Story characters as an exploration of spiritual strongholds

Okay, so there's King Nahas in Constant Tower.

Last night Luke (beloved hubby)  and I were talking about God and King Nahas. Nahas represents the totality of his clan's traditions and belief about strength and suffering, and I was wondering if there is some stronghold in me which considers God a bit like Nahas.

Nahas will not relent until all the tests Psal goes through have been overcome, until Psal proves himself. He is absolutely merciless, even to his son....especially to his son. And I said to luke, "I hope to God I don't have that idea of God working and mixing in my faith in a kind of double-minded stronghold. Because it would mean that I won't allow myself to receive any blessing until i think I've "suffered enough" or "endured enough." 

So am trying to take every thought captive. Trying to focus on God's love and on the quality of unearned love, of grace..unmerited favor.

This is one of the blessings of fictions. They're fictive dreams and we see the argument our soul is having with our spirit when we look at our characters. 

A stronghold is something within our minds that battles against faith. A stronghold is not doubt, per se. But it is a subtle belief or self-deception and it gets intermingled in our world view and it works against us getting our prayers answered or our growing closer to God.

If Nahas is one of my mental images of God as king, then I need to explore that. This character kinda reminds me of a dream I had when I was young where I was shouting, "God, Father! God, Father!" When I woke up I realized that God was showing me in my dream that my idea of God was that he was like Mario Puzo's "godfather" -- someone to be feared.

In Wind Follower, Loic's dad was loving but misunderstood. In some ways he was inscrutable and ineffectual. Yeah, the dads in a Carole McDonnell novel tend to be odd. 

The interesting thing is I do not have a father. He disowned us when we were younger. And I've only seen him twice or thrice since the folks divorced. So I don't know what fathers are like. People talk about dads and I'm like... "uh, uh..okay." And so I have to wade through this God as Father thing.  But God is helping me. When I discover His true love for me and how He wants to give me so much and how freely His love is given...maybe I will be able to receive more answered prayers.

Will see. Happy creating!