Based on the 2007 novel of the same title by William P. Young, the Shack is a movie that challenges conventional Christian stereotypes. I saw an amazing review of the movie by a friend on a social media site and I decided it was worth watching and frankly, I was not disappointed. The movie which tells the story of a young man whose very kind and God-loving daughter was murdered by a serial killer, attempts to answer the age-long question “Why Does God allow bad things happen to good people?”
It is important to note that this is not a movie critique, thus, I will not be stressing any technical aspects of the movie. I learnt many profound lessons from the movie and here are a few:
God can be anything you need him to be
The line “I know you needed a Father today, so I came to you as one” is one of my favorites. Just like the situations we go through differ, so does our need per time. Sometimes, we need a counselor, and at other times, a mother, a friend, a confidant or a buddy. It was refreshing to see the God character take on these different roles as the need arose and I was reminded that God does same for me every passing day.
As an aside, this is not me being feminist but I totally loved the idea of Papa, as God was fondly called throughout the movie, being depicted as a woman.
Forgiveness Heals
Decades, a wife and three children later, Mackenzie is still being traumatized by the physical and emotional abuse that he suffered at the hands of his drunken father as a child because of unforgiveness. The peace and calm that he experienced after he painfully let go of the trauma he faced as a 13-year-old taught me that forgiveness heals and the sooner it is done, the better.
God Sees the Big Picture
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9
The movie taught me that only if we could see things through the eyes of God, we would complain less. When Mackenzie understood life from Papa’s perspective, and when he saw how happy his daughter was with Papa, all the bottled up anger and resentment gradually went away. That experience taught me that God alone sees the Big Picture, it is always better to trust Him because human knowledge even at its best, is myopic.
So, just in case you are on a movie hunt this week, here is a great one! You can watch movie trailer here
