Tag: love

The Shack: A Reflection

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When William Paul Young wrote The Shack, he was not trying to explain why terrible things happen. He was writing his way through sorrow. Like Job, he sat among the ashes, surrounded by questions that would not rest. Out of that ache came a story. Not a sermon, but a parable about the God who meets us in our broken places.

The Silence of God

In the book of Job, the suffering man cries into the dark, “Oh, that I knew where I might find him.” Mackenzie, the father in The Shack, makes the same cry. He pleads for answers, for justice, for the God who seems to have turned away. And then, like Job, he receives not an explanation but an encounter.

The story reminds us that God does not stand outside pain, observing from a safe distance. God enters it. The cross is not a theory of evil but the place where God shares it. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–395) once wrote, “That which He has not assumed He has not healed.” When Christ took on our humanity, our confusion, our fear, our grief, He turned suffering into the place where healing begins.

The Human Face of God

What startled many readers of The Shack was how ordinary God seemed. The Father, called Papa, is a warm woman who laughs and bakes bread. The Spirit moves like a soft wind, full of life. Jesus is earthy, playful, and scarred.

For some, this felt irreverent. For others, it was freeing. It reminded us that the mystery of God is larger than our imagination, and that God is not afraid of being close. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–202) once said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” The divine shows up not in grand displays of power but in the tenderness of relationship.

For me, that image of God as a woman was strangely comforting. I have carried my own wounds around the word “father,” the kind of ache that makes intimacy with God feel complicated. Meeting God first in a motherly form would be a gentler introduction for my heart, an invitation to trust again before I could rediscover what “Father” might really mean. And that is all right.

God is not confined to any one image or gender. Scripture speaks of God as a mother who comforts her child, as a father who runs to embrace his son, as wisdom dancing at creation, as spirit breathing over the waters. God contains them all and yet exceeds them all. When God meets us, it is always in the way that heals us best.

And perhaps that is what The Shack captures so beautifully. God does not always have to relate to us in perfect theological categories. The God of the novel might not look exactly like the Trinitarian formulations of church history, but that does not make the encounter less true. Sometimes what is doctrinally perfect is not what is pastorally healing. Sometimes what is fact is not yet what is good for us.

God meets us where we are, not where we have managed to arrive theologically.

These kitchen scenes of cooking, laughing, and washing dishes are not incidental. They show us that heaven is not far away, and that holiness is not fragile. God is at home in our kitchens and our conversations, in the small things that hold the world together. Bread broken in love is never just bread. It becomes the body of grace in every act of forgiveness.

The Dance of Relationship

The story shows the Trinity not as an idea to explain but as a living dance of love. Mack finds himself in a circle of laughter, humility, and delight. Father, Son, and Spirit moving together. There is no hierarchy, no fear, only mutual joy.

This is what divine life looks like, communion that never ends. Mack’s healing does not come through answers but through being drawn into relationship. He learns to trust again. He learns that forgiveness is not demanded of him but offered to him. The Father holds his pain without rushing him. The Spirit guides him into honesty. Jesus walks beside him in the dirt, showing him that redemption is as simple and sacred as friendship.

The Trinity is not explained here. It is experienced. The story whispers that God’s power is not the power to control but the power to love without limit.

The Mystery of Shared Suffering

When Mack asks why God allowed his daughter to die, God does not give a reason. God grieves with him. The most daring moment in the book is when we see God cry. Those tears are not weakness. They are the heart of compassion.

In Christ, God takes our pain into Himself, and in doing so makes it holy. The tears of God in The Shack reflect the tears of Christ at Lazarus’ tomb, tears that do not remove death but transform it.

The story shifts our question from Why does God allow suffering? to Where is God in my suffering? And the answer, again and again, is Here.

The Shacks We Carry

Each of us has a shack, a place in our hearts that we have boarded up, a room where grief or guilt still lives. We avoid it. We build our lives around it. But this story invites us to step inside again, not alone but with God.

