After publishing my first novel I Was There When the Giant Fell this past November I was already itching to get started on my next I Was There book which will take another barely mentioned, little known character in the Bible and imagine his life story and what it would be like to witness another epic moment in salvation history.
This time I am fast-forwarding a few hundred years. Israel is divided into two kingdoms. God sends his prophet, Jonah, to go and proclaim God’s message to Israel’s hated enemy the Assyrians in the city of Nineveh warning them to repent. Jonah knows God’s grace. He knows God wants to spare them, and it is the last thing he wants to happen. Despite God’s mandate, Jonah defies God and heads in the opposite direction. He boards a ship bound for Tarshish and the stage is set for one of the most famous moments in the Bible: Jonah swallowed by the great fish.
What would it be like to be one of the sailors who encounter Jonah on his fateful journey? How would it feel to be in a raging storm sent by God himself to stop you in your tracks? What if you were a citizen of Nineveh and a strange messenger arrived proclaiming doom on your city? I want to explore these questions and more as I embark on this next project I Was There When Jonah Sank.
My research is already in full swing, and I am still collecting more sources. I am fascinated by the Phoenicians, their sailing advancements and trade. I am digging into what it would be like to be a sailor on the Mediterranean in that time period and what it might have been like to be a commoner or a king in the city of Nineveh when Jonah arrived.
The book will deal with many issues including long-distance relationships, young love, desperate loneliness, idolatry, humanistic pride, stubbornness, addiction and despair. Above all, it will focus on the incredible persistence of God’s astounding grace for sinful people. I plan to weave in a fair share of love, adventure, storms and dangers at sea. My characters will be interesting people whose struggles and lives are not so far removed from ours today.
The rough draft is already in progress and my goal is to have a finished, mostly edited draft by the end of August, 2015 and a completed and published book at or before the end of the year!
Again, I ask for your prayers as I start out on this fresh new writing journey!
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