What Is God To A Non Believer?

By Ahmad Williams

Really? What is God to a Non-Believer? Sounds like a deep question, but the answer is simpler than you really think. How do we know that a God even exists? You can’t see Him. How do you we even know that He is a he? There are some things that just aren’t answered on a daily basis. Ahmad Williams introduces Lionel to the world and he is far from perfect. Lionel finds himself in a very precarious situation; he is surrounded by nothing but believers! He is steadfast on his position of being a good man even though he doesn’t acknowledge God. He doesn’t believe in marriage, even though he is attracted to many women and has children that he cares for. Is it good enough just to be a “good person”? As you read this phenomenal tale you will monitor the trek of how it is definitely possible to be a believer at the same time claiming to not believe. This story teaches us that faith is not always displayed by the way that we live or the way that we speak. But, with time there is always a chance of revelation to be acknowledged. Now if Lionel chooses to acknowledge it, remains to be seen. And if so, how? When his claim is that there is no God that could possibly believe in him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MORTIFIED BOOKS
• Release date: May 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533795137

Ahmad Williams

Publisher and CEO of Mortified Books,Ahmad Williams is a native of Vineland, New Jersey and is a graduate of both Trinity Lutheran Seminary (MTS, 2008) and The Ohio State University (BA, History, 2004). He is the owner, CEO, and co-founder of Mortified Books along with his wife Crystal. Ahmad is ordained by the World Wide Fellowship of Independent Christian Churches (WFICC) and currently serves as a commissioned officer in the United States Army. He is married to the former Crystal Childs and they currently reside in Pataskala, Ohio with their seven children.  He has always been a talented writer of short stories throughout elementary school and never received any grade less than an A in all English classes taken throughout his academic career. "It's just something that I have always trained my mind and fingers to do, so I decided to incorporate it into a skill. Most people think that I am just an indie author. But I am a book publisher, who happens to write as well. We are an intimate publisher who works with first time authors to customize all of their projects with a step by step process. We hold the author's hand from pricing all of the way to cover design and distribution costs. Not only are we the least expensive, but the quality is second to none." When he is not writing he loves to do bodybuilding and play with his kids on the weekends while his wife spoils him with tailgate food. Some of his inspirations come from Richard Wright, W.E.B. DuBois, and James Baldwin. 

Book preview

Introduction

Let’s face it. This world is filled with nothing but distractions. More in particular, the United States is filled with nothing but distractions. There is nothing that means more to the United States than money. In other words.....money is America’s god!

I was speaking to a relative about some of his goals in life and sadly he had nothing that meant anything to his well-being in the future. He elaborated on all of his problems. He had child support, in and out of jail, the baby mama drama, etc. Of all of the things that he mentioned there was nothing mentioned of how he wanted to change his life. In my mind as I heard him speak was that if he really wanted to change he should change his life to impress God. It was baffling to hear him state how he had tried to impress people that he didn’t like by going into debt and shine on his haters.

Let me introduce to my newest star, named Lionel. He can do some really extraordinary things, but he just refuses to go down the right path that would help him. He has three children by three different women. For some reason, he feels that not being married actually makes him free from all of the drama that he is encountering. There is nothing that can convince this young man full of pride that there is a better way. Until he meets the uncertain fate that he never saw coming. Join Lionel on this incredulous ride of revelation.

He’s simply just one of those men who just can’t seem to get it right. He starts down the right way, and then when temptation starts to rise on up he then finds himself in the middle of something new; that further complicates his life.

His life isn’t as orthodox as we would like it to be, but he is more of what the modern man in America is today. He has three children by three different women; which makes communication a nightmare for anyone who is trying to work things out.

As you all know I write from a male’s perspective, but I do not cancel the emotion of women in my writings. I plan to be as universal as possible to bring the greatest audience of all into my world of living and learning.

Why write from the perspective of the male? Well, for starters I am a male. Second, most of the writers who I thought were worthy of reading were always women. Although the reading were great I didn’t find anything that was emotionally intertwining the make mindset. It was easy to read all of the male bashing that could be passed around as if they didn’t care about their kids, whore monges, and dead beats; that never paid their child support every month. Looking from the outside in these issues are easy to conclude with such assumptions. But, the position the male and female are both in have something to do with all of the pressures that contribute to the stress that the antagonist or protagonist experiences.  Ultimately, the reader just experiences the one side that I believe is a severe disadvantage for the reader that invests time and money to be enlightened into the author’s world.

That’s where I come in! I would like to thank so many of you who have become regular fans through the continuous readings of my various e-books and blog posts on www.ahmadwilliams.com. I can’t express how awesome of a journey it has been to entertain readers from across the globe and hear how much my writings have help changed their lives. I am so encouraged when I hear things like, real talk, changed my life, saved my marriage, and getting myself right". The market is not designed for Christian fiction writers to succeed, but with your support I have! I have been able to minister all over the world and speak at various engagements that could have only been designed by God. Before writing, I was a poor kid, straight out of college, and had no job (thanks to the Great Recession). I still call it the Depression, but I just don’t think Washington wanted us to know that.  Now, that I am writing and able to speak to the souls of readers I have been able to take care of my family and write some awesome material as well as launching Mortified Books to help publish other aspiring authors.

