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I Met Papa Before I Read The Shack

I Met Papa Before I Read The Shack

Last updated on: August 29, 2026 at 4:00 pm by Gregory T. Smith

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I Met Papa Before I Read The Shack 2026-08-29T16:00:03-08:00 Gregory T. Smith

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Before William Paul Young published The Shack, I had my own encounter with God as Papa. Now, decades later, I get to tell Young about it.

Cover art from Wm. Paul Young’s “The Shack”

It was around 1997. I was between pastoral positions and working a sales job to keep the roof over our heads. My third child was on the way, and money was scarce. Sales had been slim, and I was scared. One day I returned to the depot to return the work vehicle, and I unloaded all my feelings onto the manager, who was a good friend, and a fellow believer. He prayed for me—and what happened next depends on the language you prefer. I passed out. I fell under the power of the Holy Ghost. I was slain in the Spirit. Take your pick. Whatever you call it, I hit the concrete floor and didn’t even feel it.

The Vision

And I had a vision. I was a baby, cradled in the arms of an old man whose whiskers felt just as real as they would in the waking world. Jesus was looking over the old man’s shoulder at me. Both faces shone with tenderness and compassion. Even in the middle of a mystical experience, apparently my theological brain was still trying to make sense of it, because I remember wondering, Where’s the Holy Spirit? Then, I felt a gentle breeze moving through my hair and I realized it was the breath of God.

And then the Father spoke three words to me: “You so funny!”

But the old White man’s voice came out in the tone and accent of the African-American woman who lived across the street from me as a kid, and who had also been my bus driver. A woman who, not insignificantly, was named Grace. She was a Southern grandmotherly figure who had always shown a sometimes stern but always unconditional love. “You so funny,” she said with a chuckle that wasn’t mocking. It was warm, and almost amused.

Here I was frightened about money and worried about what was going to happen to me, while seeing myself as a baby being held in the arms of a God who transcended my categories of race and gender. And instead of just resting in the arms of the One who loved me unfailingly, I was trying to make theological sense of it.

You so funny!

How could I be so afraid when I was already being held?

Then I Met Papa Again

Years later, I read William Paul Young’s The Shack, the bestselling novel about a grieving father named Mack who encounters God in the midst of his pain. One of the things that made the book both beloved and controversial was Young’s portrayal of God. First, Young renamed God as Papa. Then, Young depicted God as a warm, affectionate Black woman and later as an Indigenous/Native American man. Young’s Jesus is truly Middle Eastern, unlike the stereotypically White stained-glass versions. And Young renames the Holy Spirit as Sarayu, picturing her as an Asian woman.

So, when I encountered Young’s Papa, that image of God felt strangely familiar. I’d met Papa, too.

I don’t mean that somehow Young got the idea from me. Young didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him. My experience happened about ten years before The Shack was published. These were completely independent experiences—which is what makes them so powerful when I consider their similarity.

In my vision, God initially appeared as an old White man—the most traditional image of “God the Father” imaginable. But when God spoke, God transcended categories of race and gender. And, more importantly, the God I encountered wasn’t angry or disappointed. God wasn’t lecturing me about having more faith or understanding the right theology**. Grace was holding me, letting me know she was especially fond of me.**

More Than an Endorsement

Fast-forward nearly thirty years. I wrote Jesus and Lao Tzu: The Way of Love, bringing the teachings of Jesus into conversation with the Tao Te Ching. Through a series of connections that I could never have orchestrated myself, William Paul Young agreed to read an advance copy of my book.

When his email arrived, I stared at it for a while. He said:

In a world that, often unknowingly, is looking for excuses to connect, you have written another lifeline, a love letter to humanity. Thank you for the work and heart you put into this.

Then, he gave me this endorsement quote:

“I have written about a God who refuses to be contained by any religious system—a wilder Love, and more tender than any theology we construct. This is the God of real life. Gregory Smith invites us to sit with that same God at the intersection of two ancient wisdom streams. He dares us to listen to them talk long enough to change us. What emerges is not a blending or a borrowing, but a deepening. This book is a rare gift.”

Having the author of The Shack call my book “a rare gift” felt pretty incredible. I’m an author. I’m allowed to enjoy that this writing-hero of mine used those words to describe my work. These words came as more than a formal endorsement quote. They came as affirmation that my first published book was actually good, and spiritually on-track.

A Wilder Love

But what affected me most was his description of God: “a wilder Love, and more tender than any theology we construct.”

