Excerpt from book 4, "Fires of War"
Brothers (and a few sisters),
Thank you for being patient as we wait for word on the publication of “Fires of War.”
There are multiple moving pieces involved and I am very excited to have these opportunities in front of us after many years, but I don’t control the pace of it. I hope to hear something soon.
I posted this excerpt a while back, but there have been more subscribers arriving since then and I wanted to re-send it. Word is getting out that I am not actually dead; I was just dormant for a while. It’s a long story, but suffice it to say, as always: ‘I am a great sinner and Christ is a great savior.’
You can become an annual member at the link below. It will take an army to see this through, and we are very grateful for your support.
Praise and Arrows-
CG
Excerpt from “Fires of War”
Ittai of Gath looked down at the idol in his hand. It had a pregnant belly, long hair, and the face of an ox. His thumb was on the belly, and he wondered if he still believed that this god was real. Powerless, yes, that had been proven. But was it real at all?
His father carried every god of their people. He never wavered in the hope that he would be given favor in all areas of his life. He had raised his children to believe it.
This idol was his mother's. She worshipped at the fertility temples when she had multiple stillborn children. Ittai buried his father's idols with the old man a year ago. For some reason he kept this one. He did not know why. His father was an unimportant man and his mother an unimportant woman. His family was an unimportant family.
They were dead now. From age and wars. Ittai was the youngest and the last of his line.
But he did not need an inheritance. He had risen on his own. The officers of Gath saw his talent and gave him commands early in his career. He was cunning, they told him. Cunning and ruthless. Necessary traits.
And yet, why did he find himself among Hebrews, serving a loyalty oath to their king? A Philistine waging war against his own?
These were strange days.
No, this god would not help him today. He put the idol back in his pouch.
If it was going to help anyone, it would help the men across the valley—the men marching under the banners of Philistine gods. As Ittai once did.
Ittai glanced to his left and watched as the Hebrew king, David, muttered silently to himself. David’s auburn hair was grayer now. The years were finally showing in the lines of his face. He carried his age more than others, even those younger than him. His lips were always moving.
Any ordinary day David could be seen muttering to no one, as he was now. He said it was prayer, but what god could hear silent prayer?
Ittai looked away from David and watched the lines of their men hidden on the reverse slope of the ridge.
They had defeated his people’s empire in every encounter the past ten years.
How? The answer was obvious: their God.