God’s Theodramatic Plan Continues To Unfold

Two-Part Reflection

God Is the Director

October 17, 2025

“True character development,” wrote theologian Kevin Vanhoozer, “is theodramatic, understanding oneself as caught up in God’s play of making all things new in and through Christ.” Abou, my gyro-eating Muslim friend, says it another way. “God is the director.”

Both are right. Vanhoozer writes from the seminary. Abou speaks from the street. Yet they meet at the same truth. Life is not a performance we stage for applause. It is participation in something far greater, a divine story in which God writes, directs, and redeems every scene.

Our character is not shaped by polishing our lines but by learning to listen for the Director’s voice. Every trial, every surprise entrance, every unscripted moment becomes a cue for obedience. And when we forget our lines, grace does not remove us from the story. It invites us back into it.

Every believer becomes both participant and witness in God’s ongoing work of redemption. Nothing in our story unfolds outside His authorship. We participate because He has written us into the story. We witness because His grace allows us to see what He is doing. God’s sovereignty does not erase our involvement. It gives it meaning.

From Ron’s Journal — October 17, 2025

A Moment to Pause — Liessa’s Ascent

Two evenings ago, we were having a simple dinner at our home. Liessa, Rachel, Erik, and the two grandboys, Ryan and Isaac. Nothing special was planned. Conversation flowed easily. The laughter was familiar. The rhythm of family life felt unforced.

Later, Liessa told me that something unexpected happened in that ordinary moment. Without warning or display, she became aware of a quiet nearness of God that settled over her. Nothing supernatural occurred. No sign or spectacle. Just a deep peace that rested within her as she recognized that God had written Himself into the lives gathered at the table.

It was, in a way, both an Emmaus Road and a Psalm 23 kind of moment. A gentle awakening rather than a dramatic unveiling. A realization that her cup was full and had been for some time. What she experienced was not new information about God but a lived recognition of what had been true all along.

In moments like these, truth moves from concept to communion. God does not merely speak into life. He inhabits it. And there, at a dinner table marked by laughter and familiarity, Liessa paused long enough for her heart to catch up with what the Spirit had been patiently doing. What we live and what we notice are both gifts from the same Author whose story continues to renew those who attend to it. God’s theodramatic plan continues to unfold. The curtain has not fallen. Christ remains at the center, showing us what faithfulness looks like as it is lived. The question is never whether we have a prominent role, but whether we will trust the One who directs the story.