Well, the truth here is that I have been working on the concept of Gideon's Fleeces for a number of years and a book on Gideon's Fleeces for about the past year. Many of you already know about my ideas regarding Gideon and his fleece and many of that group have responded with their own experiences of having implemented Gideon's Fleeces into their own journey of faith. For those not yet privy, Gideon was a fairly mainstream Israelite during the time of the Judges. After receiving a message from God that he was to take leadership action on behalf of Isreal, he balked. Instead of direct obedience he asked for a series of tests before he would obey. Those tests took the form of a sheepskin fleece and dew. You know the basic story.
Gideon has historically been given a bum rap regarding his need for certainty and his basic unwillingness to believe that he was being called to action. To every one who criticizes Gideon, I encourage a life of stone avoidance as you will have no need to be throwing any. In Gideon I find the inherent resistance to God's grand plan for each of us (our will vs. his), the willingness of God to meet us at our pitiful level, and the Platonic "form" of communication lost at the fall.
By using "tests" or, as I think better, "proofs" to determine what God's plan is for us, we can both establish a communication with God, and also act with increased certainty and determination that we are acting under the umbrella of his purpose and blessing. This is a good thing.
Yesterday I met with the director of publishing services of a new publishing company based just outside of Grand Rapids. From that meeting, two things became clear. The first is that the chance of a typical author/agent/publisher relationship for a relatively unknown author is unlikely in the current market. The second is that there is a viable opportunity for both publication and also for the type of support (seminars, online presence, etc...) that would be necessary for these ideas to reach a broad market. One step at a time and we'll see where it ends up. In the meantime, the desire for self sufficiency and purpose which echo within these blog posts helps drive the vision for publication of this book. So, again, your encouragement has been a huge blessing.
The development of the book will be a repeated item within this blog win, lose, or draw. The point of both the book and the principles underlying this blog are truth and transparency. Come along for the ride and wear your mud boots.
Happy St. Pats. I had some of of the corned beef with a decent brick cheese and a glass of Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel while waiting for the brazed potatoes to finish. I then ladled the potato chinks onto a bowl of leftover ground beef and pasta sauce glop from the other night, added another glass of wine and retreated to my desk to write this. My advice? Keep the potatoes and glop and skip on the wine. I have really appreciated the Petite Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and, especially, Merlot by Bogle. This zinfandel was overly sweet and fatty. I'd take a swallow expecting something significant and it just seemed to fade like a stale Twinkie. And I hate Twinkies. By the way, Sean likes his dry food a lot when you hide a piece of corned beef fat underneath the pile.
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