When we dare to enter that place, we may find what Mack finds, that the very ground of our pain can become the ground of God’s presence. The shack becomes a temple. It becomes a place of communion.

Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373) once wrote, “God became what we are, that He might make us what He is.” In other words, God steps fully into our humanity so that our humanity can be gathered into divine love. God meets Mack not to undo what happened, but to show him that nothing, not even the deepest wound, can separate him from love. What changes is not the past but the way it is carried, from isolation to belonging, from despair to trust.

An Invitation

Perhaps The Shack is not a story to be solved but a space to inhabit. It does not offer tidy explanations. It opens a room for encounter. It asks whether we are willing to meet God, not the idea of God, but the living presence who cooks, who laughs, who cries, who stays.

So maybe the question for us is this.
Where is our own shack?
Where is that place we have locked away because it hurts too much to enter?
And what if God is already there, waiting by the fire, patient as bread rising in the oven, whispering, “You were never meant to carry this alone”?

The heart of the story is not about understanding suffering but about discovering love. It is not about solving God but trusting God. Faith is not built on answers. It is built on presence.

And maybe that is the quiet truth of The Shack: that God is nearer than we ever dared to believe, nearer than our pain, nearer than our fear, nearer than our own breath.

Human

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“The man here tells us a truth that is awful – we baptise ourselves with names that are far from the only truth about ourselves.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

One of life’s biggest question’s is who are we? What does it mean to be human? What is our purpose in life? What is the meaning to all of this? Essential questions, unfortunately, not quickly answered.

The Scriptures tell a story about us that starts on the first few pages of this ancient book. Humanity is made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), from the dust of the ground, from the breath of God’s nostrils (Genesis 2:7), and from one another (Genesis 2:22). Humans were created to be like God and relate to Him by ruling over God’s creation. They were created with a connection to the earth as they were to cultivate and protect it (Genesis 2:15). Finally, they were created from one another as it is not good for anyone to be alone (Genesis 2:18). In Genesis 3, we became something less than human as we failed to be like God, and we allowed the serpent to rule over us. We became less than human as we failed to protect the Garden from evil. Then, we failed in our relationship with one another as we immediately turned to blame one another for our mistakes.

At the Fall, something happened to humanity where we lost our identity. We don’t know who we are anymore, we don’t really understand what we’re meant to be doing because of that loss of self. So in an attempt to recover our lost sense of self, we grab anything that seems to offer an answer to the big question “who are we?” A lot of us, at least in the West, have bought into the modern cultural meta-narratives of capitalism, scientism, gender equality, and probably dozens of ideas I can’t really think of right now. Why? Because even those these in and of themselves aren’t bad, these things help us make sense of who we are yet never really give us the complete picture. Each little story or philosophical idea makes us feel safe for just a fleeting moment. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much science discovers, whether we find peace in the Middle East or if climate change is solved tomorrow, we’d still end up feeling sense of restlessness and loss of who we’re truly meant to be.

The Bible tells us that because we’re incapable of being human ourselves, God has to send someone who can fix that problem for us. Jesus is the perfect human. He was truly human in that He was completely like God (Colossians 1:15) He ruled over the serpent and evil (Matthew 4:1-11). He loved God and others as Himself (Matthew 22:36-40), even His enemies (Matthew 5:44). So as we’re united to Christ by His Spirit, we start to recover a real sense of who we’re all meant to be (I’m thinking the beatitudes here as an example). It’s only in Jesus that we truly begin our journey on becoming truly human, which will culminate in glory.