I knew that God. I’d met that God on the floor of a sales depot in 1997.

And I thought, Yes, it is a wilder Love that shows up as Grace incarnate, and also as the transpersonal Way in the Tao Te Ching*. And, wildest yet, that “that same God” can be encountered through both without reducing one to the other.*

Because my vision, my book, and Young’s The Shack all point beyond our religious systems and our theologies toward the “God of real life.”

Not a Blending or Borrowing

There was something else in Paul’s endorsement that mattered tremendously to me. He understood what I was trying to do. Honestly, my greatest concern was that, writing from the position of a Christian pastor, I might accidentally baptize Lao Tzu and turn the Tao Te Ching into a secret Christian text. That was something I tried to actively resist as I wrote this book. I didn’t want to suggest that Christianity and Taoism are secretly the same religion, because they aren’t. Nor did I want to raid another religious system for interesting ideas that I could drag back into Christianity.

Instead, I wanted to listen closely to another tradition long enough to learn from it. I wanted to allow its beauty to influence me, and communicate that to Christians in a way they could understand.

Young captured that distinction beautifully: “Not a blending or a borrowing, but a deepening.”

Reading Lao Tzu hasn’t made me less interested in Jesus—in fact, it has made me a more devoted disciple. It has helped me notice things about Jesus that often show up as blind spots in Western Christianity: the relinquishing of power, the refusal to dominate, the embrace of weakness, the willingness to empty ourselves. Those things were already there in Jesus. But sometimes it takes someone standing outside our tradition to see what’s been there all along.

“A Rare Gift”

Paul Young blew me away when he described my book as “another lifeline, a love letter to humanity.” That may mean even more to me than calling it “a rare gift.” Because, ultimately, that’s what I hope I’ve written. A legacy for my children, a lifeline to my grandchildren, and a love letter to humanity.

I want to build a comfortable campfire and invite people to come sit in its warmth. A place where people exhausted by religion built around fear, certainty, control, and winning can come to shed their burdens. A place where people who still find Jesus compelling but wonder whether God might be larger than the theological boxes they’ve constructed can lighten their load, share a s’more, and discuss their messy spirituality. That kind of safe space can be a rare gift, indeed.

“You So Funny!”

Maybe that’s why Paul Young’s endorsement means so much to me. Almost thirty years ago, when I was frightened and worried about whether my family and I were going to be okay, I encountered a God who refused to stay inside my categories. Years later, I found a strange resonance in the pages of The Shack. And now the man who wrote those pages has read something I wrote and recognized something familiar there, too.

Now, I can’t wait to reply to his email and share this article with him, to tell him about my experience of Papa.

This is a God who won’t fit inside our boxes, who is bigger than our theology, and who holds us when we’re frightened. A God who sometimes is a Papa, sometimes is a transpersonal Tao, and sometimes is the voice of Grace who says, with absolute tenderness, “You so funny!”

Click here to read about Wm. Paul Young’s long-awaited sequel, releasing this year: Return to the Shack

You can pre-order your copy of Return to the Shack now!

For those in the U.S., it doesn’t matter where they buy their copy, they can still submit proof of purchase to access the bonuses. This can be a photo of their receipt, a screenshot of their order confirmation, or anything else that shows they bought the book. or anything else that shows they bought the book.

Click here to enter the giveaway.

The pre-order incentives include:

– A Cartographers layout of the shack and areas around it

– A part of a chapter edited out

– An alternative ending

– A downloadable study guide

– A couple hand-written pages from Willie’s journal

It will be up to other countries/translations as to whether or not they choose to participate in the preorder incentive program.

For related reading, check out my other articles:

If conversations like this—about God beyond our boxes, faith after certainty, and what we can learn when we listen across traditions—are meaningful to you, consider supporting my work on Patreon. Your support helps me keep writing Breathing Space and creating resources for people looking for a more spacious, thoughtful faith.

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About Gregory T. Smith

I live in the beautiful Fraser Valley of British Columbia and work in northern Washington State as a behavioral health specialist with people experiencing homelessness and those who are overly involved in the criminal justice system. Before that, I spent over a quarter-century as lead pastor of several Virginia churches. My newspaper column, “Spirit and Truth,” ran in Virginia newspapers for fifteen years. I am one of fourteen contributing authors of the Patheos/Quoir Publishing book “Sitting in the Shade of Another Tree: What We Learn by Listening to Other Faiths.” I hold a degree in Religious Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and also studied at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. My wife Christina and I have seven children between us, and we are still collecting grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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