Lessons from The Shack: What is Freedom?

I have recently re-read The Shack. People tend to either love it or hate it. Me - I love it. To me it shows our God as so much bigger and better than anything our limited human expectations, knowledge or even experience could hope to dream up when we think of Him. We tend to try and put him in a box with a label God and we think we know what's inside it, but The Shack blows away any box or limitation we might try to put on Him. So let me share with you a few truths that have spoken deeply into my being in my journey to The Shack:

Lesson Two: What is Freedom?

Let's talk some about the nature of freedom.


Does freedom mean being allowed to do whatever you want to?


OK, so what about all the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom?


Your family. Your genetic heritage. Your specific DNA. Your metabolic uniqueness.


How about the intrusion of your soul's sickness that inhibits and blinds you?


What about the social influences around you?


Or the habits that have formed pathways in your brain?


And then there's advertising, propaganda and paradigms.


Inside that array of multi-faceted inhibitors what is freedom really?

We live our lives as if we are free, we ignore the call of the Spirit deep within, we try to reclaim our independence by stating we are in control of our destiny, but really we are fooling ourselves.

We are no more free than a dog on a long leash who keeps walking because he forgets he's attached until SNAP! he reaches the end and is yanked back into line.

We all have different things (or people) at the end of our chains, pulling us into submission, but we kid ourselves when we say we are free.

The Truth shall set you free and Truth has a name: Jesus. Everything is about Him, and freedom is a process of the soul that can only happen inside a relationship with Him.