The shack
A movie ‘The Shack’ came out this year. I saw
this movie with the great expectation and good feeling that I took from reading
‘The Shack’ several years ago. There might be some doctrinal and controversial issues
in this book, but I can feel enough the author’s struggle to understand and describe
God in his own way which is praiseworthy.
Although many distinguished scholars try to
figure out why some things keep going on earth and what things would happen in
the future with an objective historical and macro view, it is clear that their
viewpoint and conclusions are very limited and biased because it is impossible
for humans to have perfect objectivity and knowledge no matter how hard
they observe, test, and collect the data and information unless they have supernatural
powers and are mortal.
The story of this book starts with a man
who killed his father by putting some insecticide in his father’s alcohol and
ran away because it was unbearable to endure his father’s violence. He grew to
be a father with three children and even went to church with his family every
Sunday. His family seemed happy until his daughter was kidnapped by a serial
killer when he and his three children went camping without his wife. Naturally,
he lost his faith in God and the relationship between him and his family was ruined with guilt, sadness and anger. One day, he got an invitation from
somebody to the shack where his daughter was killed like a joke. And he met God
there.
His resentment toward God seems
understandable and justifiable and anyone can relate to him obviously. When all
of us try to judge why these tragedies are happening to innocent people, it
must be emotional, personal and limited as mentioned above. It is impressive
that God in this book tried to cure and help him forgive the murderer and his
father by showing him how his late father suffered from his own father, how his
grandfather got affected by terrible people and how those terrible people were
harassed by other horrible people.
I don’t mean to agree with a modern
psychologist’s approach to find the cause of wrong and sinful action by digging
out the past and giving the people legitimacy to do that. What I’m trying to
say is we should admit that we all are criminal who have been adding the crime
to this world rather than victims whether those crimes are big or small and
light or heavy. We should be aware that our little unkindness, impatience, conceit,
slander, vanity, lust, and jealousy contaminate this beautiful world on a daily
basis.
Once we realize our miserable condition
like this, we can see how God is protecting, maintaining and still creating this
world with His mighty love and mercy despite of human’s ignorance and rebellion.
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