Shedding Some Light

I'm sure I've mentioned my really fun book club on here before. If I am mistaken about that though, one of my fun activities that I choose to do is get together with some really great friends, and some other friends that I am just getting to know better, and we all read the same book, bring food to eat, and gab for a couple hours once a month. It's fabulous! There. I've told you about it. Now back to my initial thought thread here...A few months ago the book that was chosen was Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. While the story itself was fun to read (a writer goes to three completely different countries for several months each to get away from her troubles at home) because I do like to travel--though it hasn't happened as much as we would like--and the people she met were really interesting. However, along her way she was trying to find God--which in and of itself is wonderful. We all need to find God. But what she ends up finding is not God, but something that seems really close to what God sounds like. However, close doesn't cut it when it comes to God. Close will still get you in hell for eternity. So where am I going with the ramble this morning? I'm getting there. I just finished re-reading a book that I haven't read since middle school (needless to say, that's been a while ago). That book is called This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti. A little bit different story line. This one is about the forces of evil trying to take over a small town. I'm not just talking about bad guys, but real evil--demons, satan,... One of the tools they use is this "new spirituality" of a new world order. The interesting part, and the reason I bring up both these books in the same context, is the angle that This Present Darkness is written. It is written from the omnipresent reader perspective. In other words, the reader sees what is happening everywhere--including in the spiritual realm. Very interesting...it is still considered a novel and a fictional one, at that, but the Bible tells us in Ephesians 6: 12New International Version For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. There is stuff going on that we can't see with the naked eye. My point to all of this is that This Present Darkness was a fabulous follow up read to Eat, Pray, Love, in my opinion, because it often paralleled Ms. Gilbert's experiences and maybe shed some light on what was really happening to her. There it is. Now go read This Present Darkeness. Enjoy!