~William Paul Young - The Shack~
In the movie The Shack, Mack struggles in hs faith in a God whom he feels has abandoned him. Not only that, he reads into scripture far too much in his belief that God indeed abandoned His own Son as He suffered on that cross. In Macks mind, this was a hypocritical God who promised salvation yet punished His own children should they deserve it. A God who demanded not only obedience but adherence to all His demanded of them. After all, they were Gods messengers to His children. After I saw the movie, I came away with the realization that I had been just as the main character of this movie had been. When I was growing up, my mother made sure that her youngest knew exactly who God was. However, I would later find out that this was NOT the God who I was told that He was. Sure, my mother repeatedly told me that God loved me and always would, but from the church pulpit I heard a different story. God was a vengeful and jealous God who loved His children enough to save them yet who was always quick to punish any of us who should stray from His commandments. Rather than a God of love, I served a God of strict obedience. More often than not, I came away from a Sunday morning service worse off than when I came in, having been painfully reminded that I needed to repent and make amends for all that I had done. In my heart I knew that Christ had bled and died for me, yet each day I found myself on my knees in prayer asking forgiveness should God feel the need to punish me for something I had done.
13And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. 16So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Colossions 2: 13 - 17 NKJV
These are the two Gods which we are told exist today. The God who loved us first and the vengeful and jealous God who is quick to punish those who disobey Him. Love and punishment, do those two go together? The first time I had an inkling that perhaps I had the wrong idead of God was when I heard a friend refer to God as a loving parent to His children. Now, for those of us who have been parents, there is no doubt that we love our own children. However, knowing this, we also are aware that discipline is definately needed in the raising of a child. I believe that the key here to understanding God is in that relationship of a loving parent. Indeed, as I was growing up my mother did discipline me when required, but it was corrective disipline and never abusive. I believe that to remain in the belief that God is in heaven just waiting for us to screw up so that He can unleash just punishment is to believe that God is a God of abusive discipline. This is never discipline born out of love and correction, but punishment born out of control. Above all, control is at the very heart of the chruch version of God. How can one live in the freedom of Gods love while they are under His thumb? That is a impossible task for anyone. One of the best quotes which I have found from Paul Youngs story was Papas explanation of His view on punishing our sins. Sin needs no punishment for sin is its own punishment. We always know when we sin, and it eats away at us. However, our heavenly Father has already given us the cure for sin. By sending His Son to the cross, the sin debt which we carried has been paid in full. Without sin as our hinderance, we are truly free to live in the love of our Father.
~Scott~
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