The Turning Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE TURNING

  “The Turning is the most refreshing and inspired page turner in recent years. It captures your heart, mind, and spirit with a real connection to His Grace. The Turning is highly commended. Davis Bunn has scaled new heights and brought us with him.”

  —Ted Baehr, president of Movieguide

  “The Turning is a triumph. This novel contains a remarkable mix of high drama, great characters, and a truly inspired examination of what it means to discern the voice of God. This above all else makes the book stand out. Readers will be captivated by Bunn’s story, and challenged by this invitation to seek a deeper walk with our Lord. The Turning invites us to heed God’s call, not with an absence of fear, but rather the mastery of it.”

  —Roy Crowne, director emeritus, Youth for Christ, and CEO, The Hope Project

  “Does God still speak to his followers today? That’s the question and the power of this high-stakes prophetic novel ripped straight from tomorrow’s headlines. The Turning is a mesmerizing look at people who believe they heard the voice of God. The unforgettable cast of characters and the conflicting themes of divine hope against man’s darker motives made for one amazing read.”

  —Allen Arnold, director of content, Ransom Heart Ministries

  © 2014 by

  DAVIS BUNN

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by Carol Johnson

  Interior and cover design: Erik M. Peterson

  Cover photo of street scene copyright © 2012 by Macie J. Noskowski / iStock. All rights reserved.

  Author photo: Angel Gray Photography

  Page composition: Design Corps

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bunn, T. Davis

  The turning / Davis Bunn.

  pages cm

  Summary: “The message was unexpected but instantly recognizable. A voice resonated from a distance and somehow from within. Against all earthly logic, it carried a divine command. And five very different people knew they were summoned to obey. Their actions were demanding, but not particularly grand. Only later would they see a pattern emerge—one that links their tasks together and comes to challenge the cultural direction of the nation. They realize that one small personal response unveiled a new realm of moral responsibility. And this affirmation of everyday hope captures the attention of millions. But power and money are at stake. Malicious elements soon align themselves to counter the trend. To succeed they must also undermine its source. Can we really believe that God speaks to people today? Surely this must be dismissed as superstition or delusion. These well-intentioned but misguided individuals should not be allowed to cast our society back into the Dark Ages. The public debate and media frenzy place an unprecedented spotlight on knowing and doing God’s will. The five encounter threats, but try to remain steadfast in their faith. Had God indeed imparted wisdom on selected individuals? Is this sweep of events part of his divine purpose? The movement may herald a profound renewal—one that some are calling The Turning.”—Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-8024-1168-6 (pbk.)

  I. Title.

  PS3552.U4718T87 2014

  813’.54—dc23

  2013045562

  We hope you enjoy this book from River North Fiction by Moody Publishers. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products written and produced from a biblical perspective, go to www.moodypublishers.com or write to:

  River North Fiction

  Imprint of Moody Publishers

  820 N. LaSalle Boulevard

  Chicago, IL 60610

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated to Roy and Florence Crowne who have made the gift of hope their life’s work

  Contents

  Day One

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Day Two

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  Day Five

  10

  11

  12

  Day Six

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Day Eight

  17

  18

  19

  Day Nine

  20

  21

  Day Ten

  22

  23

  24

  Day Eleven

  25

  26

  27

  Day Twelve

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  Day Thirteen

  33

  34

  35

  36

  Excerpt from The Turning Devotional

  Visit The Turning Book.com

  About the Author

  Friend,

  Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.

  The proceeds from your purchase help pay the tuition of students attending Moody Bible Institute. These students come from around the globe and graduate better equipped to impact our world for Christ.

  Other Moody Ministries that may be of interest to you include Moody Radio and Moody Distance Learning. To learn more visit http://www.moodyradio.org/ and http://www.moody.edu/distancelearning/

  To enhance your reading experience we’ve made it easy to share inspiring passages and thought-provoking quotes with your friends via Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, and other book-sharing sites. To do so, simply highlight and forward. And don’t forget to put this book on your Reading Shelf on your book community site.

  Thanks again, and may God bless you.

  The Moody Publishers Team

  To view trailer for The Turning, go HERE.

  1

  “Who will go for us …?”

  NEW YORK CITY

  Trent Cooper watched the empty Sunday streets unfold beyond his window. He had never been in the backseat of a limo before. Twice he had ridden up front, playing aide to his boss, Darren, whom he loathed along with everyone else forced to work for the man. Today, however, was different. Today Darren was the one forced to play ride-along. Trent had often studied passing limos, hungering to be one of those people with the power and the expense accounts. The feeling of having arrived, even for a moment, was so exquisite not even Darren’s fury could touch him.

