Fool's Errand (53 page)

Gideon’s head swam. What were the odds this attack could be a coincidence? For even an express rider to reach Stonehold ahead of them, the attack would have happened the night they escaped. The timing did not bode well.

“Did the dispatch rider say who was responsible?”

“Word is five spies from Parynland and other nations came in under a guise of peace but then attacked the royal family and fled from Cyria.”

“Hey, that sounds like—”

“Go on, lieutenant,” Gideon interrupted, realizing the imprudence of letting thatcher finish the thought that likely was in all their minds.

 “According to the rider,” the soldier continued, “Cyria has closed its borders. We are hoping Paryn’s Gate has been without supplies long enough to absorb a double caravan. With Cyria’s borders closed, half this caravan has nowhere else to go.”

“Don’t worry, lieutenant,” Gideon replied. “If for some reason Paryn’s gate cannot take it all, you will pass many settlements along the road, and there are several border villages of V’rassi inside Ketarynne just north of Paryn’s Gate that I am sure might have some market for goods as well. The V’rassi are pretty much self-sufficient, but they often trade elven handicrafts in the markets of Paryn’s Gate for Adami goods and foodstuffs they regard as curiosities. I am sure you will find buyers even without trade from Cyria.

“What concerns me more is the closing of the borders. This is strange news indeed. We just left Cyria less than three days ago, and while the princess said the king was ill, she was in perfect health. Did the rider give any details about the five spies who perpetrated this attack?”

“Uh, begging your pardon, Captain. Permission to speak freely?” Gideon nodded assent, and the lieutenant continued, “It seems to me, sir, that the descriptions of the fugitives who attacked the Cyrian royal family match pretty closely the five of you. None of my business, mind you, but if I were you, I’d make the high council my first stop. They might be able to clear things up.”

The heroes exchanged puzzled glances. How could this be? Gideon thanked the lieutenant, and the caravan continued on its way. The road-weary heroes resumed their journey toward Stonehold. Gideon’s mind wrestled with the grim news from the young lieutenant. It appeared that whatever mayhem the Blue Mystic had caused with the ambushes in the pass, they had not seen the end of it yet.

(The Journey Continues in Chadash Chronicles Book Two: Mystic’s Mayhem)

It is no secret that I am a follower of Christ. The history, backstory, and worldview of Chadash Chronicles is Christian. Yet it is my sincere hope that enjoyment of the stories themselves is not limited to those who share my worldview. I want them to be universally accessible and enjoyable to anyone who loves fantasy literature.

Living overseas in a largely atheistic country, I am fascinated how even the college students here are familiar with many of the stories from the Bible. While the book is studied as literature rather than a basis of faith, it proves beyond any doubt that even the most Christian book in existence, the Bible, can be enjoyed by readers who do not share a Christian worldview.

I do want the stories to be enjoyable in and of themselves but even more than that I hope that
Chadash Chronicles
can be a bridge and learning point for both Christian and secular readers alike. For Christians, there are deeper elements of understanding Hebrew tradition, culture, and language that can be gleaned just as one might learn some truth about the French Revolution from reading A Tale of Two Cities. These books also model examples of Christian character by one of the protagonists, Gideon. He is written honestly with the intent to exemplify a human, flawed, but deeply faithful Christian. He is not meant as an unrealistic caricature of a Christian but as a model of what a biblical Christian
could
be. The hope is that Christian readers may look more deeply at themselves and compare how they relate to those of different worldviews compared to the example of Gideon.

For the secular readers, I have a confession to make. I only came to faith when I was thirty-nine years old. I did not grow up Christian, and most of my life I was not a Christian.

I did grow up loving fantasy and science-fiction stories and being looked down upon by “Christians” as somehow embracing Satan or doing something against God by enjoying Fantasy Role Playing Games or reading books about dragons and wizards. I never felt the love or openness from believers I met until much later in life.

It is my hope in
Chadash Chronicles
that by seeing the interaction the religious characters have with their secular counterparts, one might see a more biblical model of what
should
happen when Christians meet and interact with others of differing worldviews. To this day, I have a wonderful relationship with many friends who do not share my worldview. They know who I am and that I am always there to talk with them about my beliefs. At the same time I understand faith comes from God and unless He has prepared the hearts of my friends, at that time and that place, then I can do nothing to lead them to faith.

My job is not to force my beliefs on anyone or convince anyone of anything. I merely share truth, as best as I understand it, and leave the rest to God. Christians cannot, and should not try, to forcibly convert anyone, but always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that lies within us and be willing to share truth in love with those willing to hear it.

It is in that vein I write the remainder of this Afterword. For those who do not believe and whose hearts God has not yet prepared, feel free to skip the rest of this Afterword and continue to enjoy the other novels in the
Chadash Chronicles
series and others that the Lord may give me the opportunity to publish in the future. Know that I love and respect all my readers whatever your worldview. I will always do my best to write stories that are interesting, enjoyable and not “preachy”.

