Embedded Files
For those who know little or nothing about the runaway New York Times bestselling book, The Shack, I shared some facts about its author, William P. (Paul) Young, its story line, and how it got published in “The Shack Facts,” the first post of this three-part series.
In this second post of the series, I’m going to tell you what I loved about the book and the movie based on the book (spoiler alert).
And in the last post, I will share my personal reflections on the book and movie.
To read or not to read The Shack book?
To watch or not to watch The Shack movie?
These questions went through the minds of many Christians after the book was published in 2007 and then when the movie based on the book premiered in March 2017.
After watching the movie in 2017 and then rereading the book right afterward, I took a Facebook poll asking the question,
How many of you have read and/or watched The Shack and, if you have, what your take away was from either or both?
My post got quite a bit of engagement with a variety of responses that ranged from:
Haven’t read the book or watched the movie.
I couldn’t get through the book, and I won’t watch the movie.
Loved the book and the movie!
There were as many unique responses as there were responders.
I wasn’t surprised, though.
Every person on planet earth has a different way of looking at things.
We are influenced by our own genetic disposition (nature), our life experiences (nurture), and our spiritual (or nonspiritual) views.
I was delightfully surprised that The Shack movie remained, for the most part, true to The Shack book.
There were a few minor discrepancies, but nothing major worth pointing out.
As I mentioned in “The Shack Facts,” my first introduction to the book was when I read it in 2007 after a close friend recommended it.
Anyone who knows me well, knows that I don’t just “read” a book; I become intimately acquainted with it.
It just doesn’t feel natural to me to read a book without a pen in my hand.
I’m always ready to put asterisks, smiley faces, “Hm…”, “Wow!”, and “I agree!” in the margins beside the content I especially enjoy.
On the other hand, I put sad faces, “What?!” “I don’t agree!” or “Are you kidding me?!” in the margins beside statements I’m unwilling to accept.
Sometimes, I even write out my arguments in full detail (it’s really kind of comical because you would think that I was face to face with the author!).
I enjoyed rereading my handwritten notes in the margins of my book and then my general impression of the entire book on the first blank page at the end:
I believe the reason this book has had such an overwhelming impact on so many hearts is that it engages the imagination—the movie theater in our minds—with a more genuine picture (than I’ve ever seen) of the authentic, affectionate love that Father God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have for humanity. This book provides a wonderful picture of grace and will be a very special addition to my already growing library on the subject.
A decade later, as I watched this story come to life on the big screen, I was mesmerized.
Not to mention that I was wishing I had brought a box of Kleenex with me!
It also inspired a second reading of the book.
A line in its foreword encapsulates the reason, I believe, so many are drawn to The Shack (it resounded with me!):
I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing. And I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.
The captivating theme song of the movie, “Keep Your Eyes on Me,” a duet written and recorded by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, conveys a very simple biblical message:
When the hurts of this life seem much more real than your faith and hope in God, keep your eyes on Him.
This statement resounded with me.
Right after Steven and I got married in July 1997, a passage of Scripture that God kept bringing to my mind was Hebrews 12:1-2:
We are surrounded by a great cloud of people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back. Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne. (NCV)
God used this passage, along with several others, to remind me of the importance of keeping my focus on Him (Isa. 26:3; Col. 3:1-4; Phil. 4:8).
During that time in my life, I was experiencing great sadness.
My only child, Wes, told me he wanted to go live with his dad.
He had lived with me for the first five years following the divorce.
Although I was shocked and devastated when he shared the news, I understood his need to be with his dad.
Now I realize that my great sadness—when compared to Mack’s—seems almost trite.
But I knew that God cared about my suffering, and He ended up bringing incredible good out of it (Romans 8:28).
Maybe you can relate.
Maybe your personal world has been rocked to the core and you, too, have learned the importance of keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus.
When we are hurting, we need to know that God never leaves us.
For believers in Christ, He is always in our new heart, ready to be our everything in all circumstances.
We just need to realize (to grasp or understand clearly) this and let Him.
Both The Shack book and movie bring to life God’s desire to heal our hurts.
Which brings me to the first reason I loved The Shack:
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are portrayed as a warm, compassionate, joy-filled Trio of Perfect Love who long for an up-close-and-personal relationship with every person on the face of this earth (John 3; Rom. 1:16; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9).
One of my favorite lines that Papa (Father God, played by Octavia Spencer in the movie) speaks to Mack is, “I am especially fond of you.”
In fact, when she says the same thing about others, Mack asks, “Is there anyone you aren’t especially fond of?”
She replied, “Nope. Haven’t been able to find any.”
This dialogue reminds me of John 3:16, where Jesus says to Nicodemus,
“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
In my opinion, John 3:16 is the most important verse in the Bible because it embodies the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.
The gospel clearly requires a response from every person—whether to believe in (into) Jesus and experience eternal life, or not to believe in Him and remain outside of His life forever.
It’s that simple.
However, I learned through my research that Young presently adheres to and promotes universalism, a belief that all of humanity will eventually be saved.
