The Shack - Religious Contemplation

I have always struggled to understand the idea of God the Trinity, God is God, God is Jesus and God is the Holy Spirit, somehow these three things come together to form God, sort of like Vultron and the 5 Lions or the Power Rangers and their Zords forming the MegaZord! For years I battled with the idea of who was Jesus talking to in the Garden of Gethsemane. I have fought and argued and battled with an incredible number of people, priests, reverends, pastors, scholars etc about the idea of God and Jesus being the same. Then I read one of the best books I have ever read it is called The Shack by WM. Paul Young in which the main character speaks to God, and asks about how Jesus was both man and God and it explains in as follows.
A bird, whose nature is to fly, that chooses to walk and stay grounded does not stop being a bird, but it does change his experience of life significantly. When God, chose to will Himself into the human experience as the Son of God, He became fully human. He then chose to embrace all the limitation that this entailed, and although He was always present in the created world He was now flesh and blood. So although He was totally God, Jesus was totally human and lived as a human would. So, although Jesus never lost the ability to fly, He made the conscious decision in each and every moment He lived to stay grounded. Hence, Immanuel, meaning God is with you!
The miracles and healing only further Jesus’ humanity as He never drew on his Godliness to perform the miracles but drew from His relationship with and in God, a relationship He gave Himself fully to. Fully and completely trusting His life to the Lord, fully believing in God’s love and goodness with no regard to what other people thought or what the repercussions were. So, when Jesus healed the blind, He did so with all the limits of a human being who fully trusted in God to work through Him. Jesus a part of God, limited, by choice, to the restraints of man who allowed His relationship with God; so pure, so open, so built on trust, that the power of God flowed right through Him.
“A bird is defined not by being grounded but by his ability to fly. Remember this, humans are defined not by their limitations but by the intentions I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in My image” (Young, 102)
The book goes on to explain, God is not just 3 faces of the same being like a man who is a son, a father, and a husband; which is what I have tended to believe most of my life when trying to understand this whole Trinity thing, but rather one God and three persons and each of those three being fully and entirely one! As we are made in God’s image, for us to experience love and relationships God must be love and relationship. God in essence then is the perfect unity of love and relationship as the three “parts”, God (the Father), Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are the combined unity of the relationship between Them.
“You do understand that unless I had an object to love – or, more accurately, some to love – then I would not be capable of love at all? You would have a god who could not love. Or maybe worse, you would have a god who, when he chose, could love only as a limitation of his nature. That kind of god could possibly act without love and that would be a disaster. And that is surely not me. The God who is – The I am who I am – cannot act apart from love!” (Young, 104)
WOW! What a whole new perspective, a perspective I have waited 30 years to hear. God enabled the existence of the 3 in order to allow us the ability to love, to build relationships. Relationships, in fact, so perfect that pieces can actually become one. Honestly, I have not ever been so fully satisfied with an explanation of God, Jesus and the idea of the Trinity. I mean I always knew that at some point there was an aspect of faith that needed to play a role in the whole thing and I assumed that if I wanted to be a Christian at some level I would have to just not try to analyze it, that things exist that my brain can’t comprehend. But, this not only do I comprehend I can accept and build my faith on it. And anytime you are given something to strengthen the foundation of your faith it really is something to be treasured.
I am gonna tell you that you should read this book, even if you are not a Christian or maybe you don’t believe in God or anything like that, heck maybe you are not even much of a reader but put the effort in and even if you just enjoy the story for the great piece of writing it is I suggest you read it.

The Shack by WM. Paul Young http://www.theshackbook.com/

Peace, I'm outta here
One Love




References
Young, WM. Paul. The Shack. Newberry Park, CA: Windblown Media, 2007.