This week, my friend tells me I must read Francois Fenelon's collection of letters during the time he was spiritual advisor to Louis the XIV. This collection, entitled simply Let Go, dates back to 1689.
"You know my love language is Christian books," I tell her. I hold the book in my hand and remember when another friend, Faith, introduced me to E. Stanley Jones or when still another friend, Patrice, gave me Thomas' Saving Life of Christ.
I was never the same.
These books don't make the best seller lists, and hardly anyone tweets about them. I feel cheated that it's taken me this long to find them. How could I have been alive all this time and have never even heard of Fenelon? And then I learn this: Fenelon advised readers to study Madame Guyon's reluctantly published book, Experiencing the Depths of Christ. I order this book and discover that at one time, this little collection of words was publicly banned for the kind of influence it was having in French society.
Any Christian writing that powerful and that upsetting just might have to be read.
I feel so loved by people when they direct obscure Christian books my way. I cannot wait to pour a cup of coffee, sit in the sun in my rocking chair, and read what Fenelon and Guyon might teach me. I'll pass on what I learn!
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Do you have a favorite but not well-known Christian book?