  His boss must have noticed Trent’s satisfied smirk, for he was seething as he said, “Enjoy it while you can, worm. Ninety minutes from now, you’ll be just another greasy stain on the sidewalks of Times Square.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.” Trent was usually the guy who just went along. It was protective coloring he had picked up as a kid. Vanish in plain sight, and escape multiple poundings from guys who were bigger and stronger and fascinated by the sight of other people’s blood.

  “You mocking me? Really?” Darren obviously wanted to pace, which of course was impossible, even in a stretch limo. So he fidgeted. His well-padded frame highlighted every squirm. “You think I’m playing games here, Cooper?”

  “No, sir. I know you aren’t.”
Trent glanced over. The guy was a toad in a suit.

  “Your future is in my hands. You better be thinking of how you’re going to write a resume when your previous employer is just waiting to call you a class-A clown.”

  Trent turned back to the window. There really wasn’t anything on that side to hold his attention. To tell the truth, he was a little disappointed in the ride. The stretch Cadillac bounced hard over the smallest dips. The ceiling was low and dark, the rear seat slightly concave. An acre of dark carpet separated them from the backward-facing seats. The divider was in place, making the rear compartment feel like a coffin for two.

  “This is your last chance,” Darren said. “I want to know what you sent to headquarters. And I want to know now.”

  The scene beyond the limo’s side window was much more interesting. Back home when he was a kid, church would have just been getting out. Trent had always skipped out of those tall doors like he was being released from a weekly prison. People smiled down at him, the poor kid whose family hadn’t been able to afford the operations he needed, so the church had taken up collections. They talked in loud voices, like having a cleft palate turned him deaf. His mother kept a vise grip on his hand, smiled back to them and talked with this brittle happiness like they didn’t have a care in the world, what with the church family taking such good care of them. Trent had hated them all.

  “I’ve had it with your insubordination, Cooper,” his boss said. “I’ve asked you a question and I demand an answer.”

  Trent forced his mind back to the present. He rarely indulged in memory games. As far as he was concerned, the best thing about his past was how it fueled his drive and determination, and granted him the fury required to make it. Even here. In Manhattan. The Capital City of Broken Dreams.

  The sunlit streets were just coming alive. Elegant alcoves held sidewalk cafés where laughing people burned through money. Couples dressed in clothes that cost more than his car walked arm in arm toward their next good time. Trent traced a line around the sunlight on his window and mouthed a silent word. Soon.

  The limo pulled around the corner and parked before the headquarters’ side entrance. The door had no sign. Anyone who needed to ask what lay beyond the brass portal did not belong.

  Darren leaned over so far his belly flattened against his thighs. “That’s it, Cooper. As of this minute, you are fired.”

  Trent did not wait for the driver to make it around to his side. He opened his door and stepped into the sunlight. Instantly the uniformed guard opened the brass door and wished him a good morning. Trent stepped back and let his boss storm past. He gave himself a moment to breathe in the fresh air, the light, the thrill of finally having won a chance. He whispered to the amazing day ahead, “Showtime.”

  CLEVELAND

  If anyone had asked John Jacobs how he saw himself, he probably would not have replied. John had spent his entire adult life being both strong and silent. But if he were pressed to divulge the truth, he would have said that he was a big man imprisoned inside too small a life.

  John knew the church service was over. But he could not bring himself to open his eyes. To do so would require letting go of the most incredibly intense experience he had known in years.

  Then he heard his wife call his name. When he looked up, John saw the church’s senior usher leaning over the pew, watching him gravely. “I’m fine,” he told them both.

  Heather demanded, “Why on earth didn’t you say something?”

  “I was praying,” he said. In a very unique manner, true enough.

  “You’re supposed to be leading Sunday school,” Heather said. “It’s time to start.”

  He knew that was beyond him. “Will you do it?”

  “John, what’s the matter?”

  “I’m all right. I just need a little time, is all.” He followed her into the classroom, seated himself, and pretended to watch his wife as she announced she’d be teaching and led their group in the opening prayer. Heather had graduated from Bible college and knew the Scriptures better than he ever would. In general she preferred to stand back and let him lead, but many of the insights he brought to the class were drawn from their study time together. Heather had led her college tennis team to the state quarterfinals and still played three or four times a week. She was tanned and lean and carried herself with an athlete’s natural grace.

  John found himself watching her anew. He saw his wife of twenty-seven years, the mother of their two children, the woman who had helped him bear the intolerable loads of this life, and he loved her so much his heart hurt.

  Something must have connected, for she stopped in mid-sentence and said, “John, will you tell me what it is?”

