I love it when an author can take an old idea or message and turn it into a story you’ve never heard before, giving it a fresh and creative side that no one has ever attempted. This is exactly what Ted Dekker does in his more recent series The Outlaw Chronicles.
I just finished them a couple of weeks ago and was truly blessed by the story with its concept on the identity of human beings. This series contains four books: Outlaw, Eyes Wide Open, Water Walker, and Hacker. Due to it being a lovely summer day on this lazy Saturday, I’m only going to give the surface idea of the books and no more. The pool is beckoning me.
This series is about the identity of each of us. It forces us to look deep within ourselves and question if we’ve made ourselves the focal point in life.
Dekker refers to our earthly bodies as costumes throughout the series, which I thought was pretty genius. Each of the characters learn to see their outward bodies as simply costumes, which means disconnecting their minds from this world’s idea of vanity and focusing on the inner beauty of themselves and each human being- focusing on the soul of the person rather than who they appear to be. They learn to love themselves and be content with who they are, seeing themselves in God’s eyes.
Forgiveness forms a large part of the story, as characters come to terms with the real soul of themselves. In so doing, they let go of the pain that is inflicted on them from other human beings. They see it as not really touching them, since the real person they are is their soul, not their “costume” or body. This mindset gives them the power to forgive, which is one of the hardest powers for humans to possess when real harm and pain has been inflicted against them.
The only way to truly access this power is to let go of the earthliness of this life. See your pain but don’t embrace it, or it will enslave you. Look beyond this life to your eternal soul that will live forever someday.
Our bodies don’t last, but our souls do. That’s the stories’ beauty. It’s all about the power we possess as human beings if we look beyond this life and into the next- if we look beyond our flesh and into the heart of it all.
It was so refreshing to see this message being presented in such a new and cool way. It enables us to see the magic that we simple humans can possess if we allow ourselves to see the true reality of this world.
Cozy Corner 