Since we talked about villains last week, these verses in Proverbs 24:17-18 caught my eye yesterday. “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.”
Isn’t that an eye-opener?
Yeah, the villain is a bad guy, but taking pleasure in his punishment isn’t good either.
So…at the end of the book when the bad guy gets his just desserts, my hero better not gloat, or the next thing he knows his author will have to help him confront his pride issues!!!
As a writer I spend a lot of time contemplating the truths my characters need to learn. My understanding of these truths, and my need to embrace them in my own life often grows as a result.
Oftentimes, their complexities don’t fully gel in my mind until I tackle crafting the study questions for the back of the book–like the ones we’ve been exploring here each Monday.
That’s where I’m at right now with the third book in my undercover cops series. Originally titled Dose of Deception, the book, at the spiritual level, explores many levels of deception, but most importantly how we deceive ourselves.
In a romance, someone who has been burned by love may say they’re not interested in dating again, but really they’re afraid of being hurt again. Deep down they know they will be…
Even deeper than that, they don’t trust God to be sufficient when the inevitable happens.
Your turn: Can you think of a time when you tried to convince yourself that you were doing the right thing and perhaps even offered noble reasons for your choice or decision, but deep down that choice was driven by fear?
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