February 17, 2009
Learning to Live Loved
by Brad Chittenden
Mack and Jesus talking:
“But why do we keep all that crap inside?” Mack asked.
“Because we believe it’s safer there. And, sometimes, when you’re a kid trying to survive, it really is safer there. Then you grow up on the outside, but on the inside you’re still that kid in the dark cave surrounded by monsters (fears, lies, regrets,etc.) and out of habit you keep adding to your collection. We all collect things we value, you know?”
“…So how does that change, you know, for somebody who’s lost in the dark like me?”
“Most often, pretty slowly,” Jesus answered. “Remember, you can’t do it alone. Some folks try with all kinds of coping mechanisms and mental games. But the monsters are still there, just waiting for the chance to come out.”
“So what do I do now?”
“What you’re already doing Mack, learning to live loved. It’s not an easy concept for humans. Youu have a hard time sharing anything.” He chuckled and continued. “So, yes, what we desire is for you to ‘re-turn’ to us, and then we come and make our home inside you, and then we share. The friendship is real, not merely imagined. We’re meant to experience this life, your life, together, in dialogue, sharing the journey. You get to share our wisdom and learn to love with our love, and we get…..to hear you grumble and gripe and complain!”
Brad’s ruminations:
I think that I will make a plaque and hang it on my wall. It will say in big letters: “LEARNING TO LIVE LOVED.”
Obviously, this book is not a propositional, systematic treatment of theology. It is, however, undoubtedly unsurpassed in its experiential theology! They need each other, you know. Most of we Protestants are terrified by the “e” word!
We love our notions of forensic or judicial justification, but we are less enamored with the nuts and bolts of everyday, experiential (there’s that dreadful “e” word again) progressive sanctification!
Let’s face it. We have here a picture of a very close knit relationship between Mack and the tri-une God. We all have monsters in a dark cave somewhere in our psyches. God wants us to know that the Monsters “are more shadow than reality.” (pg. 174) We cannot deal with them alone, however clever and surreptitious our coping mechanisms. So how do we cope?
Learn to live as though the tri-une God (Father, Son and HS) is our best friend; and that “friendship” is unconditional love. So we abide in His love and learn to live Loved. Most (if not perhaps ”all”) of our neurosis’, anger issues, emotional and psychological quirks, etc. are rooted in being deprived of love; Love in the deepest part of us has been shut out. Since God is love, and we are bearers of His image (bearer’s of Love) to be deprived of it in childhood or in life, is to suffer a definite lack of true humanity and Beauty.
Jesus wasn’t just pontificating an empty religious platitude when He told His disciples the night before He was taken from them, “…Now abide (remain, rest, repose, relax) in my love.” (See the Amplified Bible, John 15:9.)
That is all I have to say about that right now.
Excerpts from THE SHACK by William P. Young
Filed by Kirby at February 17th, 2009 under Christian Living
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