 

Let’s Fight Depression

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I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages. – C. H. Spurgeon

It’s only been hours since Jarrid Wilson pastor, and author of Love Is Oxygen: How God Can Give You Life and Change Your World, and Jesus Swagger died by suicide. As a personal favourite of mine, the news hit me hard. For the past two hours, I’ve been at a loss for word, tearing up, confused, shocked, and unable to properly process how someone like Jarrid – with a beautiful wife and two amazing kids, a successful author and megachurch pastor could, in a single moment give it all away. My heart aches for him, his friends and his family. I can bearly begin to fathom the hurt, trauma and anguish in the days, weeks, months and even years that are ahead for those closest to him. However, this hasn’t been the only case recently where a pastor has chosen to end their life rather than continue on. Suicide, depression and mental health problems are bombarding the Church in what seems like higher numbers than ever before. Personally, as someone who identifies strongly with this, I can’t help but say “this is not the kind of Christianity that I signed up for.” So many questions are rolling around in my head. Why is this happening to us? What is depression, and why is it so crippling? How do we fight this? Where’s God in all of this? I really don’t know.

This is not the Christianity I signed up for. Sure, I didn’t expect it to be all rainbows and butterflies, but the Christian life is meant to be full of joy and love and goodness, right? We were all told that God has a great and wonderful plan for our lives, that He wants to bless and prosper us. Where’s the light and easy yoke? Where’s the comfort, and the peace that surpasses all understanding? These are all legitimate promises and verses in the Bible, yet, in reality, it often feels like we rarely ever experience it. The fallen world gets the better of us. Sin crouches at the door, and it feels like we rarely rule over it. Depression smashes us and leaves us without hope, and we end up feeling like the Psalter who says:

My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”
These things I remember,
    as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
    and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
    a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me? (Psalm 42:2-5a)

Notice though the glimmer of hope, how he longs to gladly shout praises amid his sorrow.  How hard it is to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I get that … I really do. God, dear beloved friend, gets it even more. Jesus, the man of sorrows shares in your pain, your anguish and your tears and He took them to the Cross. He longs to take hold of you and never let go. He loves you more then I could ever express in mere words. I know it’s impossible for you to see, but He offers new life.

Depression is dark and uncertain, but God called forth light and defeated darkness on the Cross so that we might live and live it abundantly. 

I don’t have answers. God does. Take up your swords fellow depressed and beaten down brothers and sisters, slay that which seeks to destroy your soul, take hold of the One who wants to bear your burden and for God sakes join arms with others. Please, we want to help you even if all we can do is hug you tight and pray. The fight sucks, but it is worth it…

Finally, here is my challenge:

  1. Christians make yourself available and make that publically known to everyone around you. Don’t let someone slip through the cracks because you were too lazy to love someone.
  2. Pastors stop preaching trash. Get it into your thick skull, the message of the Bible isn’t sunshine and lollipops. It’s light overcoming darkness, and that’s yet to come to completion until our King returns. Preach the Cross. Preach freedom. Preach life. Just don’t forget to preach it out of the reality we live in, not the one we try to create for ourselves.
  3. If you’re struggling hardcore with this and you know me. Contact me, please. Let’s walk, talk and drink coffee together. I’ll listen, pray and give you a hug. You’re worth it and much much more.

Major on the Majors & Minor on the Minors

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Five hundred years ago, the hammer fell, and the nail-pierced the door at Wittenburg, which gave birth to the Protestant movement which, over time, grew into the theologically diverse Church that we have today. Some say this is a bad thing, that Protestants never agree on anything, everyone in a sense is their own Pope, their ultimate authority. People argue that the Protestant movement is so fractured that it works against the unity that Scripture promotes (John 17:23; 1 Cor 1:10; Eph 4:11-13; Col 3:13-14). Indeed I say, the Bible encourages unity and even commands it. But you know the old saying; sometimes you have to crack a few eggs to make the perfect omelette. That omelette is still cooking (we’re always reforming). 

However, I believe as one friend told me a long time ago that the diversity in the Protestant movement is apart of God’s will to deliberately hold the entire Church accountable to interpreting His Word correctly. Rather than relying on just one or a few people to interpret Scripture accurately for us (this is the priesthood of believers). This was a huge part of the Reformation. The Word was placed into the hands of all of God’s people, not just a few “qualified” men. Praise God for that. We can’t, though, turn a blind eye to apparent differences in our movement. One can walk down a street and note a Presbyterian church next to a Uniting, next to a Baptist, next to a Lutheran, next to an Anglican, all within thirty seconds of one another. With the wealth of information (mostly thanks to the internet) and the progression of theological scholarship, even just one local church can have a diverse theological membership or leadership within its congregation. So, how do we then “major on the majors, and minor on the minors” so the speak? How do we minister with the vast range of theological differences even within our local churches?

