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Seeking the Spirit In Acts, Paul encounters a man who sees the miracles he performs and wants to receive such a Gift so that he can profit from it. Paul, of course, is quick to rebuke him. But two thousand years later, we as a people still seek the signs: we want proof of the Holy Spirit—we want to feel Him, hear Him, touch Him, we want healing to pour down through our Spirit-filled hands, and we want hands to lift in praise when His words spill from our mouths. There’s nothing wrong with that—at least, not when we keep our eyes where they belong. In her latest novel, As I Have Loved You, Nikki Arana takes a hard swing at misconceptions about the Holy Spirit, and she hits her mark dead on. The book seems to have a dichotomy: there’s Leigh, struggling with her desire to receive spiritual gifts, and then there’s the love story of her son Jeff and Jessica. But as the story unfolds and the author’s insights pour out, the reader is struck with an unnerving truth—those two topics aren’t different at all. In the famed love chapter of Corinthians, Paul outlines everything love should be, and he ends by saying it is the greatest gift. We all know that—we memorize it, we hear it at weddings, it’s pretty much cliché. But we rarely think to put it together with those other sections of the Epistles that talk about Spiritual Gifts—you know the ones. Speaking in tongues, prophesying, healing, teaching, evangelism, discernment of spirits, etc. But as I read Arana’s novel, I really began to see what she was getting at in those pages. That it isn’t enough to want to perform the miracles if we don’t have the heart. “As Christians,” Arana says, “we need to seek God’s face and not His hands.” Anyone who reads my reviews knows I love books with a touch of the miraculous. Well, I loved this novel. It begins with the veil between heaven and earth being lifted and a miraculous gift being placed on a small boy: a gift of love. Thinking of it still sends shivers down my spine, because that’s a gift we don’t often think of God giving to us. He gives us the visible Gifts, yes, of course. But love? Sure, God loves us, and we’re to love others. But does He really give us His love as a gift that we should give out in return? “The Lord’s true message is love,” Arana reminds us. “Love results in salvation. Seeking after signs and wonders alone results in nothing.” It makes me reevaluate my heart, which is what the best of novels do. It makes me wonder if I’ve asked the Lord for the right things. Have I sought the more “physical” gifts? Do I glorify them in my own writing and even in the books I read? That’s one of the hardest things a book has ever inspired me to do—to question the very reasons it appeals to me. But with As I Have Loved You I can honestly say that it wasn’t the miracles that descended as visible signs that stirred me so; it was the fact that I saw a tangible love in Nikki Arana’s characters that made those signs possible. It takes a writer with an honest heart to achieve this in a novel; and it takes a reader with an open heart to receive the message. Nikki Arana did her part, and I hope there are scads of readers out there willing to do theirs. This is one book you’ll come away from changed.Read the full interview with Nikki Arana Wanna give me your take? Questions, comments, silly statements? Email me at BtL@ChristianReviewofBooks.com Read Previous Columns: Celebrating the Tradition |
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