Shack Ponderings 1

You may have notice that I have a list of most of the books that I have read with personal rating, and the book with the highest rating was The Shack. I read it a while ago and felt so deeply impacted with it. It is a novel but there were so many great truths with in that I wanted and needed to ponder further, but I also wanted to finish reading it to find out what happened.

So now I am re-reading it, very slowly, in order to gain deeper insight, and allow myself to really think about, reflect, and even implement some of the things I am getting out of it.

It is a book that I would recommend to anyone. It is about a man and the weekend he spends with God. It is not church-y, or religious, but eye opening. I came away thinking "this is how God would really talk to me."

So I skipped the first few chapters the second time around, they are difficult (emotionally) to read and just set up the rest of the story.

Currently I am pondering a discussion Mack has with God regarding free will. If God knows that we are going to do something, is it still free will? Does foreknowledge negate freewill? What does it mean to have a free will? God answers Mack's similar questions by asking one of his own, do you believe you are free to change your mind. Now this is a concept that can make my head spin, but it really sets the stage for a conversation regarding our freedom, what do we really want freedom from? When thinking about what I want freedom from I can make a pretty big list from concrete to emotional. A few would be freedom from anxiety, freedom from perfectionism, freedom from anger. Unfortunately I can't be truly set free until I accept the freedom that only Jesus can give. That initial acceptance of freedom sets in motion the rest of our freedoms, from the concrete, to emotional, and even genetic.

This is a lot to ponder, and it is only one page in a packed full chapter of great stuff.

Learned? Until I truly and fully accept the freedom only Jesus provides, my attempts at breaking free of the things that bind me are only like cushioning the shackles.