WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2022 - THE SHACK

 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2022 - THE SHACK

This week I’m looking at three books that changed me - challenged me.  Today, a spiritual thesis.

The synopsis of The Shack says:

“After suffering a family tragedy, Mack Phillips spirals into a deep depression that causes him to question his innermost beliefs. Facing a crisis of faith, he receives a mysterious letter urging him to an abandoned shack in the Oregon wilderness. Despite his doubts, Mack journeys to the shack and encounters an enigmatic trio of strangers led by a woman named Papa. Through this meeting, Mack finds important truths that will transform his understanding of his tragedy and change his life forever.”

*****

Karen’s thoughts:

Having been in church settings all my life, and active in a variety of ways; this smashed a two-by-four into my theological views.  

God the Father, creator, omnipotent, omnipresent, all-loving as a heavy-set Black woman?  Really?  Jesus and the Holy Spirit are also in different configurations. C’mon now!!!

So Mack’s daughter is abducted and probably dead.  The great weight around his neck - he could have done more, he should have been more watchful - day after day that depression seeps around him.  If depression could be manifested as an odor, Mack would be worse than a Texas vegetable dump on the hottest day of the summer.  

Was this real?  Is God really more than the old man sitting on a magnificent throne?  

Mack wants JUSTICE.  He wants the man who kidnapped his daughter thrown into hell for all eternity.  He wants to judge the person himself and right now.  

God challenges Mack - can he really be a good judge?  God also takes Mack back through his childhood- of a father who was an alcoholic and beat him; of a church that listened to his father and not to him as he told the elders of the abuse.  

How could God be so wonderful if God just wasn’t going to correct the errors in the world?  God just wasn’t doing the job.

*****

God, in the book, is loving and forgiving, he knows of the beatings the man who abducted Mack’s daughter took growing up and how that man was saddled with such mental and abuse problems.  

God also knows and understands Mack’s abusive father (and there is reconciliation in a supernatural way in the book).

Eventually, Mack sees that he (Mack) can not be an impartial judge and God’s ways are way different than man’s ways.  

Many of my preconceived notions of God vanished with this book.  My faith got challenged and at times crumbled.  Yes, this is fiction, but I sense it really does give insights into the divine.

I’ve written in this blog that “God’s ways are not our ways”. Isaiah 55:8-9 says

““For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

If you have not read any of the three books I’m highlighting this week, this would be the first one to read (and besides, Atlas Shrugged is a very long book!!!).  I have listened to the audiobook version of The Shack multiple times and will go back again.

So far - two books:

Atlas Shrugged - the self is important - but self-importance and greed are rampant and destroy one’s inner being.

The Shack - God is beyond my limited human understanding - but is kind and merciful.

Tomorrow a book that I finished four days ago, that helps me understand man’s inhumanity towards his fellow man and some horrible conditions.

*****

LOVE WINS!!!

Karen

Wednesday, March 23, 2022