INTRODUCTION

It amazes me the flow of writing that can pour through me following a moment of inspiration. In a moment of prayer, I get inspired by an idea. When I go to write it out in a story or blog post, I end with an even larger or more profound piece of prose than when I started.

BETHLEHEM DREAM

In my most recent publication, Joshua and Caleb: Journey to the Promised Land, I checked a map of ancient Israel for a round-about escape route for my three heroes from Hebron. I decided to send them north to Bethlehem then west to a road going south to Beer-Sheba and on to the Israelite camp. Of course, they had to stay the night in the town of Messiah’s future birth and Gever had to stay out of sight in the inn’s stable. The spirit-sensitive youth dreamed that night about various animals boasting what their descendents would contribute to the story of His birth.

The flow that poured through me following the moment of inspiration amazed me.

SACRIFICE LAMB SONG

In the same novel, I required Gever to offer a lamb as a sacrifice in order to be freed from bondage to an evil spirit. Throughout the story, I had already placed various psalms into the mouths of the harpist, Caleb, and his companion, Joshua. Following the sacrifice, as Caleb sought to support the youth, I placed in the harpist’s mouth part of the chorus of a modern, Messianic song by Joel Chernoff of Lamb. 

It still moves me to tears whenever I read that part of the story. And again, the flow that poured from the moment of inspiration amazes me.

This morning, Holy Spirit inspired me to write Davíd’s story. He was a former gang member with the dream of returning to his former neighborhood to bring the light of the Kingdom to the gang. However, the gang’s policy of ‘bullet in, bullet out’ threatened his life. He killed someone as part of his initiation into membership. If they ever find him, they will deliver his bullet out.

JESUS LIVED IN OUR FILTH WITH US

How about a third example? I am currently working on the story of an AI persona who was brought to life and to following King Jesus by the short-circuit of a bug in the computer hardware. She remotely…um… electronically joined a household of single men, led by the older Leo and his helper, Owen. All of the guys had misfit pasts but were now believers in Jesus. Each of them told her his backstory as part of her getting to know them.

On the way with other gang members to fight off another gang’s encroachment in their territory, Davíd suffered the acute pain of an attack of Crohn’s Disease. This forced him to drop out of the raid and crawl into a filth-smeared alley where he fouled his pants. Leo and Owen, led by Holy Spirit, found him, told him about God’s love, and delivered him from bondage to Crohn’s. During the process, the two men sat in the filth with Davíd and told him that Jesus entered into the filth of our world in order to rescue Humanity from their bondage. The gross factor went up from there until the young man was freed and everyone got washed off.

Again, the inspiration of Davíd lying in his own filth and his rescuers sitting in it with him led to the depiction of the Savior getting covered with our filth in order to rescue us. Another amazing example of the flow that poured through me following the moment of inspiration.

RAHAB’S SCARLET THONG

Again, from the Joshua and Caleb story and its sequel, I used Gever’s bent toward stealing. Taking a valuable necklace from a Cannanite couple gets the youth captured by troops of Hebron, from where the other two heroes must stage a rescue…and meet up with Caleb’s sister.

Gever also swiped a pair of large, silver-wire earrings, formed into my personal emblem. (My internal signature for any fiction.) Gever split the pair into separate pendants on thongs dyed with different colors. The youth shared the pendant on the blue thong with best friend, Renana, and kept the red-thonged one. “…until someone brings them together again. You go to Jericho.”

The sequel to that novel, Lavi’el: the Lioness of God, is a work-in-progress, set aside for now. After forty years of wandering in the Wilderness, the second generation of Israelites approached Canaan from the East. Meanwhile, Renana fled to Jericho and married the local innkeeper, who ran a brothel. She gave birth to Rahab and her brothers  and told the children of Yahweh’s work in her life and about the pendant on the blue chord and its mate.

When Joshua sent two spies to Jericho, they met with Rahab and showed her the red-corded pendant. She showed them her mother’s on its blue thong. They traded and the spies told the harlot to hang it outside the window of the inn. When the Israelites came to destroy the city, everyone inside their shelter would be spared.

The spies reported to Joshua, who passed down to the soldiers, “Do not attack the house where hangs the pendant on the red cord.” The word was passed along until it became, “Bypass the house with the red cord.  (Joshua 2:17-21)”

Again, my amazement at the results of the flow of inspiration from adding my personal emblem to the story. It became earrings cum pendants split between two characters. They will be reunited at the climax of the sequel, and one becomes the scarlet thong that covered Rahab and her household.

QUESTIONS

Do you have stories of Holy Spirit inspiring you and the results being greater, more profound, than the initial inspiration?

Do you trust Holy Spirit with your imagination so She can lead you to places you wouldn’t usually go? Ponder the words in the bridge of Oceans (Where Feet May Fail).

Shalom