Thursday, May 1, 2008
[An excerpt from The Shack By William P. Young]
“Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around.” She paused to let Mack think about her statement. “You, on the other hand, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around.”
“Living unloved is like clipping a birds wings and removing its ability to fly. Not something I want for you.”
“Mack, pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.” She waited a moment, allowing her words to settle. “And if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place.”
“I’m not like you, Mack.”
“I am God. I am who I am. And unlike you, my wings can’t be clipped.”
“Well that’s wonderful for you but where exactly does that leave me?” Mack blurted out, sounding more irritated than he would have liked.
“Smack dab in the center of my love!”
“Mackenzie, I am what some would say ‘holy and wholly other than you’. The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn’t much, and then call that God. And while it may seem like a noble effort, the truth is that it falls pitifully short of who I really am. I’m not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think.”
“I’m sorry, but those are just words to me. They don’t make much sense.” Mack shrugged.
“Even though you can’t finally grasp me, guess what? I still want to be known.”
“You’re talking about Jesus, right? Is this going to be a let’s-try-to-understand-the-Trinity sort of thing?”
She chuckled. “Sort of, but this isn’t Sunday School. This is a flying lesson. Mackenzie, as you might imagine, there are some advantages to being God. By nature I am completely unlimited, without bounds. I have always known fullness. I live in a state of perpetual satisfaction as my normal state of existence. Just one of the perks of Me being Me.”
“We created you to share in that. But when Adam chose to go it on his own, as we knew he would, and everything got messed up. But instead of scrapping the whole Creation we rolled up our sleeves and entered into the middle of the mess—that’s what we have done in Jesus.”
Mack was hanging in there; trying his best to follow allow her train of thought.
“When we three spoke ourselves into human existence as the Son of God, we be became fully human. We also chose to embrace all the limitations that this entailed. Even though we have always been present in this created universe, we now became flesh and blood. It would be like this bird, whose nature is to fly, choosing only to walk and remain grounded. He doesn’t stop being a bird, but it does alter his experience of life significantly.”
“Although by nature he is fully God, Jesus is fully human and lives as such. While never loosing the innate ability to fly, he CHOOSES moment-by-moment God with us, or God with you, to be more precise.”
“But what about all the miracles? The healings? Raising people from the dead? Doesn’t that prove that Jesus was God—you know, more than human?”
“No, it proves that Jesus is truly human.”
“What?”
“Mackenzie, I can fly, but human’s can’t. Jesus is fully human. Although he is also fully God, he has NEVER drawn upon his nature as God to do anything. He has only lived out of his relationship with me, living in the very same manner that I desire to be in relationship with every human being. He is just the first to do it the uttermost—the first to absolutely trust my life within him, the first to believe in my love and goodness without regard for appearance or consequence.”
“So when he healed the blind?”
“He did so as a dependent, limited human being trusting in my life and power to be at work within him and through him. Jesus, as a human being, had no power within himself to heal anyone.”
“Only as he rested in his relationship with me, and I our communion—our co-union—could he express my heart and will into any given circumstance. So, when you look at Jesus and it appears the he’s flying, he really is…flying. But what you are actually seeing is me; my life in him. That’s how he lives and acts as a true human, how every human is designed to live—out of my life.
“A bird’s not defined by being grounded but by his ability to fly.
Remember this, humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image.”
[End excerpt]
If you are not familiar with this book, it is about this man, Mackenzie, whose three-year-old daughter gets kidnapped and brutally murdered on a camping trip. The evidence of this is found in a little, old, rundown shack in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of this man’s “great sadness” as the book refers to the tragic incident, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God himself, wanting to meet with Him—at none other than the very shack his heart was left broken.
Mack’s life as a child is first told in this book and it’s a story of abuse and an absent father whose life was lived inside a bottle. The term “Papa” has never played nice in his heart and the fact that his wife called God “Papa” was a twist in his story all together.
In this story, Mack asks the questions that the stereotype Pastors and Priests tell us the reasons why those questions filter through our brains is lack of faith.
A fictional tale that is heartbreaking yet amazing, will open your eyes and hearts to a God who just wants to love you, I recommend this book to anyone who is searching for a deeper relationship with God and questioning what that even looks like.
This excerpt alone has been forever imprinted in my mind. The fact that such an easy idea; tangible idea like a bird and it’s ability to fly can be so easily turned into the amazing love God has for us and how we, as humans and know everything there is to know about life, CHOOSE to not be loved—and most the time, unconsciously or only because we don’t FEEL loved limit ourselves to God’s abundant and never ending, never altering love.
An idea popped into my head as I write this, that my whole plan is to move to Utah and LOVE. I want to love those who are so hard to love or are missing out in love or don’t know Jesus’ love.
I find this little idea about limitations and becoming REALLY TRULY human and LOVE the way God loves us, I HAVE to be in constant relationship with God. It is so easy to talk about God, talk about what He’s doing, about how he’s moving me and settling me, but so often I find myself forgetting to talk TO God, rather than about Him. I have to be saturated in him, in HIM ALONE, not with an agenda to be able to let his love flow out of my pores and onto others. I have to talk with God, not with a plan of action, but because I am madly and head over heels in love with my Savior.
When something great or tragic happens; something crazy, Ben is the first person I call. Why? Because I want to share in all my experiences with him. Why? Because I love him. Because when you are in love, the person you want to tell and talk to and be in communication and community with is the person you are in love with.
This concept is a lot like prayer. When you are in trouble, a difficult week, pray. Are you happy? Sing songs of praise. Are you sick? Pray. Talk to the one you love. It’s this idea of a relationship that God should not be our last, but or first to tell because we are so madly, deeply in love with our Savior.
Prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
God wants a relationship with us. He wants to give us all these amazing things. He wants what is BEST for us. And what is GOOD for us. He wants us to fully experience what we were suppose to.
I want to be fully human. I want my life to be fully lived out of His. I want to be fully saturated in His love, because then, I will better love those around me.
The story of Jesus is so much more powerful and meaningful to me now. He was EXACTLY the same as me in all my humanness…the only difference was that he didn’t limit himself.
This is my prayer. This is my mindset.
I will fall on my face, no doubt.
But that is what is SO beautiful about a relationship with God.
He is the God of 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th and 99th chances.
Why?
Because He LOVES me.