A friend of mine recommended that I read The Shack (thanks Tresa!) and I started it this week as I’ve taken a vacation from work.
I haven’t finished it yet, it’s one of those that I want to take slowly to really soak it up. But what I’ve come away with so far is that the idea of relating to God and what God is in our lives is greatly dependant on what our image of God is. Because He isn’t something concrete that we can see or touch and because we don’t really have anything to compare Him to, we find it hard to relate.
That was certainly part of my own journey. Because I didn’t think I understood the kind of love God gives us that is like a father, I cut myself off from receiving it. What a pitty. I was putting God in a box, thinking I couldn’t relate to it if that’s what it was. The way God started revealing himself to me was helping me become aware that His love doesn’t have to be compared to a father to be accepted; it is so much greater, so much more perfect, so much more…..different. If I only accepted it as I understood it, I would miss so much. Instead, I had to take Him out of the box, quit limiting what I thought His love was like and get more creative about what it really is and feels like.
The Shack has a similar theme in that the main character needed to shatter his image of God in order to really begin understanding what was possible in his relationship with the Creator.
Although some of the theology in the book had me raise my eyebrows a bit, the main theme of God truly loving us and wanting relationship with us is what I’ll take from it. It just renews my thinking that once we stop limiting God and His perfect love, it’s amazing what is possible both in us and through us.
Thanks for your comment Deanna! I have got to read that book! So many people have suggested it. So you’re on vacation this week? I hope you’re enjoying it. Talk to you soon!
I picked this up at the library today. I’m looking forward to reading it!
You outlook on life has always amazed me. I am so glad we’ve gotten the chance to know each other and I am so looking forward to more conversations together.
What I really got from the book was how important forgiveness, of other and of oursevles, is to our relationship with the Lord. It is by far the second most (The Bible, of course, being first) powerful book I’ve ever read.
I also just read this book and was amazed at the many things I got out of it – I wrote a blog on it myself called “The great sadness” – I feel that so many can identify with that sadness. It’s a rich book – and each one will take a lesson from it and apply it in a unique way – to their own life.