In an article by Wayne Jacobsen (one of the book’s collaborators/co-authors), he makes it very clear that, even though the first draft of Young’s book contained the theme of universalism, he and Brad Cummings (the other collaborator/co-author) refused to continue working on the book if Young left it in:
He (Young) agreed to let us take out the universalism theme saying he was less certain about it than when he wrote the first draft. So when people tell me that The Shack promotes universalism, I know it doesn’t because Brad and I don’t embrace it and when we rewrote the story in four different drafts over 16 months, we took it out.
Instead we wrote a story about God’s ability to find Mack in his brokenness and let his love invite him into truth and wholeness. Mack’s responses at every point are critical to the story. These quotes clearly set it apart from universalism:
“All I am telling you is that reconciliation is a two way street, and I have done my part, totally, completely, finally. It is not the nature of love to force a relationship but it is the nature of love to open the way.”
* * * *
“Does that mean,” asked Mack, “that all roads will lead to you?”
“Not at all,” smiled Jesus as he reached for the door handle to the shop. “Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.”
* * * *
Now (evil) touches everyone that I love, those who follow me and those who don’t. If I take away the consequences of people’s choices, I destroy the possibility of love. Love that is forced is no love at all.”
* * * *
I was so happy to learn from Jacobsen’s article that The Shack did not promote universalism.
Another reason I loved the book was:
It portrayed the Godhead as caring deeply about our suffering and the willingness of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to go to great lengths to heal our hurts (Psalm 23; 34:18; 56:8; 91; 147:3; Jer. 29:11-13; John 14:26-27; Rom. 8:18-28; 2 Cor. 1:3-8; Rev. 21:4).
I appreciated how the movie captured Papa’s empathetic tears toward Mack in the suffering he endured throughout his life.
Not only was Mack experiencing great sadness because of the tragic loss of his youngest daughter, but he also carried a hidden sadness (and dark secret) from his childhood.
His externally religious, overly strict church-elder father was a cruel closet drunk who beat up his mom on a regular basis (and then Mack after he shared this secret with an unsafe church leader).
Clearly, Mack was no stranger to suffering and the disillusionment that comes with it.
And, perhaps the greatest disappointment came from the unfulfilled expectation that “church people are supposed to be nicer/more loving than others.”
One of the overriding purposes of the book and the movie is to reveal the True Face of our deeply loving, compassionate, gracious God who is not at all interested in religion (wanting us to perform for Him), but is all about lavishing us with His delight-filled affection (a personal love relationship).
Two quotes from The Shack really spoke to me—words I believe reflect Father God’s great compassion for us in the midst of our deepest wounding:
Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.
Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors (He is not the Author of tragedies, but can bring incredible healing in the midst of them).
Mack had insulated himself from God’s love because of his intense anger and hatred toward his own father, Missy’s killer, and God Himself for letting all these bad things happen.
How could he possibly trust the love of Someone who had the power to prevent all of these things from happening, yet chose not to?
In spite of Mack’s disillusionment and anger, God loved him so much, He went to great lengths to see him whole, healed, and restored.
More than anything, God wants us know that, when we are suffering, He hurts with us—He actually feels our pain.
He also wants us to realize that His Son, Jesus Christ, endured the greatest suffering of all so that everyone who believes in Him will ultimately be free from all suffering (Rev. 21:1–4).
There is much more that I could write about suffering here, but it would turn into a book—which, by the way, I published in 2022.
His Banner over Me Is Sustaining Love is Volume 2 in my Song of Songs study series (over Chapters 3–5), with the overriding theme of God revealing His sustaining love for us in the midst of our suffering.
Although many parts of The Shack book and movie warmed my heart, one of the main reasons I loved both is:
They portrayed the truth that, even though God knows every sin, every failure, every dark thought and emotion we’ve ever experienced, He loves us so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to become the satisfying sacrifice for all of our sins so that all who put their faith in Him could share in His life. (Jer. 31:3; Rom. 3:21; Eph. 2:4–6; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10).
I still can’t get over God’s unrelenting love for me when He wasn’t even on my radar. (You can read my grace story here.)
The sad thing is, I was a Christian when I committed what I consider to be the most heinous sins of my life!
A Christian whose personal life was a mess because of my lack of knowledge of the truth about my identity in Christ and that His life was living in me 24/7/365.
Yet God continued to pursue my heart’s affections through revealing His unchanging affections for me.
And He did the same for Mack Phillips.
And He wants to do the very same thing for every person on the face of this earth.
***
I closed The Shack book longing to experience a greater awareness of Christ’s special love for me, and I walked out of the movie theater filled with an abiding sense of joy and anticipation.
Both the book and the movie reminded me that my Beloved is especially fond of me, Kimberly Kay Francis, who lives at the top of the Texas Panhandle in the USA.
He knows my name and my address and chooses to live where I live—right in the center of my new heart in Him! (Ezek. 36:26–27; John 14:20; 2 Cor. 5:17)
All I can say is, “Wow! Thank You, Jesus!”
***
I hope you enjoyed reading what I loved about The Shack book and movie in this post.
In my third and final post in this series, “My Personal Reflections on The Shack,” I share parts from book and the movie that had me scratching my head a bit, evidence that Young now fully adheres to and promotes universalism, and my closing remarks on the affectionate God portrayed in both the book and movie.
***
If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to check out all of my books and my video series based on my first devotional.
Page updated
Report abuse