Author:  Marie D. Jones

Publisher:  ParaView Press

ISBN:  1-931044-42-2

The following review was contributed by: Jennifer Brown & Click Here To View Jennifer Brown's Reviews

Every winter, sometime around February, masses of people worship at the House of Oscar.  Some don fancy dresses, others hold parties (complete with paper top hats and cardboard replicas of a little gold statue), still others simply shut off their brains and tune in their TV’s to the annual Academy Awards ceremony.  For weeks leading up to this event and for days after, all one hears is commentary about the look/dress/action/speech of the scores of gods and goddesses that walked the stage that night.  And after the masses of people have picked clean all the Oscar glory there is, they turn to the upcoming baseball season to fulfill that emptiness they feel inside with a good old-fashioned sports god.

Are you one of them?  Are you LOOKING FOR GOD IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES?  Marie D. Jones can help you.  According to Jones, “…our society can only see God in the pretty, the shiny, and the expensive.  But God is everywhere…” (p. 57). 

In LOOKING FOR GOD IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES, Jones enlightens the reader as to where God is really found, despite all the misguided attempts by society to find Him in only “the pretty.”   

Marie D. Jones, a New Thought minister as well as a licensed pastoral counselor with a master’s degree in metaphysical studies, has given God much thought and study and is well-versed in the subject, which couples quite nicely with her lengthy experience as a writer.  Jones has been widely published and is even a screenwriter who has produced a children’s storybook series.

According to Jones, we as a society spend way too much time looking for God in places we’ll never find Him – sports and movie icons, wealth, power, so-called “gurus,” and co-dependent relationships, just to name a few.  Her goal is to help the reader find the real hiding place of God, saying, “…you never have to go any farther than your own Higher Power within to find wholeness, abundance, and prosperity in all areas of your life” (p. 30). 

While the subject of the search for God is a weighty one, Jones manages to keep it blithe throughout.  LOOKING FOR GOD IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES is light on the dry philosophy stuff and heavy on the jokes, puns, and catch-phraseology.  Still, Jones manages to make some good points that somehow worm their way into the subconscious of the reader and while he may think he may have gotten only a few chuckles out of the book, he just may find himself worshipping a little differently after the last page has been turned.

At the same time, Jones’s jokes occasionally work against her ultimate message, as she pokes fun a little too personally and unintentionally sounds a bit taunting.  Thus a sensitive reader might find offense at a statement that contains, “… a bunch of spiritually inept yuppies with bad shoes and worse breath…” (p. 82) and wonder if derision is working against the tolerance and inner love Jones preaches.   

Furthermore, Jones uses real life experiences to back up or further explain some of her points of interest.  This is a good technique in reaching the reader through having been there/done that just as the reader may have.  However, Jones seems to have experienced it all – every trap, every bad habit, every broken hearted experience.  Opening up one’s weaknesses on paper can be healing and humanizing for a writer, but too much of a humble thing can take away from the message as a reader might wonder just how to trust a messenger who’s so easily bent and broken.

The overall success of LOOKING FOR GOD IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES is that it’s an easily understood and lighter look into spirituality that teaches its readers how to look inward and find God.  It’s a pleasant read unusual in its belief that you can find God and still have fun looking.  If you’ve been struggling, looking for God in those wrong places, this book would be the right place for you.