A Hook

Grandgirl reading Mr. Greenleaf's Unforgettable Summer
2015

"Jesus called out, 'Come with Me, and I will teach you to catch people.'" (Matthew 4:19, Good News Translation)

One of the many lessons about book writing that I've learned over the past eight years is to create a what-happens-next hook at the start of the story so readers will read all the way to the end.

For example: In my humble opinion, the 1936 Newbery-Medal-winning children's fiction, Caddie Woodlawn, was well-written in  its description of everyday life for pioneer children, but there was no hook to keep me reading to the last page.

On the other hand, in Hatchet, the 1987 Newbery-Honor-winning novel, writer Gary Paulsen had me hooked from the get-go when thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson becomes the lone survivor of a bush plane crash in the Canadian wilderness.

The most spectacular creative Writer of all times across all literary history is the Author of a best seller that you most probably have more than one copy of sitting on your bookshelf. His name? God. His Book? The Holy Bible. Statistics report that, in the United States alone, there are more than 168,000 Bibles sold every day!

God's story quickly moves through the creation of the universe and mankind to the fall of Adam and Eve in a perfect paradise, the Garden of Eden. As God pronounces judgment upon the cunning serpent (Eve's deceiver), He brilliantly plants the what-happens-next hook in Genesis 3:15: 

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel." 

The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say, plays out in the following sixty-five books-within-the-Book (sixty-six total when you count Genesis) with a slam-dunk, Good-News, happy ending for God's children. The "He" introduced in Genesis 3:15 becomes (spoiler alert) the KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS, a.k.a. Jesus Christ, in Revelation 19:16, and the serpent, a.k.a. the devil, finds himself in a burning lake of fire tormented day and night forever and ever.

Beloved, are you discouraged, fearful, hopeless, or down-hearted? Pick up God's best seller and read the whole story—all the way down to the last Amen in Revelation 22:21.