The Shack Book

I read The Shack by William P. Young way back in October, but I really wanted to share my opinion of it here. So after putting it off for some time, here I go. First, if you haven't heard about The Shack, this is the product description from Amazon.com:

Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!

I thought the book was interesting and could tell that the author put a lot of thought and faith into it. Who wouldn't want to speak with God, to see some of heaven before arriving there for eternity? From the little I've read about it on Amazon.com, the book brings out widely varied reactions, but this is just mine, just my two cents.

To me, the book portrayed God as a very loving being. A being so loving that He wasn't focused on some of the other "things" that I think most people feel God would be "interested" in. I guess I should just out with it: I thought this book's God was too soft, too human. I want my God to be mighty "vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord," (Romans 12:19) a being who is regarded with mingled fear, respect and affection (that's the definition of revere, I didn't think of that myself). "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalms 111:10) I know none of us are perfect, that we all fall short, "judge not that ye be not judged" and all that line of thought, but if the blame keeps being put on the parents or care-givers of wrong-doers (as in this book), where does the blame finally end? I hope that God is loving and forgiving as depicted in The Shack, but I also hope He is the pillar of fire and the omnipotent rock of ages I've read about in The Bible.

I'd love to hear what you thought of The Shack, but please no bashing!