You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but a the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.

Young sets up the story with the abduction of Phillips' youngest daughter. This causes him to go to a dark place mentally and spiritually. He loses faith for God while he feels as though everyone around him has simply moved on. He receives a letter from "Papa," which is what his very faithful wife calls God. This leads him to secretly go back to The Shack where his daughter was killed.

There, Mackenzie spends a weekend with each God of the Trinity in His individual form. He shares an easy connection with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but he cannot bring himself to trust God the Father. This is a metaphor for how believers act in crisis. It is easy for them to look at what Jesus did in His lifetime. And we try to feel the Holy Spirit in our hearts, but we struggle to go to our Creator because we think He allowed it.

To grow through that, Mackenzie spends time with God in the form of a judge. This judge asks him to choose only two of his children to spend eternity in Heaven. He realizes immediately that this is not an option. This makes him realize that God does not choose who goes to Heaven, for they are His children. But He has given them the freedom to make that decision n their own.