The Shack

Church was canceled due to snow (snow! in Memphis! in March!) and I've learned something today. Or maybe I just realized something that I've known all along.

I'm at home all alone reading The Shack. My dad recommended it to me. He who doesn't read fiction as a rule told me it was a must-read. I'm only about a hundred pages in and this man has explained the Trinity in a way that makes so much sense I'm a little overwhelmed. Okay, a lot. I've been teaching Sunday School for about eight years now and I've taught the doctrine of the Trinity several times. Or tried to teach it. Try explaining to a group of second and third graders that God is one Spirit but three persons and watch their little faces as their brains try to reconcile that fact. How can I really teach something that I don't fully understand myself? Honestly, I don't think our puny, imperfect human minds can comprehend the ways of God. Maybe someday God will allow us to understand.

I've been crying, no weeping, for the last half hour as I try to come to terms with what I've just read. Jesus, though completely God and therefore completely free and all-powerful, chose to live as a human on a moment-to-moment basis. At any second he could have given up this wretched earth and returned to heaven but he chose to stay. For you and for me.

Speaking on the nature of Jesus, William Paul Young writes:

When we three spoke ourselves into human existence as the Son of God, we 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 it is to fly, choosing only to walk and remain grounded. He doesn't stop being the 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 losing the innate ability to fly, he chooses moment-by-moment to remain grounded. That is why his name is Immanuel, God with us...Jesus is fully human. Although he is also fully God, he has never drawn upon his nature as God to do anything.

I'm not finished with this yet, not by a long shot. I'd recommend this book to anyone who's ever puzzled over the nature of God. You may just learn something.