I keep a ten-year jo
urnal–I’ve done it for 18 years. I can only write a few lines on each page, but it’s enough to remind me of where I was at that point in each year. The other day–May 11, to be exact–I read the entry from May 11, 2015:
Worked VERY hard to finish a second draft of Delilah. Really hard–God blessed Samson’s desire for revenge, so will He bless Delilah’s? Hard lessons there–really. It’s a muddle.
I laughed as I wrote my entry for May 11 2016, because all my books go through a muddled, messy period before things start to come together. I let the characters do what their historical choices and personalities lead them to do, then I have to fill in all the details around them–and think about the repercussions of those actions. My current book–about Cleopatra and her best friend–is currently a muddle, but things are beginning to come together.
I found myself asking a lot of questions as I wrote Delilah. Did God really bless Samson’s desire for vengeance (when he begged God to let him pull the temple of Dagon down on the Philistines), or was God going to allow that action anyway? And if Delilah had prayed for vengeance against people who wronged her, would God answer her prayer?
Sometimes I have to adjust my thinking about God–I presume he would do or say certain things because that’s what I’ve always assumed he would say or do. But sometimes I have to let God think and act for Himself. 🙂 Allowing God that freedom–to do and be and say what He sovereignly wills–has definitely changed my theology. God reveals Himself in Scripture over and over, but sometimes we only see what we want to see . . .
And so I wrote the story of Samson and Delilah and tried to let each of them act and think for themselves. And I believe they did.
Tomorrow: The editing
~Angie
Reminds me of the saying that the purpose of prayer is often not so much to change God’s mind as to change us!