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Book Review: The Shack by William P. Young

By Melissa Markham on November 24, 2008 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I challenge you to read this book! If you have not already read it, put it on your Christmas list or check it out from your library. But it is a book you will enjoy reading and that will have a profound impact on your life (in my humble opinion).

I read about this book a couple of months ago on a blog somewhere. I don't remember where, but I put it on my Shelfari as a book I wanted to read. I have a stack I have been working through and not much time to read, so I hadn't gotten to The Shack yet, but a couple of weeks ago, my mother-in-law asked me if I had heard of The Shack. I told her I had and I wanted to read it. She said she was just about finished with it and would like to see what I thought of it, so she mailed it to me. I finished it today.

It is an amazing story! It is the story of a dad's anguish over the brutal kidnapping and death of his daughter and how that anguish grows inside of him...cutting him off from others and more importantly from God. But he has an amazing experience where he gets to meet God and he learns more about the true nature of God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost than he had ever experienced before. By the end of the book, he is a changed being and I believe any who read it and really think of what it says will be changed as well.

I have long had problems with the judgmental behavior of Christians. It seems to be to be so opposite of what Jesus tells us. I hear so many Christians focusing on the laws of the Bible and it is like they are following the paths of the Pharisees and others who forgot to focus on the spirit of the law instead of the word of the law.

We are supposed to understand how God wants us to behave, but we are not supposed to judge others. Jesus died so that instead of being ruled by sin, we could be ruled by mercy, grace, forgiveness and love. He didn't just hang out with tax collectors, prostitutes and other 'baddies' as a way to tell us we are to reach out to those that are 'morally' less than us. He hung out with them because he loved them. Of course he hopes to help them come to him, but first and foremost he loves them as does God.

Jesus tells us that there is only one commandment we need to follow and that is to love God above all others and secondly to love one another as we love our selves. If we spend our time loving God and loving one another, so many of the sins we commit will fade into the background. Sins often come as a result of us wanting to be better than others or of us straining against the rules that we perceive are designed to control us. If love and relationships become the number one goals of our lives, the other things will fall away. A person who loves their spouse and works on that relationship won't be tempted to pursue another. A loved person feels more fulfilled and stealing to have something they don't have is no longer a motivator.

This book states what I have long felt in my heart in a wonderful way. I really hope you will take the time to read it. You won't be disappointed (unless you want to continue to live under the rule of law).