More Moments From ‘The Shack’

I had no idea when I started reading ‘The Shack’, by Wm. Paul Young, that I would be reading a book on Systematic Theology!!  I tore through the first 5 chapters,but have slowed down considerable, not wanting to miss each thought or concept about who God is.

Here’s what caught my attention as I read last night, from page 128:

God was speaking to Mack in an especially gentle and tender voice. “You really don’t understand yet. You try to make sense of the world in which you live based on a very small and incomplete picture of reality.  It is like looking at a parade through the tiny knothole of hurt, pain, self-centeredness, and power and believing you are on your own and insignificant. All of these thoughts contain powerful lies.  You see pain and death as ultimate evils and God as the ultimate betrayer, or perhaps, at best, as fundamentally untrustworthy.  You dictate the terms and judge my actions and find me guilty.

The real underlying flaw in your life, Mack, 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.  But you don’t.”

Oh my.  What else can I say?  How true!  We see life from such a tiny perspective, yet we judge God by this limited view.  Do we trust in His goodness or do we not?  If we do, this changes everything. Our thoughts.  Our attitudes.  Our actions.

Where do you see yourself within the context of God’s goodness?