What dreams may come...

As I promised, here is a post about my dream. After I explain what exactly my dream was about, I will then explain how I think I would turn it into a novel.

In my dream, I met a girl named Sarah in one of my classes, whom I really felt led to witness to. (This really was not a romantic thing.) So, I tried to develop the sort of relationship necessary to tell her about my faith and invite her to come to church with me. She was hesitant to go to any church, but I kept at it. One day, as we were walking down some stairs after a class or something, a man was waiting on one of the landings on the steps. When we got to that landing, he said to her, "The Lord, in His infinite sovereignty, has chosen not to choose your fate; but, whatever you choose in regard to following His Son Jesus Christ, you will either do great work for or against the Kingdom of God." He then turned to me and said, "Pray for this one; do not cease to pray for this one." He then went out a door on that landing and was gone.

So, I instantly realized the great magnitude of her life. I began to pray for her quite a bit, and I took every opportunity to tell her about Christ. She, though, became very afraid of what is happening to her, and became very defensive about having to make a choice either way.

Because of all the spiritual warfare going on surrounding her because of the unique dynamic of her life, she became very sick (coughing up blood), which only made her more afraid. That Sunday, I got the Berean College Group to go to her house to lay hands on her and pray for her.

At this point, my dream started to take an odd turn. When I got to Sarah's house, I saw an elf (identified by her pointy ears), I grabbed the elf, and, as though she were a leprechaun that would then have to take me to her pot of gold, I demanded the treasure that came with capturing an elf. The elf smiled and took me behind Sarah's house. Suddenly, the elf turned briefly into a picture of pure evil in front of me--it was a demon. I was horrified to find out that these demons masquerading as humans had persuaded Sarah to leave town with them. My dream ended watching Sarah smile as she drove away with her family and the demons.

So here is the premise for my potential novel: that there are people whose fates God has not predestined. She would not be the only one, but would be part of something like the 144,000 talked about in Revelation 7:3-5, except that these people would not be sealed, but instead the opposite.

There are several issues that I would like to explore:

• Certainly, I would like to look at the seemingly contradictory issues of God's sovereignty vs. our free will (which are both biblical). The twist here would be that there would still be a level of God's sovereignty, even among the people for whom God has made no choice regarding their fates. The analogy I would use is this: angels certainly had some level of choice (otherwise, they would not have chosen to rebel against God), but their level of choice was different than ours since they had been in the throne room of God and should have known better. Although God has not made the same type of decision that He has with us (the "regular" Christians), there is still some kind of choice made on His part.
• I want to really emphasize the power of prayer, especially by contrasting the power of prayer with our powerlessness. The main character is commanded to pray and can only affect change through his prayer.
• I really want to have the main character be a realistic, but ideal, Christian. What I mean is that I do not want a shallow I-always-do-what-Jesus-wants-me-to-do Christian, but someone who goes through times where he can't see his impact and has a difficult time justifying being consumed by getting Sarah to come to Christ. Furthermore, I want someone who knows what it's like to screw up in front of the person to whom he's trying to witness, and the issues of relying not on our power to bring someone to Christ by our rightousness, but by being weak--though strong in the grace of Christ--and being about continuing on toward perfection, not by trying to live perfectly. I really want to look at what it means to live a transparent life, unashamed to let others know our struggles, and proud only in what God is doing in our lives.

My biggest problem in all of this is how to present it. These "unchosen" people are not Scriptural, so do I set this in a fantasy world, or do I put it in this world and hope to avoid being brought up on charges of heresy (probably with Andrew leading the charge)? I would like to set this in this world, because I would like to use our Bible in looking at what it says about human choice and God's sovereignty.

Well, sorry for writing so much, but it's kind of a complicated idea to explain. I would appreciate any and all thoughts about how I might get this to work.