Sunday 7 February 2010

I just finished reading…

Well not *just* but recently. ‘The Shack’ by William P Young.

It was a Christmas gift from Peter.

I really enjoyed this book. It weaves the tale of ‘Mack’, a man struggling with a Great Sadness: His daughter, Missy, was abducted and brutally murdered during a family camping trip.

Mack struggles with the question, “why”. Why does God let bad things happen? Why his family? I guess he mostly blames God.

And then he receives a note from ‘Papa’, inviting him to meet Him at the shack. The place where his daughter was murdered.

Mack goes to the shack, and meets Papa – who is God, Jesus, and Sarayu – a representation of the Holy Spirit.

I have to say, I LOVE the way this book portrayed the holy trinity. Papa, Jesus & Sarayu, they all love and laugh and live. They make you want to love them. And I think that was a revelation that I really needed. God is not the big scary guy up there, He LOVES us. Loves me.

Mack has a number of days in the shack with these three. Learning so much about them, about why God gave us a free will, and how that relates to why bad things happen in this world. Some pages I had to read over and over again to get them to sink in. It gets pretty deep.

The trinity help Mack to battle his demons, get some answers, and some of the closure he needs. But most importantly he learns the importance of relationship, and why that is the true basis of Christianity.

This book isn’t theology. It’s one man’s interpretation of how things work. There were some things that I didn’t fully understand or agree with. But there is a lot of truth in there. I guess that’s where your own discernment has to come in.

I would definitely recommend this book. It is a really good read, even if you only want to read it for fiction’s sake.

3 comments:

  1. Hey, I'm half way through this book!
    How about that?!
    I'm really enjoying it too.

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  2. Ha! Co-inkydink :)

    I hope you get as much out of it as I did! I'd be interested in knowing what you think after reading it.

    Zoey x

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  3. woohoo! I'm about halfway through this, I've taken a small break to get through exams, but it's made me cry more than once already. Fantastic book.

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Thank you!!

 

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