Daniel three gives us the story of the fiery furnace. Three
Hebrew young men weren’t about to bow to anyone except their God. But, when
they were thrown into the hot furnace, they came out unharmed. An unbelievable
miracle from God.
As writers of Christian literature, we must be careful when
we include miraculous events. We don’t want to include a miracle so
unbelievable that we cause our readers to doubt more than believe in the God we
are writing about. Also, we shouldn’t use a miracle to get our main character
out of the jam we put them in just because we can’t think of any other way to
get him out.
Often the best miracles from God we can use in our writing
are the ones we have experienced for ourselves or have witnessed in someone
close to us.
For example, a friend and co-worker recently asked me to
pray for her husband. The doctor had ordered a MRI because of suspicious
reading from another scan. The doctor actually mentioned the likelihood of
brain cancer. We prayed. The MRI showed nothing. The doctor could only say that
either the first test was incorrect or God had removed it.
With a definite emotional connection and an opportunity to
witness a miracle, we can write about it, making it more realistic.
Do you have a miracle that occurs in your story? Have
another person read that section and question them about how believable that
scene is.
Do you have a miraculous occurrence to get your character
out of a big problem or circumstance?
Here’s an extreme example. Your main character takes a boat
out before checking it, but he needs to follow someone. He gets to the middle
of the lake and the boat stalls and runs out of gas. And, all of the sudden, a
helicopter flies over and he is saved.
Did you give some hints in advance so this rescue isn’t so
out-of-the-blue? This rescue might seem plausible if the main character
happened to be on his phone with his love interest as he hopped into the boat.
The love interest might know that the boat will soon be out of gas or that the
main character will need assistance if he catches who he is chasing. She might
phone her helicopter friend or maybe she flies and takes off after him. This
seems much more believable than just having a helicopter come to the rescue at
the exact moment he runs out of gas.
We need to be careful with our use of miracles in our
stories. We don’t want our reader to shake her head and say, “There’s no way.”
We want our reader to say, “Wow, God did a miracle there. I wonder if He could
do that in my life?”