Now, I hope that you enjoy Lionel as much as I did creating him and the extra twists that are involved in this story of pride,humility, and courage.  He may not be the next preston Brown, but he is pretty darn close. This is a story about someone who is spiritually blind and really has no clue of what he has gotten himself into when he created this square of a relationship between these women that he has created these children with. I’ll dissect the people that he surrounds himself with and what information is constantly misinforming him that will twist his world around as he transforms from doing childish things and becomes a man for the first time.

CHAPTER 1

PLAYING

Girl, she has to come over here, Lionel shouted at the top of his lungs in the back room of the barbershop. We have a kid together, just like we do. How in the hell am I supposed to be involved in the lives of my children if she can’t bring him over here. This is my place of business and this is where I live. I’m trying my best here and if you can’t appreciate that then I guess you need to just go on somewhere. I do pay you child support just in case you forgot about that! Maybe if you drop it I can have some more flexibility and not be stuck in here all of the time trying to make ends meet. This is New Jersey! Not paying for Piggly Wiggly in Alabama!"

Janice took a step and looked Lionel up and down. Well, if you ever put a ring on this finger; the way that you promised. Then, you wouldn’t have to worry about another child support payment. She leaned one hip to the right sticking out her ring finger. All I want to know is that I don’t want to see her around our child....ever!"

That was one of the things that Lionel loved about Janice. She wouldn’t forget anything that came out of Lionel’s mouth. She had the perfect body that represented something of a medium brown coating on top of something God wonderfully made. Her style was feisty and intriguing all at the same time. When it came to Lionel needing something done, she was there. Whenever, he was too drunk to make it back and forth from the club, she was there to pick him up in the middle of the night. But, deep down she knew that Lionel was too immature to change him around into a matured, married man.

Lionel didn’t have anything to say. Look how about we talk about this another time when we can get some things laid out on the table straight. Right now, I have Maria here and trying to iron some things out with Junior. He’s a teenager now and she’s having a hard time with him. Now what kind of man would I be if I would neglect my own blood?

Janice was at a loss for words and thought about what Lionel had whispered in her ear. It was something about the way that he whispered that turned Janice into a frenzy. She couldn’t figure out if it was the constant peppermint on his breath or simply the way that he worded his words. Nevertheless, it calmed her down and that was all that Lionel needed to digress a heated conversation. There was no way that he could have two women fighting in his barbershop on a Saturday. It was the busiest day of the week; which meant the majority of his income was based on that one day of the week and paying child support was not having a late pay day. He was already far enough behind with his own loan payments; so getting the most out of his own business was the best that he could do. No matter if he liked it or not, having a child with an unmarried woman was in fact a  business decision.

Lionel escorted Janice toward the front of the barbershop while Maria mingled with the rest of the fellas in barbershop; cracking jokes and talking about the differences between what women wanted and what men needed. As Janice walked by Maria she just cringed at the thought of her being so comfortable in Lionel’s business, but was satisfied with meeting with Lionel later on. Whenever that may be.

Lionel gave Janice a couple of hundred bucks so that she could get their son, Isaac signed up to play football the coming fall. Sure, he was already paying child support, but Lionel never wanted to be put in a position where he would be called never doing anything for his children. No matter how much it would cost. And sadly...that’s what attracted so many women to him.

I’m glad that you calmed her down, because she was about to be in  bad place Lionel, Maria told Lionel, putting all of the other conversations in the room on hold.

Come on now Maria. You and I both know that I have to work with her if we are going to make things better with our child. It’s simply a misunderstanding. I’m not married to her and she just felt offended that’s all. Lionel whirled his barber chair around had his customer face the mirror as he prepared his razor to shave his customer’s beard.

Maria was sweet. She didn’t have all of the intangibles that would smack someone on the cover a magazine, but she was everything a man could want in a woman. She was someone everyone could get along with. When it came to the barbershop conversations she was everyone’s favorite. Because, she would claim that she didn’t know Spanish, but when one of the fellas would get her hot on a topic, she would get to flapping her Latin tongue and everyone in the shop would just roar in laughter.

So what did I miss while I was out, Lionel asked.

No one said anything. And after a few moments they all just bursted out laughing! Even the customer in the chair couldn’t keep a straight face as he cracked open all of his fronts and bellied over.

Lionel didn’t know how to react since he was the one that typically got the room going over whatever.

Okay, Lionel. Here it is. We had a bet that you would come out of that back room with no scratches. And Maria here, told us that she wouldn’t be happy at all. But, with us knowing you to be the cool, calm, and collective man that you are we found out that she did in fact wink at us on the way out. The uproar started up again and Maria was the only in the room that wasn’t cracking half a smile.

So what was the wager, Lionel asked out of curiosity.

She has to make us all pastelitos by next Saturday morning.

As bad as Lionel wanted to laugh, he couldn’t. He knew that laughing would