Short answer – it depends. Read on.

1. Confessions or statements of faith:

Throughout church history, many confessions, creeds, and statements have been written and nutted out by men greater than most of us that usually major on the majors. These majors include the nature of God, the hypostatic union, the nature of humanity, inerrancy and inspiration concerning Scripture, the atonement, sacraments, and in one way or another the Gospel (repentance, faith, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection etc.). Reading through some of these confessions and even potentially adopting one for your church (or even for just yourself) will go a long way in avoiding potential pitfalls in the future.

2. Humility and grace:

We must remember, especially those of us who are theologically trained, to maintain a position of humility and grace to those we disagree with on the minors. Minor doctrines are positions we might take that we believe to be evident in the Scriptures but don’t necessarily affect one’s standing with God. These minors issues might include eschatology, Calvinism/Arminianism/ Molinism, the age of the earth or universe (evolution and science etc.), continuationism/cessationism, again the sacraments (depending on one’s view, you can categorise some of these in different tiers), complementarianism/egalitarianism. We must always be ready to be wrong on minor issues while still believing we’re right on what we believe (otherwise, why believe it?).

3. Ecclesiology, prayer, and coffee:

Almost every Protestant denomination majors on the majors. You should be able to walk into a Presbyterian church, a Baptist church, a Lutheran church, and hear the same Gospel being preached to their members. However, secondary issues can affect how we minister together practically. For example, pedo vs credo baptism understandably affects the way one does church, and it has some bearing on how the Gospel is displayed, but the differences aren’t salvific. Something like this I would categorise as a secondary issue – significant enough that it affects our ecclesiology, but not so important that I wouldn’t consider the person I disagree with a heretic. A third-tier issue is something like eschatology or the age of the earth, these don’t necessarily have a bearing on your ecclesiology but are important enough to how one largely interprets the Bible and in turn the Christian life. These things can affect how we do church (depending on how militant the person is about their position), but they don’t have to. Third-tier issues can inevitably tie into second and even major tiered issues, so it’s understandable why, in some cases, people may not be able to minister together. However, if leaders and members can somehow embrace the differences, it would make for a theologically, robust church.

This kind of unity is fostered by taking the command to love one another seriously (John 13:34-35), to maintain a humble yet open disposition displayed first from the leadership and then by the members. Lots of prayers, as I’ve heard it said, you can’t hate someone you pray for often, and lots of conversations over good quality coffee with an open Bible. Finally, I’d say encourage mature theological discussion and training. Whether it’s from a seminary, college or your church, people can only grow if you’re willing to teach. If we can encourage this kind of unity and maturity in our theological development, it will hopefully flow out into our churches. It’s hard but not impossible, and I think the rewards are worth it. At the end of the day if the differences end up being too great, at least walk away in love trying to keep the unity of the faith.

The Image of God: Genesis 1-11 Part V

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Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them. – Genesis 1:26-27

The Imago Dei or the image of God has been discussed at length for a long, long time. Throughout history, some have assumed that the image of God refers to intelligence and the ability to discern between moral choices. Others have thought it’s more about the soul or spirit of a human. I believe that the image is something functional (something we do) and ontological (something we have). Let’s explore.

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of Yahweh is that He wants to be known, and He wants to know His creation as well. This is somewhat bizarre because most gods in the ancient world weren’t really concerned with the affairs of humanity unless thought they could get something out of them. Yahweh, on the other hand, is entirely driven by love, order, shalom and holiness. So what does this mean for the Imago Dei?

