Darkness Rising

Excerpt from Chapter One

(Unpublished, Book One of the Shiloh Series)

 

“Who are you?” Caleb asked with as much bravado as he could muster toward the much larger man. Caleb determined to show this man did not intimidate him—his eyes not even level with the middle of his pristine white tie.

               

Standing in front of him and looking down at him, the man kept a neutral, no-nonsense tone. “I am Micah, a messenger of the Most High sent to you today.”

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Great! A religious nut! Caleb laughed. “How much did my mates pay you to prank me?”

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The man walked past Caleb and spoke over his shoulder. “Let us prepare to depart.” He gestured toward his home. “Time is of the essence."

 

Caleb decided to play along. “End of the world, eh?”

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“No, the end of Maverick, Minnesota.”

 

Caleb remained unmoved. “Look, I don’t know who you—"

 

“But I know you, Caleb Timothy Allan.” He stopped and barely turned his head. “You are son of Laurence Keller Allan and Kelly Josephine Allan.”

 

His eyes doubled in size. “How do you know that?”

 

As the large man resumed walking toward the kitchen entrance, Caleb noticed something peculiar about him. His white shoes, buffed to a mirror-white surface along the tops and sides, stepped upon the garbage spillage—yet the whites on the bottom of his shoes remained unspoiled—not even droplets of residue clinging to them. The door ajar, yellow light poured onto the path. He stopped and faced him. “I have been sent to escort you to safety.”

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“Safety, eh?” He couldn't keep the cynicism out of his voice. “And what exactly is going to happen to Maverick?”

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“Look up, Caleb.” The big man cast his eyes heavenward.

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Following the stranger’s eyes, Caleb scanned the darkened sky—the canopy of stars unusually clear. Then he saw them—countless flashes of light streaking across the sky, leaving long white trails as they sped past. Mesmerized by the activity, he almost forgot the ominous message he'd just heard about the end of his city. “Beautiful.”

 

Then, just as he was about to look to the stranger, he saw it—a singular object shot by, burning the night sky, its brightness so intense that Caleb turned away even as everything around him turned to day before falling back to darkness. He looked at the stranger. “What did—”

 

“Cover your ears now, Caleb.”

 

“Cover?”

 

Before he could obey the ominous directive, a thunderous explosion shook him and everything around him. Instinctively, Caleb muffled his ears with his hands. Every window shattered along the row of houses on his street. Shocked, he withdrew his shaking hands from his ears even as he kept his eyes fixed on the stranger. “You didn’t cover your ears.”

 

 

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Shiloh's Rising

Two scenes are provided for you to enjoy!

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Turning, Taavi stood before the Temple. The fiery column rose steeply, throwing off a steady, heated wind. With each step nearer, the atmosphere around him added resistance to Taavi’s forward movement, thick with currents of unseen energy that flowed through him, something pure, alive, wonderful, mysterious. Strength surged into him causing him to feel rested and suddenly stronger. Whatever this was, it reached into the deepest parts of him, tugging at him, and refusing to let go.

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Taavi took several more steps and fell to his knees, unable to move from the load pressing on him. His eyes moved over the towering pillar of fire feeling like an ant before a mountain. There was a Presence here…something, or rather Someone, greater than this building, greater than the people gathered about, greater than even the Earth itself—perhaps of more weight than all the swirling stars above. This Presence drew him as if it was the only worthwhile destination.

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But Taavi also sensed danger here and an urge to dash away. Awe and fear tightened around his heart as he looked about him. Life pulsed through him, causing his body to shudder and shake as if it might splinter apart save for the benevolence here that somehow kept it all together. There was an otherness to this place that Taavi had never known before.

 

 

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All this happening in seconds, Azuma cast his eyes down to his hands. He considered his mind had finally snapped after prolonged stretching--understandable after all he'd lost. He sobbed even as he stood there, the strange light passing overhead, dispersing his shadow in all directions at once. A rock dislodged near his foot plummeting over the edge. This was it. This was the moment. He leaned forward to let gravity take him.

