What questions drive your storytelling?

As a reader, I’m drawn to stories that make me question the status quo, push me to look at the familiar with fresh eyes, and challenge me to think deeply.

As a writer, the longing to learn more about God, people, and history is the engine behind my creativity.

As an editor, one of my main goals is to help authors to ask the questions that will help them delve deeper into the meaning at the heart of their storytelling.

I love Harold Bell Wright’s stories for the honest, oftentimes difficult questions they bring up. They don’t shy away from facing pain that doesn’t seem to make sense, addressing brokenness in places we don’t want to acknowledge it, or challenging complacent evil most of us would rather just ignore.

(Of course I also love them because they also offer compelling examples of hope, healing, and virtue—the point of a question is that it eventually leads to an answer.)

These are some of the questions these books left me with (and made a great start at answering):

🔎 What does it look like to follow Jesus in practice? How should the life of a Christian be different from the world?

🔎 What is the measure of a truly successful man or woman, and how is it different from how the world defines success?

🔎 How should a Christian respond when their faith community cares more about fitting in with the world than about following Christ?

🔎 What “acceptable evils” have Christians become comfortable with, and how should they be confronted?

Often the most difficult questions are the most fruitful. The answers that come with a cost are the ones that have the power to bring change.