So we come to the end of The Shack. I hope you enjoyed engaging the book on a chapter by chapter basis. I know I enjoyed taking the time to think each chapter through again, both the good and the bad.
The last chapter and afterward raise some interesting questions. Mack was in a car accident and finds out that it happened on Friday, not Sunday as would have been the case if he’d left the Shack on Sunday as things seemed. So did he ever really visit the Shack? Even if he did go there, did he actually meet the Trinity? What do you think?
More importantly, I’d like to get some bigger reactions. Having read this book hopefully it’s impacted you in some way. It’s meant to be about how relationship with God changes a person on a daily basis. Do you feel any such change?
I love one of the closing quotes about God’s desire for revolution and it’s with this quote that I’ll close the series on The Shack- “This is not a revolution that will overthorw anything, or if it does, it will do so in ways we could never contrive in advance. Instead it will be the quiet daily powers of dying and serving and loving and laughing, of simple tenderness and unseen kindness, because if anything matters, then everything matters.”
God keep us all pursuing such a revolution.
Tags: final chapter, The Shack
I read the entire book last week. The one thing that struck me the most was the intimacy Mack (and the reader) developed with the Triune God. At first I thought, “Oh, well that’s just the power of literature drawing me into the story and identifying with Mack the character.” But as I’ve reflected the last few days, I’ve begun to see how the fictional intimacy transcends the story into real life. God really does want a relationship with us like that. But it’s more than that – he wants us to have a relationship like that with others too!
Serving others selflessly out of love has become easier for me after experiencing the Shack alongside Mack!