What can the new NBC show, Journeyman, tell us about dramatic structure and God? Surprisingly, a great deal as I had a recent minor epiphany in regards to my own journey and my place in the God centered universe primarily as a result of having watched Journeyman.
For those of you who have much better things to do on Monday night, I congratulate you, but I'm still going to explain the show's brief premise. The idea is that our hero becomes unstuck in time. He travels backwards and through a series of encounters over time, he helps out someone who needs help. The how and why of the show has not yet been explained, so don't ask that question. If you accept the premise, you can absorb a great deal before you begin to really question things.
So, story wise, our hero is basically going in to someone's life and helping them through some issue. Its basically the same premise as Quantum Leap, Touched by an Angel, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, etc... Each week, our hero brings about some important change in the guest star's life that ultimately redeems them or redeems someone else. That's the part that I want to focus on.
You set up a premise as a writer - Character A will help Character B throughout each episode. People follow the premise and, depending on the acting, writing, and pacing of the show, will be rewarded at the end when Character B is helped and Character A moves on with his life. Except, when you want to record a twist, Character A helps Character B, but in reality, its Character C that he's really helping. And at the end of the episode, just when Character B is supposed to be helped, we realize that it was actually Character C that was helped and then Character A moves on with his life. Its a neat trick, and it keeps a show fresh, but ultimately it doesn't provide for a lot of variation and eventually us wily viewers can catch on to the writer's intent long before the episode ends.
SOOOO... if God is Character A, and we're the doomed, damned, and ultimately dispicable Character B, the story should follow that God will step in and through refinement, love, and general interest reform us into loving, caring, and Christian creatures. We are transformed and God moves in with His story.
Except that every once in a while, God likes to throw us a twist and we feel that God is moving us on to something big, something new, some life changing transformation, and then... nothing happens. Because, although we can't see it, God has actually been using our story to transform Character C instead. He has been moving us into place so that we can be there to help someone else come closer to God.
I don't want to go into a lot of details here, but it suddenly occurred to me this week that my being a youth leader is not about transforming me at all. He has simply put me in place in order to help someone else. Its a bit of a humbling experience to realize that you are not the Character B, the guest star, of this particular story - just the means to another end. But at the same time, its quite wonderful to see the Master at work and to realize that He would go to all that trouble to save someone else. Its a good idea to be reminded that we are not the center of God's love, that He has many rooms in His mansion and that we don't get to occupy them all. I think it also reminds us to keep our eyes open to see if we can figure out the Author's intent before its spelled out for us.
Of course, the characters never do figure it out ahead of time... but its always fun to try.
3 comments:
Perhaps we are lucky if we learn how we help others. More often, that isn't the case. The important thing is the doing, in obedience, not the knowing of the effect of the result.
Cheers.
Nice post. It is further proof that God uses us to touch many lives, some of which we are aware, some of which we are not, and we simply need to be in relationship with Him so we can do His Work, no matter what it is.
And that's the hardest part...
Randall - I would agree with you. But every once in a while its wonderful to get a glimpse of Him in action.
Andy - Sometimes it can feel like we're not doing enough, or that we're not achieving any discernible results, but the truth is that God doesn't do anything just for the heck of it - every action has got three or four reactions.
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