Sunday, February 01, 2009

Article

I just read a great article in a magazine called Servant. My sister had mailed it to my mom, and well it found it's way to me! Anyway this article is about the writer of a book that has sold over 2 million. The book is called: The Shack. The author's name is William P. Young. Here are some snippets of the article:

~His goal was to have 15 books printed to give to family and close friends. Friends gave it to their friends and so on and so on and soon 10,000 copies were printed. These books were simply sold off a web site and sold out of the family garage! In just 4 months they were all gone and another 20,000 were printed. Companies contacted the Young's and asking them to sell it in their stores. To date, they have only spent $300. in advertising and have sold over 2 million copies!!

~Re. the question: Do all paths lead to God?: I quote him, " I have never believed this. The path narrows to one man, the second Adam, Jesus Christ. In the book, Mac asks Jesus, "Do all roads lead to Papa (God)?" And he's told, "No, most roads don't lead anywhere. But I will go down any road to find you." This is the story of the Incarnation. I's the the Good Shepard leaving the 99 to go after the one. God knows how lost we are. And He will be the one to bridge the gap. He expressed His love first before we even had the capacity to respond. We love Him because he first loved us. He'll go down any road for us but that doesn't mean that any particular road we're on is The Way."

~Re. the Question: What would you say to those who long for healing but haven't heard God speak yet?: "The God who knows we can only hear at 10 decibels won't talk to us at 9.9 and then get mad at us for not being able to hear Him. The whole process of healing is so unique to each person because the damage has been unique. Only God is big enough to take your big pile of string and untie it one knot at a time in the right order so the string doesn't break. It takes time because He won't abuse you in order to heal you.

Question, How has the success of the book changed you?: "...I told God that I'll never again ask you to bless anything I do because I am done with Religious performance. BUT, of you've got something you're blessing and it would be ok for me to hang around that, I would be all over it, whether it's cleaning toilets, or shinning shoes, or holding the door open. The book doesn't add anything to my significance. My identity is in Jesus. I know I walk with a limp. I know where I've come from. I know every breath is grace.

Question, How would you like people to remember you?: "As an enigma of grace. My life doesn't make any sense. When you're dealing with a human being it's easy to feel like you've extended too much grace and you want to give up. But just look at creation. How many shades of green are there? What a wastefulness of green! And in our relationship with God we cannot go deep enough to run out of the wastefulness of His grace. There's more than enough. He keeps on giving when it's unexpected and undeserved. This flood of grace is all around us because that's just the way His love is."

To read even more about William P. Young read this article here.




4 comments:

Jen said...

Wow ! Lots to reflect on in those statements.
May we all know His true grace and remain humble in the face of it's magnitude.

The Hippie Moose said...

I have already read The Shack twice since Christmas... it was life changing.

Magdalena said...

That was good to know about the author... a bit of a relief actually, except the part about his view of grace. Unless they omitted something, his view of grace is a bit erroneous. God doesn't just dish out grace all over the place; if we sin, we must repent or reap the fruit. If we call our sin what it is, confess it to God and repent, He gives us the undeserved gift of grace to cleanse and transform us into the image of Christ as we walk in submission to His Holy Spirit. It is a partnership, not a license to sin. It is the confession of sin in our lives that is the biggest stumbling block to grace when we are too afraid, proud or self seeking to admit we have sinned and that we need to be cleansed. "Greasy" or un-sanctified grace acknowledges Christ as Saviour, but not as Lord. If we have truly accepted Jesus as our Saviour and Lord, ongoing transformation will be evident. Grace will be in action as we walk in humility and repentance. Everyone makes mistakes, stumbles, and there is ample grace, but continuing in carnality, using the reason that "God loves me anyway" is a twisted view of the Gospel message and so will not produce the fruit of the Kingdom of God in our lives. Two kingdoms, 2 kinds of fruit, there is no middle fruit.

Tamatha said...

I love that book! I could read it over and over again.hehe