"If I Were Down There . . ."

I love teaching Drama. And I love my dedicated Drama students . . . like my two senior girls who are in their fourth and fifth years with me in Drama class right now. These two took on the task of writing the play for this year’s Christmas program – and then casting and directing it. They’ve been working on this since June, and it all culminated last Tuesday night. I’m so proud of them.

It was a kick sitting with them in the front pew just before the program started. “I can’t believe this is finally happening!” one of them squealed. A classmate had asked them earlier in the day what it was like to see their own play coming together on stage. “Weird – and scary,” was their consensus. (Yep! Been there.) But their excitement over the whole experience was palpable . . . and contagious.

“It’s so weird . . . being here in the audience and not up there on stage,” one reflected. “It’s like, I have no control over any of it anymore.” (YES, SISTER. I feel your pain! That was one of the biggest things for me to overcome when I started directing.) “I mean, if I were up there,” she continued, “I could do something. Like, if someone messed up, I could cover. And I could project and be energetic, which would pull everyone up to my energy level. But I’m here. And I can’t do anything.” Exactly.

And this past weekend, I started wondering if God isn't giving us directors a bit of his perspective.

I mean, yes, he’s sovereign over his creation and all; it’s not like things are out of his control. (This isn't a perfect analogy, so don't take it too far.) But frankly, if you're the God of the universe and you give the beings you create a free will, you're kind of choosing to be hands-off to a degree. They have choices now, and you've chosen to respect those choices. They can choose to run the play as you wrote and directed it . . . or they can go rogue and try to change the story altogether. And you’re watching it play out from the audience.

Or it may even be that they really want to do your play as written . . . but you know, they’re new at this. They forget things. They haven’t rehearsed enough. They haven’t developed their skills yet. They had a moment of stage fright and got lost. Or the rogue players messed things up for them and they didn’t know how to recover.

I just wonder if this was some of what God was feeling. I wonder if he watched humanity mess his world up and thought, if I were just down there . . .

I could model what they need to do. I could share my energy with them. I could pull them higher. I could cover for their mistakes.

If I were down there with them.

And so, he came down. That’s Christmas. The Almighty God of the universe coming down here.

Lord, let us never forget the wonder of that. Thank you.

Merry Christmas, friends!