Is there a place in faith for imagination?

Is there room for something beyond rote obedience,

for creative, even playful invitations extended from creation to creator.

When it comes to what father and son or father and daughter might do together,

does God have any interest in his children being creative?

How might he respond if you started dreaming up adventures that would bring him glory?

This is a story about leadership and courage, about coming of age, and the eons' old tension between fathers and sons.

But mostly, this is a story about a God who believes in the power of the

word, perhaps, a God who wants to tell us about a friend of his who saw the unknown not as a

dead end, but as a doorway. I'm Justin Gerhardt. Welcome to Holy Ghost Stories. A third of a shekel.

An exorbitant price, but non-negotiable if an Israelite wants his axe sharpened by a Philistine

blacksmith.

And why would an Israelite do such a thing?

Because he has no choice.

The Hebrew blacksmiths, all of them, have been disappeared. Here one day, gone the next.

The Philistines have snuffed the flames of Hebrew foundries like lamplight, and with them,

any hope of manufacturing weapons for rebellion. Thanks to this and other recent moves in their long-standing match with Israel,

Felistia now dominates the chessboard of territory west of the Jordan. Check. But the game isn't

over. The king has not been taken, nor for that matter, and perhaps more importantly, has his son.

Together, the father and his prince lead a rebel force of Hebrew men, 3,000 recently, but due in part

to poor leadership from King Saul, the number now stands at about 600.

Thanks to the Philistine chokehold on their blacksmiths,

...