William Paul Young: See God In a New Way

Oprah's Super Soul

Oprah

Society & Culture

4.6 • 32.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2018

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

New York Times best-selling author of "The Shack," William Paul Young shares his inspiration behind the book and how it has allowed people to see their relationship with God in a new way. "The Shack" was initially written as a Christmas gift to his children on the train commuting to one of his three jobs, with no intention of publishing it. The book's success led to a motion picture starring Sam Worthington, Octavia Spencer and Tim McGraw. However, the author's journey to success was riddled with a lifetime of sadness and mistakes. A victim of sexual abuse as a child, Paul says his quest for unconditional love drove him to have an affair that nearly tore his family apart. "I didn't confess… I got caught," Paul says of the destructive affair, a moment of exposure that served as a wake-up call for the husband and father of six. Paul says the biggest gift "The Shack" has given him is an invitation to hear other people's stories. Paul also discusses his thought-provoking and controversial book, "Lies We Believe About God."

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of
0:07.5	the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.
0:16.0	Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right
0:23.0	now.
0:24.0	Today on Super Soul Conversations, New York Times best-selling author William Paul Young takes us on his heartbreaking yet
0:32.2	redemptive spiritual journey that culminated in the book The Shack. His blockbuster novel that is
0:38.2	soul more than 20 million copies became one of the most successful faith-based motion pictures of
0:42.8	all time. The Shack is a story of Mackenzie, Mac Phillips, a man questioning his faith after his
0:49.3	six-year-old daughter, Missy is kidnapped and murdered on a family vacation. After three years of
0:54.4	mourning, Mack gets a letter from God requesting a meeting at The Shack, the place of Missy's murder.
1:01.2	Who'd have thought that you were on a train writing a Christmas book? I mean, I didn't even know
1:08.3	that to start. I started researching about because I obviously read The Shack along when everybody
1:12.8	else read it and I didn't know the story of how it came to be. So I love the idea that something
1:20.0	that started out to be a gift has been a gift for over 20 million people throughout the world.
1:25.5	I love the idea that 15 copies at Office Depot did everything I ever wanted it to do.
1:32.2	And then after that, it's God's great sense of humor. It is. God is doing an LOL on over this
1:40.1	way absolutely. Absolutely. It surprised everybody. So you were doing it as a gift because
1:46.8	because I've always written but you know like anybody does. You write poetry and songs and
1:52.4	short stories and you give them to your friends and family and they think it's incredible. Oh,
1:56.0	this is beautiful. I know because they're your friends and family. And Kim, who I've been married to
2:01.3	now almost 37 years, she she's been saying you know someday as a gift for our kids and we have
2:07.5	six children our youngest was 13 at the time. She said someday as a gift for our children would
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