Inner Sanctuary

I love to read.  I can’t help it.

I read my textbooks in college – I thoroughly enjoy classic English literature – and cannot sleep at night without having lay quietly in my bed digesting a book of some sort.  And I have a list of favorite authors that I call upon during various seasons of my life.  Wuthering Heights, Mansfield Park, Jane Eyre – familiar as old friends. 

And I always try to read a book before I see a film version of the same. 

So, while on my most recent trip to Ohio, I decided to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  It’s not that I wanted to see the movie – I didn’t, actually – but my flight was delayed and I needed something more productive than staring to occupy my time.  And the book started with the author, having found a point of desperation, crying out for God. 

Now this was interesting to me.  Here is a secular writer, having been raised in a distantly Protestant home, recognizing the need for God’s help in her life.  Here were my thoughts –

I wonder what her journey is going to look like.  Will she find God?  Will her life be made complete by her exposure to our great Heavenly Father?  As she dedicates a year of exploration into the deeper meanings of life – will she find truth?

So I started to read. 

She’s miserable – we get that.  Nasty divorce and a destructive fling leave her feeling completely empty – we get that, too.

What I was surprised to find was that she felt God was speaking to her, in the beginning of the book.  She felt the direction of God.  This is the beginning of pursuing a relationship with Him.  He draws us first.  He loved us first.  And she readily admits that in her travels she wants to get closer to God.  Awesome!

But as I started to read through her sections on Italy, India, and Indonesia, I can only see her becoming more deeply confused, misguided, and bound with every page.  The scary thing is that she relates these progressive steps to liberty.  And that, my  friend, is the definition of deception.  Enlightenment is not what we're seeking - Pursue God.  His ways are higher than our ways!  His thoughts are greater than our thoughts! 

Back to the book - in Italy, she primarily demonstrates a pursuit of carnal pleasure – mostly in the form of gorging on foods and drink.  She glorifies the experience because she says – Italians know how to experience pleasure.  Her pursuit of God is conveniently set aside for her time in India where she lives in an Ashram for several months.  It’s there that the next step downward is taken.  Initially, she’s simply believes that there are many paths toward God, and that they all lead to the same one God.  As she progresses, however we find that she is exploring New Age religion in which she, herself, is a god, and that god exists in all living things.  At one point she runs wildly into the darkness and begins passionately kissing a tree. 

How did we get there?  By taking several small, conscious steps, one after the other, away from truth and toward a lie.  Ironically, the voice that was speaking to her heart in the beginning of the book, drawing her toward God - is silent; replaced by meditative experiences that could be construed as outer-body.  To start by lying on the floor, crying out to God and end with hugging and kissing a tree takes a lot of work and choice!  But that’s not where we end.

Next, she’s off to Indonesia to study with a medicine man who teaches her to pray to her 4 spiritual brothers that were born into the spirit world when she was born into the natural world.  So, now – not only does she believe that every living thing contains god, but she also believes that she is protected, guarded, provided for, and nurtured by four spirits that are specifically devoted to her, as her spiritual brothers.  And if that weren’t enough, she culminates her time in Indonesia by shacking up with an older Brazilian man with whom she admittedly really only desires a hot fling. 

Is this it?  Is this what pursuit of God is supposed to look like?  Casual Christianity gives way to pleasure seeking avoidance, which gives way to New Age mysticism, which gives way to Hinduism, which ends up in a complete indulgence in any fancy the carnal nature can conjure to gratify the most animalistic of cravings - including a glorified belief of one's own enlightenment. 

So, here you go -

I heard on the radio this morning – the absence of belief in God does not equal belief in nothing… It equals belief in anything.

There’s a song out that’s lyrics states:

“There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us

And the restless soul is searching

There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us

And it’s a void only He can fill…”

To be completely honest - I couldn't even finish the book.  No.  It kept getting darker, and darker, and more and more self-glorified, pleasure-seeking, and I was honestly getting sick to my stomach as I read the many justifications...

The freedom she was desperately searching for, the liberation of her spirit, oneness with the Father, cannot be found through New-Age mysticism, Hinduism, selfishness, Buddhist enlightment, or self-worship.  It can't be found in food, alcohol, drugs, materialism, self-promotion, work, play, or anything else we can accomplish. 

The freedom she needed could only be found in Christ.  It's not enlightened to believe that there are many other ways - it's deceived.

Let’s explore the idea of that God-shaped hole next…