A Heart of Flesh

I have been reading The Shack.  I know, I know,  I am a few years behind the trend of this book, which is precisely why I’m reading it now.  When it first came out and was so hugely popular, the rebellious side of me came out, too.  I refused to read it simply because it was “trendy” in Christian circles.  I don’t like to go with the flow, so I rebelled against reading it.

Well, I finally cracked it open.

And I got hooked.

I’ve been reading it for the last 10 days or so and these 10 days have been amazing.  Truly and profoundly amazing.  I feel like I’ve been on a 10-day-long date with Papa God, which has been very rudely interrupted by life.  The moments I’ve been able to read have been precious, inspiring, tearful, impacting and deep.  God has spoken so much to my heart through this book.

If you have not read it, I won’t spoil it for you.  But The Shack is about a man whose life has been altered through an unimaginable tragedy in his family.  He then receives a note, apparently from God, inviting him back to the very place that this tragedy occurred.  And then begins an experience with God that would ultimately change his life forever.  And in the telling of this experience, it has changed mine, as well.

While it is just a novel, it has really challenged the way I think about God, breaking to pieces all of the human understanding of God that I had.  Because my understanding of God is just that:  Human.  But God is so much bigger than what I’ve tried to make Him in my human mind.  Even His infinte-ness is beyond what I can imagine.

The major lesson God is teaching me is the truth in Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  When things happen in our lives, things that seem bad or tragic in our human understanding are actually so much more a part of the bigger picture that God is painting.  It’s such a difficult concept for us humans to understand.  The mind-boggling thing is that while our heart is breaking, so is God’s.  He doesn’t like to see us suffer.  BUT, on the other side,  He is also working everything out somehow for our good.  It doesn’t make sense to us yet.  But there will come a day when all will be revealed to us, but here on Earth is not that time.

Until that time, the challenge is just to trust.  To believe that God really does desire good for us.  And just to trust that.  Because it is all of these things – good and bad – that He is working out for good.