Shack Book Quotes

I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing.

Each relationship between two persons is absolutely unique. That is why you cannot love two people the same. It simply is not possible. You love each person differently because of who they are and the uniqueness that they draw out of you.

Emotions are the colors of the soul.

I don't just want a piece of you and a piece of your life. Even if you were able, which you are not, to give me the biggest piece, that is not what I want. I want all of you and all of every part of you and your day.

"Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly"... "And if left unresolved you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place."

It is not the nature of love to force a relationship, but it is the nature of love to open the way.

Living unloved is like clipping a bird's wings and removing its ability to fly.

If anything matters, then everything matters.

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

Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.

Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved.

You cannot produce trust just like you cannot 'do' humility. It either is or is not.

Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself - to serve.

Does that mean," asked Mack, "that all roads will lead to you?" "Not at all," smiled Jesus..."Most roads don't lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.

Love is not the limitation; love is the flying.

So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it.

religion is about having the right answers, and some of their answers are right... but i am about the process that takes you to the living answer... it will change you from the inside. there are a lot of smart people who are able to say a lot of right things from their brain because they have been told what the right answers are, but they don't know me at all.

I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.

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. Living unloved is like clipping a bird’s wings and removing its ability to fly.  Not something I want for you. Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.  And if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place.

Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat.

Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.

Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.

God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellect.

Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside.

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.

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.

You don't play a game or color a picture with a child to show your superiority. Rather, you choose to limit yourself so as to facilitate and honor that relationship.

Perhaps there is supranatural: reason beyond the normal definitions of fact or data-based logic; something that only makes sense if you can see a bigger picture of reality. Maybe that is where faith fits in.

All I want from you is to trust me with what little you can, and grow in loving people around you with the same love I share with you. It's not your job to change them, or to convince them. You are free to love without an agenda.

You are free to love without an agenda

...if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will be the same again.

Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn't mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don't ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.

In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerner's access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book.

No matter what God's power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself.

I am what some would say 'holy, and wholly other than you.' The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn't much, and then call that God. And while it may seem like a noble effort, the truth is that it falls pitifully short of who I really am. I'm not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think.