Archive for June 21st, 2007
Thursday, June 21st, 2007 by Paul
The Need for ‘Control’
In my opinion, much of our drive to control (circumstances, others etc) is based in fear (fear of failure, fear of others, fear of being embarrassed, fear of the future etc) and if our fight to control is not an exercise against outright fear, we at least want to minimize the uncertainties in our lives. I am not talking about fear of ‘real’ dangers, but the fear that is linked to ‘imagined’ potentials.
Many think the opposite of fear is courage or bravery, but really the opposite is love. Perfect love casts out fear – there is a direct relationship between the fear in mylife and the settled-ness in my heart that I am loved (the one who fears is not perfected – has not come to wholeness in the matter of being loved). To use a metaphor: the small child of the greatest potentate enters his presence without any fear while others quake. Why? Because he knows he’s loved.
Another way to put it might be that in the process of becoming whole we are continually given opportunities to exchange all the uncertainties of life for the certainty of God’s character. This is an exercise in dependence and we should recogize it for the revolutionary action and rebellious stand against the systems (who are so quick to promise all manner of ‘certainties’).
As we trust God’s character of Love and particularly His active and involved love toward us, we don’t have to understand the circumstances of our lives in order to live freely and live loved. Faith sees past the uncertainties, and in some sense even embraces them, knowing that the certainty of Papa’s love is the only place where there is real solid ground.
Fear, on the other hand, runs from uncertainty or tries to erect systems and devices or gives allegiance to anyone or anything that promises to make life more certain. But the ultimate little child pointing out the emperor’s nakedness, is death. Death is a mockery of every attempt at certainty and why the world lives in fear of death, the one ‘potential’ that is assuredly ‘certain’.
The life of being loved and the life of faith is a life of risk; learning to hear the voice of One who loves in the midst of screaming uncertainties and demanding necessities. It is a journey and process…this learning to live loved. We will make lots of mistakes, but like Peter and Mack, we will come to understand and actually be overwhelmed by joy when we begin to realize that we would rather be sinking out on the water with Jesus than ’safe’ back in the boat, without Him.
-willie
Thursday, June 21st, 2007 by Paul
General Updates on The Shack stuff – June 21, 2007
Hi all,
I am going to try and keep you updated on general interest information, itinerary stuff and anything else I can think of that you might like…
Many of you know that I did a podcast with Wayne and Brad on www.thegodjourney.com – you can find it there along with many other podcasts that are worth your time. This is a great, fun and entertaining resource.
I taped another podcast that will be airing mid-August with the folks at Christianity without Religion http://www.ptm.org/cwr/ which is a sort of internet community/church and has a historical relationship to the Worldwide Church of God. They publish The Plain Truth Magazine (which has come a long way from the old days), and their Sept/Oct issue (coming out in mid-August) will feature The Shack as the entire back cover (which I think is pretty fun). They think their readership is about 100,000. Hmmmm, we have about 8,000 books left from the first printing….hmmmmm
Next Tuesday, June 26th, I will be interviewed on local radio here in Oregon (KPDQ, the Georgene Rice Show) about the book. I sort of know Georgene Rice from years ago…Kim knows her a lot better, but also from a long time ago. For those who are able, the time of the interview on Tuesday will be 5PM – 93.7 FM in Portland, OR – translators elsewhere in the state.
The Byerly family is heading to the House2House Church conference in California and taking about 20 books to foist down there.
A believer’s community in Salem, OR, thanks to Dena and Mark, have a case of books that they are rampaging through and I am going down there to visit – I think on August 5th – just to see what kind of trouble I have stirred up…not really. It will be very fun!!!
I think that I am doing my first book signing at a coffee house in Newberg, Oregon in the next few weeks – will keep you posted…thanks to Chyril and family.
Let me see…I have received emails from wonderful people all over the US and Canada, and from Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the UK and Japan – folks who have already read the book…can you believe that? This is soooo cool!
One of Oprah’s on-line book clubs selected The Shack as their June read and invited me as a guest to discuss it…what an incredible group of women and the conversation has been brilliant and open and a gift.
I am soon moving this site over to Joomla so that I can do more stuff, like upload some music, post images and documents and generally confuse myself even more…but they say it will be easier to manage and I am all for that. The initial mock-ups are fun…they make me look really important, but as long as you and I know better we can enjoy the creativity and the joke.
I hear every single day from people whose lives are being touched and opened up by this little unassuming story – I am so grateful that I had no idea about any of this when I wrote the book – I am like the kid, wide-eyed in wonder, at their first glimpse of whale breaching or the Rocky Mountains, or…you get the idea. I feel like I just had my first lesson in surfing and someone said, ‘Hey, why don’t you try that 40 foot wave over there.’ Glory to the One who loves us all.
-willie (William P Young)
