Your main character struggles with anger management issues stemming from a strained relationship with his father. Why did you choose to characterize him as a believer?
Because I’m Toren Daniels, and I’m a believer. I don’t wrestle with anger. Having a temper is not one of my issues.
But I do have other struggles, issues I fight against. Over the past few years, I’ve been finding a way out. I’ve found more freedom from “the things I do, but hate that I do,” than ever before.
So this story—like all my stories—is taking my personal journey and putting it into a story in a way I hope can set others free as well.
Are there any passages of Scripture you can share that speak to people who may struggle with a “Jekyll and Hyde” issue in their own lives?
There are many, but here are a few. Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
We’re not alive any longer. I don’t think we grasp that. We’re dead! The good man in Romans 7? Dead. The bad man? Dead. There’s a new being inside us now, called Christ. We are now one with Him.
We have His power, His glory, His grace at our disposal. God has made us complete in Christ. Once we start to embrace that, wow … chains start to fall away.
Ephesians 2:6: “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus …” This verse is not talking about what will happen, but what has already happened. “Raised.” Past tense. I don’t think anyone reading this right now thinks their physical body will live forever.
Yet we live like it. We concentrate on it. We live out our days focused on the physical realm, where in contrast, the apostle Paul suggests, “Focus not on the seen–” (the physical realm) “but the unseen …” (the spiritual realm).
When we follow Paul’s leading, and focus on the unseen, our priorities change. Everything about us changes. And we realize the war talked about in Romans 7 has been won. Once we truly believe that, and embrace that, we start to live it out.
What do you hope readers will take away after reading this book?
I hope they experience more freedom than they ever have before. I hope the ideas in the novel soak down deep in them and they realize they are loved far beyond imagination. I hope all their worries fall away as they realize who they truly are in Christ.
Can you give us a hint about what you’re working on now?
Sure! Just yesterday I finished the story I hinted at earlier, called The Pages of Her Life, about a journal sitting on the side of a road getting soaked by Seattle rain.
Last March, I was in my car, and saw a journal sitting on the on ramp just before I got on the freeway. For some reason I got out, picked up the journal and took it home.
And I thought, “What if like on the walls at Belshazzar’s feast in the book of Daniel, writing from heaven started showing up on the pages of the journal?” It comes out in 2019. I think you’ll like it.
Thanks so much for having me!
Visit James L. Rubart’s author page here: https://www.familyfiction.com/authors/james-l-rubart/
The Man He Never Was
James L. Rubart
Thomas Nelson