Review of Ascent from Darkness by Michael Leehan

Ascent from Darkness: How Satan’s Soldier Became God’s Warrior by Michael Leehan is the story of a man’s journey into a life of satanism and his subsequent salvation. The author is not a writer by trade, however he tells his story from his own perspective followed by entries from several of the people in his life who fill in some of the details and give us a better grasp of the time line. During his time as a satan-worshipper, he actually spent more time reading and memorizing the Scripture than most so-called Christians today. The great thing is that those in Michael’s life during his time of searching did not try to force him to make a hasty decision nor did they abandon him for his honesty that he really did not want to give his life over to Christ at the time.

Two primary take-aways for me were first of all to be sure that I know what I believe and why I believe it. We are to love God with all our heart, soul and mind. There is a lot of emphasis in church on worship and loving God with all our hearts and souls, but not nearly enough emphasis on knowledge of God and his Word. Michael commented more than once that during his time as a satanist, he found it incredibly easy to confuse those in the church and trip them up on their beliefs or cause them to abandon what they believed altogether.

Secondly, don’t give up on people when they don’t make a decision right away. We have no idea what people have gone through or are going through in life, and our pat answers to life’s problems are not going to convince them. We in the church are so quick to use our Christian jargon and cliche’s that we really don’t even know what we’re saying anymore. Refer to the first take-away above.

I rated the book only a four due to the writing quality, however it is a book that I would recommend to other believers.

Disclaimer: I received this book as a part of Thomas Nelson’s Booksneeze program.