Come and Die

"...will God ever ask me to jump off a cliff?"

         -The Shack, pg. 32

Well, I am off to a good start on Wm. Paul Young's The Shack. Three chapters in and I can tell why this book is so popular. Young's strengths as an author are in the way he paints with words not just the physical reality, but the emotional as well.

What particularly struck me was a passage in which Mack, the father, is telling an American Indian legend to his three children out at Multnomah Falls, Oregon.

Mack tells of a tribal chief's daughter, a princess, who fell in love with a warrior from another tribe. The tribes came together to celebrate the marriage, but when they had gathered, a serious wasting disease began killing many of their young men from several tribes. Some of the elders recalled a prophecy that a serious disease would afflict the tribes and it could only be stopped and the sick healed if a "pure and innocent" daughter of a chief would go to the top of a cliff and jump to her death on the rocks below.

The chiefs decided it would be wrong to force a young girl to kill herself. However, when the princess's warrior beloved became sick with the disease, she decided to voluntarily sacrifice herself. She climbed. She jumped. She died... Everyone got well. The disease disappeared.

The people found her body and understood what had happened. So they prayed to the Great Spirit to remember her and what she had done. So, from the point on the cliff where she had jumped, water began to fall. This is the legend of Multnomah Falls.


...


When Mack tells this tale to his three kids, they listen attentively. Later that night, the youngest daughter, Missy, asks her father the question up above, "will God ever ask me to jump off a cliff?" Her father responds with a decisive NO. He goes on to explain that, even in Jesus' case, God did not force Jesus to be crucified, but rather, Jesus voluntarily went to his death because he loved us.

...Which got me thinking..

Be careful what stories you tell to your children! Be careful what stories you tell yourself, too! The message they get from a story may not be the one you intended on them receiving. That's why conversation matters, and teaching, and listening...

Missy's question revealed how the legend had struck her. If the Great Spirit, another name for God, had required a young girl to die... might God ask me to die too?

What would you say? God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but then stayed his hand. God asks individuals to put themselves in danger for the sake of greater causes, which could and often do result in death.

Truth is... God does not demand the sacrifice of human beings... That is simply not who God is nor is it what God wants. But God does invite us to die...

            ...Jesus says in Luke 9:23, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."

            ...And again in Mark 8:35, "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it."

To die to ourselves is to understand that self-preservation and survival is not the chief aim of our existence. For what good is living if it is not lived for something greater? Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." The chief's daughter understood this. Jesus understood this. Do our lives understand this? For what or whom are we willing to die?

Death is an invitation, not a demand. May love be our motivation.



ps: I can tell some really dark things are going to happen soon in this book... Kinda scared...

pps: please comment below! Let's have a conversation!