Yesterday I went to see “The Shack.” I loved it. I really loved it. Before you pan me or the movie, please see the movie. I am NOT endorsing the book or the theology of it’s author, William P. Young, who has also written an awful non-fiction book Lies We Believe About God . I would have to re-read “The Shack” to analyze all the differences between it and the movie. I would rather just see the movie again.
We don’t fully know God. I understand the discomfort in seeing Father God portrayed as a full-figured black woman. We have no problem accepting God as a Jewish carpenter or described as a lion or a lamb in scripture or portrayed as a lion in literature. I guess our discomfort about the black woman thing says more about us than about God. We don’t know all about God. We forget that.
Critics claim the movie portrays God as we would like Him to be and not how He is. I think the truth is that God is so much greater than we know or, in this life, can imagine. The movie dramatically lays out some truths about God that the world, and a lot of “Christians”should know and need to be reminded of. It portrays a God that is more loving and involved than we may be ready to handle.
The Love of God. God’s love is personal and beyond our understanding. That truth is sometimes lost in our imperfect attempts to convey the gospel. Love today is seldom experienced and often misunderstood. We were created to love and be loved and our loss of that truth is today’s greatest tragedy.
The Power of Forgiveness. The movie deals head on with perhaps the greatest tragedy one can face: the brutal loss of a child. It’s a great excuse for unforgiveness. It is unforgiveness, our own and our inability to forgive others that drains the joy of the Lord from our lives. That drain can only be plugged by the hard work of forgiveness. We need divine help to do that.
Sin is it’s own punishment. In our war against sin, we sometimes forget that God’s laws are not an arbitrarily constructed set of tests of our worthiness to receive His love. They are very practical guides to keep us out of trouble. They are variations of the advice not to touch stoves to avoid burns. We keep getting burned and keep blaming God for the advice and not the stoves for the burns.
We are not alone. We can live miraculously holding the hand of God. We can only live miserably alone. He never leaves us or forsakes us, even when it feels like He has. We walk lonely unproductive paths touting our foolish independence.
It’s not about now. It’s about forever. Delaying death is a multibillion dollar industry that perpetuates the lie that this is all there is. We need to better spend our time preparing for eternity rather than in trying to avoid it.
It’s not about religion; it’s about relationship. We have been saying this so much that I think we have lost an understanding of what it means. We desperately need to get that back and to learn how to retell that truth. We can only do that in relationship, not in religion.
Burn the book, but go see the movie. This movie doesn’t address every issue or answer every question. In fact, it raises issues and questions that followers need to be ready to answer. It’s another tool to help us understand why we are here and to appreciate and understand the God who put us here.
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