The Shack Quotes

“Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don’t misunderstand me, both are needed- but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence.”

“You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness and give him over to me so that my love will burn from his life every vestige of corruption.”

“If I take away the consequences of people’s choices, I destroy the possibility of love. Love that is forced is no love at all.”

“But your choices are also not stronger than my purposes, and I will use every choice you make for the ultimate good and the most loving outcome.”

“Forgiveness is not about forgetting, Mack. It is about letting go of another person’s throat. Forgiveness does not establish relationship. It is to release you from something that will eat you alive, that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly.”

“Though chains be of gold, they are chains all the same.”

“Humans, who have been given the task to lovingly steer the world, instead plunder her, with no consideration other than their immediate needs. And they give little thought to their own children, who will inherit their lack of love.”

“Does freedom mean that you are allowed to do whatever you want to do? Or we could talk about all the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom. Your family genetic heritage, your specific DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff that is going on at a subatomic level where only I am the always-present observer.”

“I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughter of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved.”

“I’ve been talking to you for a long time, but today was the first time you could hear it, and all those other times weren’t a waste either. Like little cracks in the wall, one at a time but woven together, they prepared you for today. You have to prepare the soil if you want it to embrace the seed.”

“Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around. You, on the other hand, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around.”

“When all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me?”

“We are not three gods, and we are not talking about one god with three attitudes, like a man who is a husband, father, and worker. I am one God and I am three persons, and each of the three is fully and entirely the one.”

“When your good and evil clash with your neighbor’s, fights and arguments ensue and even wars break out...if there is no reality of good that is absolute, then you have lost any basis for judging. It is just language, and one might as well exchange the word good for the word evil.”

“Mack, that’s because you’re seeing only the institution, a man-made system. That’s not what I came to build. What I see are people and their lives, a living, breathing community of all those who love me, not building and programs.”

“Our earth is like a child who has grown up without parents, having no one to guide and direct her...Some have attempted to help her, but most have simply tries to use her.”

“Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me.”

“Faith does not grow in the house of certainty.”

“I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, it’s because I love you.”

“Honey, you’re a survivor. No shame in that. Your daddy hurt you something fierce. Life hurt you. Lies are one of the easiest places for survivors to run. They give you a sense of safety, a place where you have to depend only on yourself. But it’s a dark place, isn’t it?”

“Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship.”

“I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it.”