The lead character in SEER is a young man named Craig Anderson.

Craig is fatherless. His father is gone — out of the picture in the way fathers sometimes leave a space in a young man’s life that nothing else fills cleanly. He has a mentor named Richard Kinson who steps into some of that space. An older man. Established. Someone who sees something in Craig that Craig cannot yet see in himself.

What Craig cannot see is that he is a prophet.

His dreams are coming true. Not metaphorically. Literally. He will dream something and then days or weeks later he will watch it unfold in front of him in real life. The convergence is undeniable but Craig resists the conclusion it points toward. He is not ready to be what the evidence says he is.

That reluctance was important to me when I wrote him. Because I think most people who are called to something significant spend a long time not accepting the call. Not because they are faithless but because the call is large and they feel small. Because accepting it means stepping into something they cannot control. Because it is easier to explain away the evidence than to live with the responsibility of what the evidence means.

Richard Kinson’s role is to help Craig stop explaining it away. To hold up a mirror and say — look at what is actually happening. Look at who you actually are. Stop running from the thing God put in you.

I wrote that story because I needed it myself. Craig Anderson’s journey was also mine. It is also yours if you have ever looked at the gifts inside you and decided they were too much to claim.

They are not too much. Claim them.

Stephon Rudd