Reflections on “The Shack”   

 

Like many others, reading The Shack by Wm. Paul Young opened the door to some conversations with and about God.  I was serving as an Associate Pastor when I read it, and led a book study with members of the congregation.  It was amazing to me to see good and faithful people think about and question God in new ways.  Particularly, to read The Shack people for whom believing in God couldn’t have been easy because of difficult and painful sadness in their lives.  Like the woman whose husband committed suicide in front of their teenage son.  Or the man who had been let go from one of the “big three” American auto companies, and who just couldn’t find a job anywhere.  Or the World War II veteran who lost a son in Viet Nam and was caring for his wife who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. 

 

The Shack is about a man, Mack, who is suffering from “the great sadness.”  His sadness is from his daughter’s abduction and death.  As readers, we accompany him through his grief, anger, confusion, and struggles with God. 

 

As I said, there are many interesting starting points for conversation with and about God in the book and the movie.  For example, in the chapter called “Here Come Da Judge,” Mack is invited to be the judge.  It comes out that Mack does sit in judgment on what happened to his daughter.  He certainly blames the man who abducted her, and that man’s father who made him a victim of abuse….  Mack’s judgments take him all the way back to God.

“Isn’t that your just complaint, Mackenzie?”  That God has failed you, that he failed Missy?  That before the Creation, God knew that one day your Missy would be brutalized, and still he created.  And then he allowed that twisted soul to snatch her from your loving arms when he had the power to stop him.  Isn’t God to blame, Mackenzie?”

 

“’Yes!  God is to blame!’  The accusation hung in the room as the gavel fell in his heart.”

 

Can you think of a time you felt this way?  Either because of “the great sadness” in your life, or the life of someone you love?  What is your great sadness?

 

The scene in The Shack continues…

           

“’Then,’ she said with finality, ‘if you are able to judge God so easily, then you certainly can judge the world.’  Again she spoke without emotion.  ‘You must choose two of your children to spend eternity in God’s new heavens and new earth, but only two.’”

 

Mack insists that he is not able to make that decision, to sentence any of his children to hell.  “For him, it wasn’t about their performance, it was about his love for them.” 

 

“’Could I go instead?  If you need someone to torture for eternity, I’ll go in their place.  Would that work?  Could I do that?’”

 

“’Mackenzie, Mackenzie,’ she whispered, and her words came like a splash of cool water on a brutally hot day….  ‘Now you sound like Jesus….’”

 

“’You have judged them worthy of love, even if it cost you everything.  That is how Jesus loves.’”

 

O Lord God, thank you for the love that will not let us go.  As we journey through Lent, be with us and guide us.  Never leave us, in all our wanderings, we pray.  Amen.