The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

by William Paul Young

“We carefully respect your choices, so we work within your systems even while we seek to free you from them,”

Jesus picked up the conversation. “As the crowning glory of creation, you were made in our image, unencumbered by structure and free to simply ‘be’ in relationship with me and one another. If you had truly learned to regard one another’s concerns as significant as your own, there would be no need for hierarchy.”

“we want to share with you the love and joy and freedom and light that we already know within ourselves. We created you, the human, to be in face-to-face relationship with us, to join our circle of love. As difficult as it will be for you to understand, everything that has taken place is occurring exactly according to this purpose, without violating choice or will.”

I am not evil. You are the ones who embrace fear and pain and power and rights so readily in your relationships. But your choices are also not stronger than my purposes, and I will use every choice you make for the ultimate good and the most loving outcome.”

In their disappointment, either they become softened toward me or they become bolder in their independence.

“The real underlying flaw in your life, Mackenzie, is that you don’t think I am good. If you knew I was good and that everything—the means, the ends, and all the processes of individual lives—is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me.

“Mackenzie, you cannot produce trust, just as you cannot ‘do’ humility. It either is or is not. Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me.”

“We’re not justifying it. We are redeeming it.”

Wowwwww

No wonder so many people are a little unnerved at relating to her, Mack thought. She obviously is not a being who is predictable.

Definitely accurate regarding the Holy Spirit

It’s not the work, but the purpose that makes it special.

The choice to hide so many wonders from you is an act of love that is a gift inside the process of life.”

Freedom involves trust and obedience inside a relationship of love.

Humans have a great capacity for declaring something good or evil, without truly knowing.”

The choice to eat of that tree tore the universe apart, divorcing the spiritual from the physical. They died, expelling in the breath of their choice the very breath of God.

“You must give up your right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms. That is a hard pill to swallow—choosing to live only in me. To do that, you must know me enough to trust me and learn to rest in my inherent goodness.”

I am light and I am good. I am love and there is no darkness in me. Light and Good actually exist. So, removing yourself from me will plunge you into darkness.

To you it seems like a mess, but I see a perfect pattern emerging and growing and alive—a living fractal.”

Such a powerful ability, the imagination! That power alone makes you so like us. But without wisdom, imagination is a cruel taskmaster.

do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?”

Jesus talking. Wow

It is impossible for you to take power over the future because it isn’t even real, nor will it ever be real. You try to play God, imagining the evil that you fear becoming reality, and then you try to make plans and contingencies to avoid what you fear.”

“So why do I have so much fear in my life?” “Because you don’t believe. You don’t know that we love you. The person who lives by his fears will not find freedom in my love. I am not talking about rational fears regarding legitimate dangers, but imagined fears, and especially the projection of those into the future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe I am good nor know deep in your heart that I love you. You sing about it, you talk about it, but you don’t know it.”

Bingo

It was all stunning, and Mack stood for a moment breathing it in. An image of Missy flashed in his mind but didn’t settle.

Sadness stealing the joy in the moment

“Well, this ‘blue-green ball in black space’ belongs to me,” Jesus stated emphatically.

“Have you noticed that even though you call me ‘Lord’ and ‘King,’ I have never really acted in that capacity with you? I’ve never taken control of your choices or forced you to do anything, even when what you were about to do was destructive or hurtful to yourself and others.”

“To force my will on you,” Jesus replied, “is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy.

Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect.

The world is broken because in Eden you abandoned relationship with us to assert your own independence.

By choosing to declare what’s good and evil, you seek to determine your own destiny. It was this turning that has caused so much pain.”

“It is so simple, but never easy for you: by re-turning. By turning back to me. By giving up your ways of power and manipulation and just coming back to me.” Jesus sounded as if he was pleading.

Being my follower is not trying to ‘be like Jesus,’ it means your independence is killed.

Check theology

Jesus would not have sent him in here without a good purpose. He pressed in farther.

So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. Love is just the skin of knowing.

Nothing is as it should be, as Papa desires it to be, and as it will be one day.

Normal is a myth,

“A better question might be, ‘What is real?’ ” “I’m beginning to think that I have no idea,” Mack offered.

“Would all this be any less ‘real’ if it were inside a dream?”

“The darkness hides the true size of fears and lies and regrets,” Jesus explained. “The truth is they are more shadow than reality, so they seem bigger in the dark. When the light shines into the places where they live inside you, you start to see them for what they are.”

learning to live loved.

Uninvited By Lysa T

You have to take the time to prepare the soil if you want it to embrace the seed.”

“It is a picture of my bride, the church: individuals who together form a spiritual city with a living river flowing through the middle, and on both shores trees growing with fruit that will heal the hurts and sorrows of the nations.

My church is all about people, and life is all about relationships. You can’t build it. It’s my job, and I’m actually pretty good at it,” Jesus said with a chuckle.

After a moment he decided to join Jesus,

He decided to "join" not copy. What a perspective... Like when I feel like I don't want to look like i'm copying someone.. In reality I could be joining them. Like during worship when I want to kneel but don't want to look like i'm copying, in actuality, I am joining them in kneeling before the Lord! What a priveledge and beautiful thing it is to join someone at the feet of Jesus.. Not copy them. WOW RENEW THE MIND!!!!

Jesus said with a bite of his own. “An awful lot of what is done in my name has nothing to do with me and is often, even if unintentional, very contrary to my purposes.”

Systems cannot provide you security, only I can.”

“If you try to live this without me, without the ongoing dialogue of us sharing this journey together, it will be like trying to walk on the water by yourself. You can’t! And when you try, however well intentioned, you’re going to sink.”

“It’s extremely hard to rescue someone unless he is willing to trust you.”

You are free to love without an agenda.”

“Mack, the world system is what it is. Institutions, systems, ideologies, and all the vain, futile efforts of humanity that go with them are everywhere, and interaction with all of it is unavoidable. But I can give you freedom to overcome any system of power in which you find yourself, be it religious, economic, social, or political. You will grow in the freedom to be inside or outside all kinds of systems and to move freely between and among them. Together, you and I can be in it and not of it.”

“Remember, the people who know me are the ones who are free to live and love without any agenda.”

“Mack, just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies.