The Shack

by William Young

Mack Phillips' youngest daughter Missy is abducted and presumed dead while on a family vacation. Four years later, Mack receives a letter inviting him to visit "The Shack", the last place Missy was known to be. Who awaits him there will change his life forever after.

Okay. So this is one of those books that everyone is talking about. "It changed my life", "Profound and moving", all that kind of thing. Mack's weekend with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit was indeed moving and overwhelming for him. It was a very well written story. Young gives us God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in forms we can relate to and even attempts to explain issues that many Christians may struggle with. But overall, it just wasn't the deep spiritual experience I had heard that so many people have had with the book.

Mack works his way through redemption, forgiveness and understanding in the course of a weekend. He is finally able to release his guilt and despair over losing his youngest daughter and see that she is indeed in a better place. That itself made the story worth reading.

But the biggest issue I had is one that was a somewhat minor point of the story. God and Jesus tell Mack that church is not necessary. That God doesn't want people to get together every week to worship and sign hymns and collect money and all that. The sense is that God wants you to live a in a godly way every minute of your life and church is not necessary to do that. And I agree with that. However, as someone who usually gets a great deal out of a church service, it made sitting in church the following Sunday somewhat tedious. In the back of my mind, all I could hear was "God doesn't want you to do this, this isn't want He expects". And that right there, ruined the book for me. Because now I don't know if I can sit through church again without thinking that.

A lot of people found great spiritual hope in the book. I wish I was one of them. However, all that being said, I did enjoy the book for the story of Mack's journey through grief and acceptance. If you read it and find it spiritually moving, I'm glad.