The Shack – I’m undone

Nearly a year ago, a friend spoke to me about the book, The Shack by WM Paul Young, and she posted it to me through our letter hole. As you would expect, life happened, and the book was stuck along with all the other books on our bookshelf, beautifully displayed in our living room. Over the past months, I have read several books and have been blessed immensely, but nothing ever prompted me to read The Shack. But a few weeks back, I was unwell and had to rest it out for a few days. Interestingly, I was drawn to the book, so with nothing but time on my hands, I began to flip the pages while wondering why it never occurred to me to read it and why my friend has also not asked for her book back.

Well, sit back and put your feet up because nothing prepared me for the journey I went on in the three days and sometimes nights I spent in this book. I have felt strongly to share the few lessons I picked up from the book. Hopefully, I will be able to do the book the justice it deserves. I promise you; this will be worth your while. For anyone who hasn’t read the book, I will not give much away as the experience is best had when you actually read the book. For those who have already read the book, this will be a refresher or reminder as I share my interpretation of what the book offers.

The relationship and the trust

I have struggled to understand how the Trinity works for many years. The Shack brought a lot of revelation to what the Trinity is. When we think about the vastness of God, it’s complicated to comprehend who He actually is, but He still wants us to understand who He is and be able to relate to the Trinity by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, Colossians 1:15. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit came on Earth in the form of a man and took on all humans’ limitations to understand how it feels to be human. God chose to live fully in Jesus so He can relate to humans, and the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus to do all He did. The bible says in Ephesians 3 that, before the foundations of the earth, the Lord had us in His mind, and we were the focus of His love. Through Jesus Christ, He adopted us into His family, and now He empowers us through the Holy Spirit to live and walk in His likeness. His love for us takes precedence over everything He does for us. Through this love, He chooses to bless us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world. With this kind of love pouring on us, God desires our heart to love Him back too. But how can we love such a mighty and powerful God who holds the whole world in His hands? Jesus was the manifestation of God on Earth, and following Him and learning how He lived His life helps us have the same relationship with God. We can only attempt to give Him our heart by trusting Him because my heart can only love if I can trust the person I am in love with. With our trust firmly rooted in Him, we will be able to love Him and give Him all the glory due His name. To trust our Father in heaven is to relinquish all we hold dearly to Him and believe that He will take good care of it. God is offering us a chance to genuinely let our hearts loose so He can fill it up with all of Him so we can be all He has created us to be.

The knowing and our perception

To truly love the object of your love, you will have to make an effort to know them by spending time with them and learning all you can think of about them. In a way, we hope that we will be satisfied with our knowledge of them by putting in such effort. This same principle applies to our relationship with our Father; to satisfyingly know Him, we will need to spend time with Him through His word. This is not a tick in the box exercises; where we rush through the bible or a devotional guide to prove our knowledge of God. This will mean meditating, listening and receiving from God through His word. By committing to the word of God, the word will actually come alive to you. The Bible changes from being a book about God to be a living thing that can affect your paradigm.

For we have the living Word of God, which is full of energy, and it pierces more sharply than a two-edged sword. It will even penetrate to the very core of our being where soul and spirit, bone and marrow meet! It interprets and reveals the true thoughts and secret motives of our hearts. Hebrews 4:12 TPT

When we delight in getting to know the Father, He will delight in revealing His will to us. Furthermore, being created in His image implies that the more we know Him, the more we will know ourselves, and we can agree that that will be so freeing for us. Knowing who we truly are will undoubtedly influence our life choices and enable us to live our lives like God originally intended. We live in an emotion-driven world, where most of our actions are influenced by our feelings. Hence how I feel about the life around me affects how I see life. Do you know your emotional’ source, and can you trust your emotions and feelings? How do you protect your emotions from being powered from a distorted lens so that the brokenness in you doesn’t manipulate the way you see life. Having the Lord as your life source changes your paradigm and, subsequently, our perception of life. Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path. Psalms 119:105. Let the word of God be your guide, and subsequently, your perception of life would be powered by it.

His expectancy

Jesus is not looking for servants and workers who work for Him and keep themselves busy with stuff. Well, Martha will attest to this as Jesus told her off for being a busybody. God is looking to build relationships with His children through His son Jesus. Jesus’s death made us His friends, and that’s why the Bible says we are joint-heirs with Christ. It’s no use being a busybody for God if you do not personally have a relationship with Him. The world applauds our achievements and accomplishments, but God seeks commitment and relationships. Our need to serve and give should be driven by a desire to please the Father and not man. The excessive pressure we put on ourselves to perform mostly comes from fear; fear of disappointment, failure, rejection and misunderstanding. God is offering us His perfect life that cast out all fears. God never wants us to do stuff out of expectations but out of the abundance of our love for Him. How much stuff are you involved with because you believe God expects you to be doing them? God hasn’t got a to-do list, ticking off your task. How many of us have been pressured to take on roles, especially in churches, which God hasn’t assigned us. When you find yourself doing a particular task that brings you no joy, ask your Father if that’s what He wants you to be doing. The more time we spend with God, the more we will understand how little He requires of us. The relationship He wants to build with us is based on our heart posture, not our hands’ works. We can’t do stuff to keep scores with God. The Father, who knows us more than we know ourselves, cannot be disappointed by anything we do; we get to live freely under His light and love, not under false expectations and responsibilities to please a man.

“Be sure to do the work the Lord gave you.” Colossians 4:17 ICB

This is just a snippet of the richness The Shack offers. If you haven’t read it yet, I will encourage you to read it. If you have already read it, I will encourage you to revisit The Shack and let God encounter you afresh.

Dear Child,
I know you have a lot of questions. Meet me at the secret place for a chat. I want to reveal to you a Me you haven’t met yet.

Abba (Father)

May you be filled with the Fullness of God and the Power of His Love!