He is God

Hear now O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command or subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you. Deuteronomy 4:1-2

Over the last several months I have been watching the old TV show, Joan of Arcadia. I watched the show when it was on TV the first time around but now see how much I missed. The theology is not always spot on. My sister Kathy and I used to talk about how some things didn’t quite mesh with our Christian beliefs. Still, there is a lot to be learned there.

Joan is a typical teenage girl. She wants friends, in particular a boyfriend, she wants to enjoy life, she wants her brother’s paralysis to be healed and most important, she wants to know her place in the world. God, in many various and often amusing forms, comes to speak to her face to face and help her along. Joan’s family is not involved with God. There is little of the spiritual in their home, so Joan’s knowledge of God is limited. She does, however, know some things about God. She knows, for some reason that she has to obey Him.

The other day while I was watching, while folding laundry, I heard a line that stopped me in my tracks. Joan said, “I have to do what you say. I get it. You’re God.” And she does!

God comes to Joan and asks her to take an advanced Chemistry class, build a boat, have a yard sale, find someone to help, take the school bully to a formal, etc. and she does. She often complies grudgingly but she complies. Like the rest of us she asks why, she gets angry with God, and she attempts to walk away but once she’s met Him, she can’t walk away and she can’t say no.

All of us have authority figures in our lives. Somewhere, someone, at some time, is or has been our superior. When that person speaks we are compelled to listen and do as they say. We obey because that person has some sway in our life. All of us are God’s children. The world would be a great place, a perfect place, if we all did things His way. We don’t. We aren’t as compliant as Joan.

Even given her amazing level of obedience, especially when you consider that she knew little or nothing of God before He began to speak to her, Joan still makes mistakes. When she is asked to keep a friend’s artwork out of a show, she destroys it. That is not what God had in mind and the fallout was not good. Through it all Joan learns. Watching her I am learning as well.

Her line on obedience, the simple surrender involved, is very profound to me. If I would understand, truly, that I have to do what He says because He’s God, things would go much better. I would know why things are happening the way they are happening. At the end of every task, Joan knows, to some degree, why God gave her the strange assignment. She gets that God is God and she is not.

God has never shown up and spoken to me through a person. I have to rely on Scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It’s harder for me than it was for Joan and yet I know she is right. He is God and we do have to do what He says.

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