The soldier knelt in the dark, pressed against the curve of the wooden wall. The air was thick, heavy with the sweat of bodies packed together. He could barely breathe. His legs had gone numb hours ago, but still he did not move. Around him, one man shifted, another murmured a prayer, their armor creaking softly beneath the weight of a long war. No one spoke. The weight of waiting pressed on them all, a tension wound so tight it might snap with the smallest sound.
Outside, voices drifted back and forth, muffled through the walls. He couldn’t see faces, only feel the debate in their tones—low murmurs that rose suddenly into laughter, then fell again into shouting. The waiting was torture. Each pause in their speech stretched longer than the last. Were they suspicious? Were they convinced?
His throat burned as a drop of sweat slid down his temple and vanished into the dust at his feet. Then it happened. A sharp crack tore through the chamber above him. The wood shuddered. Every man flinched, hearts pounding in the dark.
A moment later came another sound—the rhythmic scrape of rope against wood, slow at first, then steady. He felt the vibration through his knees. The ropes were tightening.
The whole structure lurched. The men held their breath. It was happening.
The chamber groaned as it tilted, the sound of straining wood filling the dark. He braced his hands against the wall, splinters biting into his palms. The floor shifted beneath him, and his stomach turned with it. Another jolt. Then another. The weight of the structure pressed and swayed, dragging them wherever it pleased.
Light pierced the darkness in thin, trembling lines. Through the cracks came movement, the swell of voices, and the roar of celebration. The ground shook as the city gates were opened. Heat poured through the wooden walls as they were pulled forward. He caught glimpses of faces blurred by motion, saw torches, people cheering what they believed to be a victory. They had crossed the walls. The trap was set, and they were the bait.
Then came stillness as the great doors closed behind them and time began to stretch again. The celebration outside carried deep into the night—singing, dancing, the dull ring of metal and laughter fading into the dark. Inside the hollow walls, the soldiers waited, unmoving, counting breaths. The noise ebbed away until only the faint hum of a sleeping city remained.
The stillness was unbearable.
And then, at last, a whisper cut through the dark.
“Now.”
Outside, the night erupted. What had entered as art would awaken as war.
The Power of Story
That’s the power of story. It can disguise invasion as beauty.
Every true story captivates before it convinces. It doesn’t ask permission; it captures the heart then reshapes the mind. You and I have felt it—the surge of justice when evil falls, the ache when the innocent suffers, the breathless relief when redemption wins the day. None of that is random. Stories rule our emotions because they were designed to. They reach us at the level of our nature—woven into us by the Creator, whose story forms the framework of reality itself.
The world’s storytellers understand this instinctively. The greatest of them use art as a weapon—to heal or to wound, to reveal truth or to conceal it. Story holds its power because it mirrors the architecture of God’s world: setting, conflict, climax, and resolution. His design is pressed into the human soul. Every story we tell is, at its root, an imitation of his story. That’s why we crave resolution—because deep down, we remember the faint echo of a garden where all was right under God’s rule. Our souls bear the imprint of what was lost.
The Trojan Horse of Our Age
Today, the war hasn’t changed—only the weapons have.
Every story is a Trojan horse. Each one hides something inside—ideas, beliefs, desires—cloaked in art and beauty to lower your guard. Some carry truth, others carry lies, but all of them carry something.
The real weapon is its cloakability. Art rarely storms your gates declaring its intent. Instead, it comes dressed in beauty. It invites you to laugh, to cry, to feel, and as your heart opens, something waits. When the gates of your mind open wide and your guard is down, storied warriors emerge—ideas about who you are, what is good, what is evil, what is worth living and dying for.
Most people never notice. They shrug and call it “just a movie” or “just a song,” unaware that art has never been neutral. Every story is an act of war, carrying an army inside. Every story fights for something—either to advance the kingdom of light or to strengthen the shadows that oppose it.
But this isn’t a call to fear stories. It’s a call to see them—to discern what they’re carrying. The answer to counterfeit beauty isn’t withdrawal; it’s restored beauty. If the world sends Trojan horses, then the people of God must send their own—works of art and storytelling so full of truth and glory that they breach the hardest walls of unbelief.
Rise, Christian
That’s the call for those who know the Author of all stories: to be both gatekeepers and ambassadors. Be discerning when the world’s Trojan horses try to enter your imagination, but also send your own out into the world. Carry his story through your words, your work, your worship. Let every act of beauty, courage, and truth become a warrior of grace—a banner of his kingdom raised over a world asleep behind its walls.
In the end, the victory belongs to the Storyteller himself, and every rival story will bow to his. Yet until that day, the war of stories rages on. So rise, Christian. Take up your pen, your brush, your camera, your pulpit, your classroom, your business, your home—whatever ground God has given you—and stand firm. Refuse to be silent. Wield truth with gentleness, but without apology. Fill the world with beauty that will not bend, a beauty that reveals rather than deceives. Live as those who know how the story ends, and fight as those determined to be found faithful when the Author turns the final page.
Let this be your whisper that cuts through the dark.
“Now.”