When I read it, I missed God.

Now, granted when you write a book about a man who goes and talks with God, you have the difficult challenge of having to actually write with God's voice. And we are… not God. We cannot say with certainty how God speaks, we can only say how he speaks to *us*.

The book was probably great as a portrayal of the way God speaks to those authors. But when I read it, I spent the whole time thinking, "Awww. I miss God." I missed hearing his voice as I have heard him speak to me. When he speaks to us, he says them in ways we will connect to. To me, he speaks in poetry and song. To others, he gives practical answers to problems. He can certainly do both… but he meets the need where it is (like I know a lot of practical answers, but I need the motivation to get started).

Part of the beauty of Christianity is, of course, that God *does* speak to us all differently, and only Scripture manages to capture every way God speaks to us. So… not necessarily a fault of the authors. Almost more a celebration of the fact that it is reaching people who would never have responded to my version of the tale, or yours, or Frank Peretti's, or Donald Miller's (although who doesn't respond to Donald Miller's stories?).

Amen brother/sister/non-gendered-sibling.

I read the book because my Bible study group wanted to talk about it this year. I was expecting to either find it emotionally challenging and insightful, or blaphemous and dangerous.

I found it neither.

I feel that the author could have done a lot more with the premise. He attempted to tell us how the protagonist felt, instead of showing us. He created emotions without laying out a basis or reason for them. And I felt each ‘contact’ was rushed, as if each member of the trinity had to have their say and get off stage as quickly as possible before anyone realised they weren’t saying anything.

Maybe the ideas didn’t seem too revolutionary because I already think about God that way, or maybe I am just too stupid to understand them, but I got nothing from this book.

Sorry.

1. The Prayer of Jabez
2. The Purpose Driven Life
3. The Shack…

It never ends.

While skimming over the responses listed here, I was suddenly struck by the fact that we (me too here) have so much to say about this novel. Yet a post about a chapter in the bible would not garner nearly the amount of response.

It’s amazing that a fictional work of man can cause such a stir in our culture, (or sub-culture),but the perfect Word of God does not.

foolishj

I bailed about when the Asian woman was collecting tears off his clothes. This was a bit like expecting to taking a sip of water and getting beer instead. Bleh.

Now I’m combing the web looking for a full, spoiler-filled synopsis. I’m slightly interested in how it ends, but not nearly curious enough to sit through the protagonists’ ‘life changing’ experience.

And does KLG need her own post?