William Paul Young's The Shack is 315 pages of a completely unbelievable story, that somehow manages to also be entirely believable. Mackenzie Allen Phillips, the main character of the story, undergoes one of the greatest tragedies known to mankind: the loss of a child. Over the three-and-a-half subsequent years from the disappearance and death of Missy, his daughter, Mackenzie, who prefers to be called Mack, falls prey to anger, stress, and "The Great Sadness" that we all know as depression. These emotions greatly impact Mack's relationship with God, turning it into something detached and unfeeling - something that many Christians tend to revert to after tragedy strikes. He asks the well-known and unanswered questions that we all ask: "Why did you let this happen?" "She was innocent, why did she deserve to die?" "Who are you to take my daughter away from me?"
WARNING!!! Spoilers ahead.
After receiving a mysterious note from an equally mysterious "Papa", Mack returns to the site of his daughter's death to seek out answers. What he finds there is difficult to grasp, because Mack finds the Holy Trinity manifested in human bodies: Elousia, an African-American woman who represents the Father, Jesus, a Middle-Eastern carpenter who represents Jesus, and Sarayu, an Asian woman who represents the Holy Spirit. Though these manifestations have been cause for much uproar, they are meant as metaphorical representations of God. And this is where the lessons of "The Shack" begin.
1. Though God is "The Father", God is not a man.
At one point in the book, Mack wonders why God was manifested as Elousia, an African-American woman with an accent and a love of cooking. She, or rather God, answers him: "…I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, it's because I love you." God goes on to explain that this is to keep from reinforcing religious stereotypes that we have created over the years, mainly that God is an old white man with a long beard. This begs the question of why God is known as "The Father". God answers this as well, explaining that after humanity fell and became sinful, the world would lack more in "true fathering" than it would in mothering. Both are equally important, but God knew from the very beginning that manifesting himself as a father would do more good for the world than anything else.
2. Jesus was a human, just like us.
When the Son of God left his place at God's right hand and came to our earth, he accepted the limitations of being a human. Essentially, Jesus became as human as the rest of us. Mack, of course, questions this immediately, citing Jesus' many miracles and innate power. Elousia, or God, also explained this. Jesus chose to become a "dependent, limited human being", and through a complete trust in God's power and life, he performed miracles. So, in truth, Jesus was no different than you or I - a human being walking the earth, living life. But God worked through him, just as God also worked through his disciples, and that same power can work through us. Does that mean we're going to heal blind men and bring the dead back to life? Probably not. But that doesn't mean that we can't save others and make the world that we were charged with a better place.
3. Forgiving is not forgetting.
Towards the end of the story, Mack is faced with a challenge that many are faced with: forgiving the person who wronged them. For Mack, this person is the man who murdered his daughter, and though he doesn't come face-to-face with the perpetrator, Mack learns to forgive him in his heart. Forgiveness is what God intends for us to do, because God loves each of his children equally. He loves us when we do the right thing, he loves us when we make mistakes, and he loves us when we hurt others. Our transgressions will never change the fact that we are God's children, even if those transgressions include the murder of an innocent. Does that mean that we can purposely do the wrong thing and never face consequences?--no. But that does mean that God loves us through it. And so Mack learned to forgive the killer of his child without forgetting what he did, because Mack's relationship with God was more important than his anger towards that man. And we can learn to do the same.
There are many lessons that can be gleaned from The Shack - hundreds even. These three, though, were the ones that impacted my heart the most. In a time where God never seems to directly communicate with us, I feel that this novel was as close to direct communication as I could get. Did God personally write these words? Did they come straight from Scripture? No. But the utter truth in Young's writing could only have come from God working through him. Remember Lesson #2? God worked through Jesus and worked miracles? Perhaps this book was a miracle in its own right, and I highly recommend it.