In the Afterword, however, I feel the Lord has laid upon my heart to share how I came to faith and to the plan of salvation as laid out in the Bible. This is for the benefit of any readers who may feel that God has prepared your heart and drawn you to seek a deeper understanding of who He is and what faith in Him looks like. For everyone else, I will see you again in the next novel! Blessings to you until then.

My Story

Many people find Jesus at the low points in their lives. I have heard it said that sometimes in order to get us to look up, God puts us flat on our back. While often the case, it was not that way with me.

God found me on the mountaintop of my life. I was thirty-nine years old, a senior delivery manager for a major information technology company. I had a huge home in Southlake, Texas, a six-figure income, cars, vacations, travel, and money to spare. I had a wife and daughter and everything everyone thinks they want in life to be happy...and I was happy, too. In essence, I had the American Dream. I was not looking for God because I figured I was doing pretty well without Him.

A nominal Catholic growing up, I knew a lot
about
God, but never really knew God. I had a few priests I considered very close friends. At one time I even contemplated, upon graduating high school, attending Catholic seminary and becoming a priest. The fact that I was an irascible hellion deterred me from following up on that course, for which I am certain the Catholic Church is eternally grateful.

Upon reaching college, I felt my eyes were opened and I was set free. In my introduction to Philosophy class I met Super Atheist who introduced me to a book called Voltaire on Religion. Whatever nominal faith I had was quickly shattered. I went to religious leader after religious leader and found none of them had the apologetics skills to answer the challenges. I walked away from religion and embraced science, believing that my former faith was little more than fairy tales.

Like many college students, I was content with a shallowness of “proof” against the Bible akin to the depth that sound bites or campaign ads lend to one’s understanding of a particular political candidate. I was content with the tag-lines, propagandist memes, and superficial “statements of fact”, without ever having the intellectual integrity to truly dig into the evidence myself and examine the key assumptions underlying the “facts”.

Content in my smug self-righteousness I careened through life, grabbing every opportunity for advancement, looking for whatever chances came to jump up to the next rung on the ladder. I wanted leadership, money, power and security for my family, and I missed no chance at getting it. Then, at age thirty-nine, when I was sitting on the top of the world looking over all I had achieved, God’s Spirit came to me. The words were almost audible in my soul; “What now?”

Those words rung like a death knell. What did He mean, “What now?” Why, I had everything! “What now” was enjoying all I had achieved. Nevertheless, there was a nagging doubt that would not go away. I could look about creation and see clearly that there was too much design, too much that had to have come together just so for us to even be here. I remembered the stories from my youth about every person one day standing before our Creator and being judged for our life. Something deep inside me knew this was true.

More than that, I understood that on that day, whenever it came, God was not going to look at my resume. He was not going to check my bank statements, stock portfolios, or real estate holdings and judge by those things. He would not care how many cars, houses, or international trips we had taken. He would judge me on the content of my character. There I knew I was bankrupt.

I had been selfish. Many of my successes had come at the cost of others. I had wanted things that others had. I had not lived my life always honoring my parents. I had lied. I had taken things that did not belong to me. I had lusted in my heart. And most of all, I had failed to honor God, my Creator, above all else. I was guilty. My relationship with my Creator was non-existent, and worse than that, I had no idea what to do about it.

I began frantically searching for how to reconnect with God. I went every Sunday to two or three services at different churches looking for truth. I visited Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist churches as well as non-denominational ones hoping for someone to tell me how to fix my relationship with God. The saddest part of this story is that right there, in the buckle of the Bible Belt in NE Texas, it took three months before I finally heard the gospel.

I was sitting in my car outside one church, well before the services would start, waiting for what I fully expected to be another disappointment. I had the radio on to a Christian station when suddenly I heard on the radio a Christian preacher and apologist that sounded like someone who maybe knew something. I heard what church he was pastoring at, punched it into the GPS, and off I went.

I wound up at First Baptist Church Colleyville, TX to discover that there was a guest preacher that Sunday. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the guy I had heard on the radio had just stepped down that previous Thursday over some questionable real estate dealings, but I know now that was God’s divine appointment because preaching that Sunday was Dr. Danny Forshee, at that time a professor of Evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. For the first time that I could remember, I heard the true gospel preached.

God had prepared that day. Even though there were over a thousand people in attendance, there was a private conversation happening between myself, Dr. Forshee, and the Holy Spirit. I knew that day that what this preacher said was the truth and what I needed to do, yet my pride still prevented me, a senior manager, from walking down that aisle in front of a bunch of “Texas yahoos” (my thinking at the time).

What I did do was fill out one of the cards in the pew and ask that a minister visit me in my home. I still thought, “If God wants to send someone to meet with me, they can meet me on my home turf.”

The following Wednesday night, two people came out to visit me at my home. One of them was my dear friend to this day, Jeff Robinson currently pastor of Rocky Mount Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, VA. Jeff and Dale, the minister of outreach at that time, shared with me for over two hours, by the end of which I was in tears at the thought that God could and would forgive me. I acknowledged there in my living room that God had given me thirty-nine years to come to know my separation from Him and to have the chance to repent and be restored. From that day on, I wanted Jesus to be the Lord of my life. I further promised that whatever time I had left I wanted to give to serving Him.