  There might have been another thirty or so people in the room. But the way she spoke those words made the impossible feel natural. The concept of public confession was daunting. But he felt that her request was proper. It was time.

  John said, “I have the impression that God spoke to me.”

  Heather resumed her seat next to him. “Back in church?”

  “When the pastor led us in the opening prayer. And it just kept growing.” He touched the small book in his pocket that dealt with listening to God. The church had bought several boxes and offered them around. “Heather and I have been studying this in our morning prayer times.” John shook his head. He might have been trying to listen. But he wasn’t sure he was actually ready for what had just happened.

  Heather asked, “How do you know it was the Lord?”

  “There’ve been a few moments in my life I know I’ll never forget. Times that I’ve felt if there was one ounce more joy or love, I’d explode. I just couldn’t contain anything more.” He spoke with a slow deliberation, normal for John. He rarely sped up his words. “When you said you’d marry me. That was one. Seeing our boys take their first breaths, those were two more. The experience in the sanctuary was that powerful.”

  A man who had been John’s friend since high school asked, “What did God say?”

  John sat for a while, then replied, “He asked who would go for him.”

  Heather asked, “Go where?”

  “He didn’t say.” There had been a unique intensity to the experience. One that left John utterly certain that this silent exchange had not been manufactured by his own brain. “I answered like Isaiah. I said, ‘Here am I, send me.’ And God said, ‘Take the turning, and walk the unlikely road.’”

  He took a long breath. Once again the images were so intense he shut his eyes and bowed his head, returning in all but body to the sanctuary and the moment. “I asked how I would know the message was really from God. He said, take the turning, and I would find him waiting there.”

  “What turning was he talking about, John?”

  To that, he shook his head. He knew exactly what God was referring to. But that was something he was not ready to talk about. Not with anyone.

  2

  “God’s hidden wisdom …”

  NEW YORK CITY

  Trent Cooper stood by the vast windows overlooking Times Square, his back to the reception area and his pacing boss. Trent understood the man’s terror. They both had good reason to be afraid. The elegant chamber was littered with the carcasses of former executives. The vultures inside the office beyond the double doors were experts at picking flesh from bones.

  Trent had never felt calmer.

  His every sense was on hyperalert. He stood on the fifth floor, close enough to ground level to observe the people scurry around the square. In Trent’s research of the man behind this meeting, one of the articles had criticized the office’s location. In New York, higher was better. Penthouses were intended to hold the power brokers. But Trent understood exactly why Barry Mundrose had placed his office right here. Trent did not see hordes of tourists and locals jostling and rushing and pointing and talking. He saw an audience. His audience. The people he would both mold and shape into a mass of mouths eager to swallow whatever he next produced. Like a huge flock of ba
by birds, all their colorful wings flapping as they scrambled and cheeped and craved whatever crumb he decided to deliver.

  The reception area held a variety of aromas. Fresh ground coffee, fresh cut flowers, furniture polish, a hint of some exotic spice in the lovely receptionist’s perfume. Overlaying was a tight electric burn, the flavor of desert air the instant before lightning flared. Most people could not identify the subtle tang. They fretted and churned without knowing exactly why.

  He tasted the air with the tip of his tongue. The charge was as intense as anything he had ever known, and took him straight back to his childhood. He recalled nights huddled in the storm cellar behind their house, his father out on the road somewhere, his mother cradling his head in her arms, probably not even aware of the noises she made, moans linking fragments of pleas to God, hidden and helpless and afraid.

  Even there, Trent was never frightened. He loved the sound of the approaching storms, like electric beasts stomping the dry Oklahoma soil, the thunder rolling out warnings of their approach. Until finally, bam! the strikes became so close the thunder and the lightning joined into one gigantic explosion, striking faster and faster and faster, his mother wailing her fears, the wind howling, the cellar doors rattling as the giant battered and bellowed. Then it marched away until they were safe to emerge, and there was nothing left of it except the soft rumble of its force beyond the horizon.

  That and the flavor of power on his tongue.

  The receptionist called from her station by the grand double doors, “Gentlemen, Mr. Mundrose will see you now.”

  BALTIMORE

  Alisha Seames sat at the head table in the church hall. One Sunday each month, the families brought in food and ate together following the service. Actually, it was more like a midday break, because most folks stayed over for a second helping of praise and worship after eating. The main table was on a little rise, like a knee-high stage. Alisha sat with her back to the rear curtain. She loved being up there at the head table. She’d spent extra time on her dress and her hat and her makeup and her shoes. Knowing everybody was looking. Just loving it.