dishes, fasting twice a week, and paying tithes of mint, dill and cumin very attractive."

"This endless moralistic self-evaluation makes it impossible to feel accepted before God. His perception of personal failure leads to a precipitous loss of self-esteem and triggers anxiety, fear, and depression."

"The pharisee within usurps my true self whenever I prefer appearances to reality, whenever I am afraid of God, whenever I surrender the control of my soul to rules rather than risk living in union with Jesus, when I choose to look good and not be good, when I prefer appearances to reality."

Quotes from Brennan Manning's Abba's Child

God, help me to trust you, to learn to live in union with you....God I need you...