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A voice boomed around him in flawless Japanese. “Amai Azuma, do not do it! The King has come! And He is good.”

 

In front of him appeared a man, Japanese at that, but with large, brilliant-white wings that flapped gracefully, keeping him afloat. Extremely tall, multiple shifting colors rippled through his august body. His rounded eyebrows lifting slightly, he gave a soft smile, his outstretched arms toward Azuma offering to catch him should he choose to leap.

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Azuma’s jaw dropped open. He surveyed the stranger with amazement. An intermittent warm wind, generated by the powerful wings of the stranger, swept over Azuma’s face and exposed body.

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The stranger spoke, his voice calm but deep. “I am Akemi, the archangel set above the nation of Japan. Good News is yours despite your losses—if you’ll receive it.”

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Azuma squeezed his eyes shut before lifting his hands to the sides of his head and pressing inward. “I have gone…mad!”

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#ShilohsRising

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The Jesus Boy

Prologue Two

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"It was in a small house on the edge of a small neighborhood

where it all began. 

           
One walking by that house on that night would never have known, never have imagined what it was that was about to take place within the walls of that home. 
 

            It was a night like so many.  It happened not in the father’s bedroom or den.  It wasn’t a mother reclining in her favorite chair.  It was a typical boy who extended his tongue to the offering of sweet honey.  And as his tongue felt the gift upon it, it sat there, the sweetness enticing, dangerous, marvelous.
 

All at one moment, Josh Phillips slammed the Book shut in both hands, the words he’d just read reverberating within him, probing inside his heart and mind, revealing for him in one moment his own insecurities, his failures, his joys, and his most ardent desires. 
 

            A struggle ensued.  A war of decisions and fears and ultimate joy mixed together, all began with but two words spoken by the Master: “Follow Me.”  Those words though spoken so many centuries before, whispered to him with a loudness that made his body tremble in anticipation of what they would mean for him, for his life, for those around him.  He finally conceded, a triumph found only in surrender. 
 

And then came a liberty coursing through him, of life streaming through every atomic particle of his being.  For a moment, the weight of a mountain came and rested upon the young man’s shoulders and chest, pressing down upon him with an unspoken burden while lifting him to heights he’d never known before.  The gentleness of the Unseen touched the vessel for just a moment
and flooded his inner being.
 

            But even as the boy rejoiced, there came also a sense of foreboding—something that seemed not to originate from himself.  The days ahead would be treacherous and the path uneven and strewn with hazards.  Joshua nodded to himself even as the joy washed over him once more like a wave of warm ocean water.  He would do all that was necessary to fulfill the Will not his own—even if it meant his very life.
 

            With that, he approached and closed his door quietly.  Others in the house might’ve heard the door close not sensing its importance, not hearing the significance of the many boundaries that were about to be crossed beginning with a single step and a single moment of absolute surrender. 

            At that, the lad fell to his knees and began to pray."

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(Now available in both print & Kindle formats)
 

#JesusBoy

 

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The Journey Home

(Papa-God is Waiting for You)

(Devotional)

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"...it was His goodness and His love that would not give up on what He had created.  All-powerful, yes, but restrained by His nature—incredible!  And here is where the mystery becomes almost unspeakable:  that He would come to the world He had created in order to become, as a prophet of God named John said, the Lamb who "takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).  He would complete the action of dealing with sin, an action that had been foreshadowed in mystery for the previous thousands of years through clues given by the LORD in the Scriptures.

 

Let’s consider the following:  If Papa had chosen to use His power to simply destroy the fallen angels and wipe the slate clean, it would’ve meant that the rest of His Creation served Him only out of fear.  (But as I stated earlier, His nature wouldn’t have allowed Him to do the easy solution anyway.)  If, on the other hand, He were to triumph over all evil not through dictatorial power, but through what looks like the weakness of sacrificial love, what would that say about Him?

 

For me, this gives me pause.  I feel a tremble pass through me as I reflect on this display of His power in the greatest moment of  His seeming weakness."

 

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