Many of the details of the main character's life parallel's actual life events of the author. The author earned an MBA in finance, served four years in the military, and 14 years with the Department of Homeland Security. The motivation for the book arose when a Jewish friend asked him to describe his feelings about the afterlife. After that, he wrote the book with inspiration for the story being the Two Great Commandments from the Bible as well as thoughts from The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott and finally a lifetime of experiences. The author was highly inspired by a quote from the movie Gladiator, "what we do in life echoes in eternity."
The book was intended to be more action/romance than spiritual but as he experienced a spiritual awakening of his own, the author's point of view of the world changed. People would ask, "how are you doing?' and he would answer, "better than I deserve." The author was dazzled at the extent of religious fervor in many communities but was all too keenly aware of the sadness and desperation brought about by generational poverty on the part of many and generational greed on the part of others. He was also deeply saddened at the spread of godlessness in the secular world. The author earnestly wants to produce an allegory showing a broken special ops soldier, representing every broken man or woman within the reach of this book, nevertheless making his way to heaven to experience the love of God. How can such a man, or any of us, achieve eternity in heaven with the Holy Father when faced with all that we have done?
Joe, the special ops man, was told by the archangels that ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden there had been a vicious struggle in the Universe between God and the Devil for the souls of the living. The angels in heaven are tasked to assist the Heavenly Father in this struggle. Joe and other warriors were masters of the skills needed to help the Heavenly Father in this effort.
