Welcome to the first Quest of Fire Friday of the new year! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and 2024 is off to a phenomenal start. This year is looking pretty similar at the start for me to last year’s with me needing to be super focused on meeting a writing deadline, this time for Quest of Fire book 6. I’m hoping to share some sneak peek insights into some locations from the book next week.
Today, however, I feel like I have to focus on that earlier comment I made on how similar this year looks to last. That statement is too strong. In truth, the similarities are like those of a housecat to a lion. Both felines but very different in how they need to be handled and the trepidation with which one would approach them.
You see, this time last year I was in trouble. I was behind on completing not one but two novels. I’m not known for my timeliness (this year-in-review post coming five days into the new year and late at night is evidence enough), but I hadn’t ever been that pressed, that far behind, and that certain to be far more so before I would finish. I struggled for several days to chip away at the mountain of my deadlines and became more and more stressed. I was going to let down my publisher and readers. And that was just on the timeliness for finishing the books, never mind what kind of quality the writing and stories that would come out of it could possibly have. I hinted in past posts and interviews about it, but I don’t think I can aptly convey the measure of my deepening horror as day after day passed and I was further and further behind. It was like my vehicle was stuck in deep mud and the more I tried to gun the engine and peel out of it the more entrenched and hopeless my plight became.
So, I prayed about it.
We often talk about prayer or offer it for others as if it is the very least and most ineffectual thing we could do for one another or our circumstances. That’s unfortunate, because truly after I turned the situation over to God and admitted the task, the problem, all of it, was beyond me that’s when things began to turn around.
First, I was graciously granted delayed release dates for both books by my publisher. Then my wife took it upon herself to handle putting our son to bed solo five of seven days each week, which gave me nearly two hours more writing time per day. But what happened in the days and weeks after have really humbled me. The words for these stories didn’t just come, they came in a rush. An unyielding torrent. I had previously clutched tight my concerns about how to handle the mechanics of telling these stories, dreading various scenes. Suddenly even those scenes flowed out like spun silk. I encountered themes and developments that I never saw coming that were so rich and profound to me. Both books became more than I had ever hoped for them to be. I was still a rather crude instrument for the Master Artist to use, but for the first time in a long while I felt like I was being used by Him. It’s a beautiful feeling and a treasure for me. I continue to pray the Lord uses the stories for His glory in those who read it.
The entire experience has been a blessing to me and forced me to shift from relying on myself to relying on Him and revealed how incredibly freeing it is to come to Him weary in search of rest. There’s a passage in Silent Stars (one of the two novels I needed to finish) where I referenced Isaiah 43:19
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
That’s how I felt. He made a way where there was none.
I realize the Lord doesn’t answer every prayer in the way we would want. But His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts. It is part of living by faith and not by sight that we accept some prayers are answered as we wanted and others not. We have to trust just as much that He can bring good of an answer of “No” as He is capable of doing the very thing we ask of Him. I had some answers of “No” along the way. I won’t say I’ve done a great job of it, but I’m still trying very hard to hold to my thankfulness that He is with me and as Romans 8:28 says:
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
I hope that that is helpful and encouraging for you on the journey you have before you. I pray that it is one leading ever closer to the Lord and that if you encounter a desert, bereft of hope, you turn to the God of hope Who makes a way in the wilderness and a river in the desert.
Thank you for reading and may the Lord bless and be with you always.
Brett Armstrong 
Happy New Year!