As we are listening to you, it is as if this is the first time we have known about them, and we take great delight in seeing them through your eyes. NEVER should anyone replace the Bible with a book that is claimed to be fiction by it's own author - but 5 stars to the man who can make your heart yearn to know more about the Lord through a fiction tale.

When members of the Trinity begin appearing in person to the main character as black women I threw the book away. They carefully place Missy inside and take the coffin to the space in the garden that Mack and Sarayu cleared the day before. The Shack' tells the story of Mackenzie, aka "Mack", whose youngest daughter was abducted and murdered. Flash forward: Mack wakes up on the ice and accuses his best friend Willie ( Tim McGraw) of sending the letter. Through a series of conversations with God, he begins to understand how God’s love provides the basis of forgiveness and the power to change human lives.Mack asks Jesus to take her as he can't, and they put her in a coffin and bring it to the garden for burial. The Good News is that God loved the world so much He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to take the sin of the world upon Himself and sacrifice His perfect, sinless life and body for us to make atonement for our sins and rescue us from the penalty of sin, hell--but we must believe in Him, choose Him, repent of our sins, and submit to His loving authority. The purpose of their visit is to help Mack better understand his life as seen from a much broader context or higher perspective, the goal being to help free him from an inclination to pass judgment upon himself and others, and to help heal himself and his family after Missy's death. Mack also visits another cave where God's wisdom, in the form of a woman named Sophia, talks to him. He gets up and leaves into the woods, but Sarayu approaches him with directions to his truck and the keys.

Live like hell and go to heaven, even "murderers are God's children", it was all forgiven at the cross--without repentance. I didn’t think so, because at the very least, you’ve taken 7th grade Ancient Civilizations and you know that yes, there have been people, in fact, entire cultures that have pictured god as a woman. When he arrives at the shack, it and its environment are transformed into an idyllic setting by the presence of God. The clearing fills with a group of children glowing with inner white light, and then a circle of adults shining with more complicated colors, and finally a circle of angels glowing blue. Many people are and that's fantastic, but this book was so stupid that I have hopes that any well informed, well read, reasonable Christian would have asked themselves 'What the fuck did I just read?She tells him that the poisonous plant (representing evil in the world), when combined with the right plant, creates healing powers. On the other side of the lake he enters a dark tunnel where he interacts with Sophia, a woman who personifies the wisdom of God.

Eventually, the trio and Mack encounter the spirit of Mack's father, who apologizes for his mistreatment of Mack and he reluctantly forgives him. Mack also apologizes to his father, whom he killed, and finally understands that Missy's death was not punishment for his murder of his father. The novel was self-published but became a USA Today bestseller, having sold 1 million copies as of June 8, 2008. Way back when, when this book first came out, friends and random people upon finding out I was a reader would look at me. I would gladly pay for Young to take a writing course in lieu of Jacobsen editing another of his books.Four years later, in this midst of his great sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Unfortunately, every one of these would have been pointed out by first or second year writing students, which simply reiterates my main point below: Shame on you Wayne Jacobsen for ruining a good book by not bothering enough to edit this properly. Though the story is fictional, it seems pretty clear that Young’s claim that the conversations were “all real, all true” 1 is a claim that the words of God found in this book are true.

Interspersed among Mack’s dialogues with Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu are a variety of experiences they invite him to participate in. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe I am good nor know deep in your heart that I love you. Do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you? If I may prove my case, do you think that humans were designed to live in the present or the past or the future?After the tragedy that forms the spine of the tale, he tightens up the writing and I never noticed the shortcomings after that.