In the ancient world, kings were known to be the earthly representatives of their god. In Egypt, for example, the pharaoh was thought to be the incarnation and representation of whatever major or popular god that was in at the time. Furthermore, these representative kings were to rule over their nation as though the god itself was ruling, thus displaying all of the god’s attributes and character. Other examples in the ancient world also show how the representatives of the gods also played a mediatory role; a sort of middle man between the god and the nation. In Genesis 1-2, there is a similar message. Humanity (both male and female) are created and endowed with something of the Creator God. They intrinsically possess the divine (ontology) as they were made to image or display their Creator to the rest of creation (function). According to the passage, humanity was to image Yahweh by “having dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26) and to work and keep the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15). What does this mean for us then?

In Genesis 3, classically entitled as the Fall, humanity meets a weird talking serpent (sin incarnate), they’re tempted, they take from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They are then exiled from the Garden because they failed in their vocation to be keepers of Eden and to rule over creation. Instead of ruling over the serpent (sin), they are ruled by it. Instead of protecting Eden (Yahweh’s dwelling space), they let chaos and sin come in and take over. So when someone does terrible at their job, they’re fired. So were Adam and Eve.

Genesis 1-3 is unique. There are several ways one could interpret and understand the story. One way I think we should understand Genesis 1-3 is that it’s the story of all of humanity. God has tasked all of us (Christian or not) with a divinely appointed job to lovingly rule over creation, to work it and to keep it so that God can live among us. From before even the very beginning, God’s intention for His creation and humanity especially was that He would dwell and live in loving harmony with them. This is where the Imago Dei kicks in. Every single one of us has been created to reflect and show God’s very being by doing the above tasks. Reflecting or imaging is inescapable for us, it’s a part of our nature. Now, however, we image and reflect the other gods (idols) we worship, namely death and chaos. Reflect on this quote by one of my favourite scholars G. K. Beale:

“People will always reflect something, whether it be God’s character or some feature of the world. If people are committed to God, they will become like him; if they are committed to something other than God, they will become like that thing, always spiritually inanimate and empty like the lifeless and vain aspect of creation to which they have committed themselves.”

Now consider this passage from Psalm 115:4-8:

Their idols are silver and gold,

the work of human hands.

They have mouths, but do not speak;

eyes, but do not see.

They have ears, but do not hear;

noses, but do not smell.

They have hands, but do not feel;

feet, but do not walk;

and they do not make a sound in their throat.

Those who make them become like them;

so do all who trust in them.

If there’s one thing humanity loves more then themselves its flat out drama (chaos). We’re confusing little things. One the one hand we protest and petition for peace on earth, we desire to see the end of famine and disease, we boil and rage at corruption in government, and we weep and wail over death and genocide. Yet we send people into war (sometimes a necessary evil). We spend $50 on a shirt made in Taiwanese sweatshops. We hate sexual abuse and fight against rape culture, yet we watch porn and get excited over shows like Game of Thrones that perpetuate that culture. We “know” what’s wrong and what’s right, yet we’re in a constant struggle to live consistently. You could say that we “suppress the truth in our unrighteousness” (Rom 1:18). All the technology and scientific advancements in the world won’t give us what we need, a new heart, with new desires, and the ability to live consistently (Ezekiel 36:26). Once, that’s solved, then we can once again image and reflect God who is life and love rather than the gods of death and chaos. How do we obtain new hearts?

Great question. Ezekiel 36:26 (cf: Eze 11:19-20; 18:31; Ps 51:10; Jn 3:3; 2 Cor 3:3), is something God wants to do to everyone in Christ to restore the Imago Dei and have them return (to greater heights) to their intended role in the cosmos. Jesus lived, died and rose from the dead as a perfect human being, as our representative (Rom 5:12-14), so that by grace, through faith (Eph 2:8-9) we can be united to this new and perfect human (1 Cor 15:22) by the Holy Spirit (Jhn 3:5-6). When we’re united, we’re then washed clean and made pure (1 Cor 6:11) – we’re made genuinely human in the Messiah Jesus. Now we’re able to truly love, rule, reflect and keep as God created us to be.