All shall become clear.

Tonight, I got paid to watch the movie Evan Almighty.

(Well, actually, I got paid to haul the GIANT sound system out to the Barn and back to the Aud because both of our actual portable systems are broken. This system is heavier than the "unportable portable". We call it "The Beast".)

But also, I got paid to stay there and babysit said system and watch the movie.

Evan Almighty is not a groundbreaking work of cinema. It is also not a groundbreaking theological work. However, I enjoyed it thoroughly (biblical humor! Bible inside jokes! I love them! Also Morgan Freeman is the perfect actor to play God), and found its theology rather sound.

For those of you who don't know Evan Almighty, the premise of the movie is that God is calling Evan, newly-elected and rather agnostic (or maybe passive Christian) congressman to build an ark. I won't go into the reasons why, but a lot of the humor, especially at the beginning, revolves around God giving very obvious, persistant signs; repeated references to Genesis 6:14, animals in two beginning to follow Evan around, wood from "Go-4-Wood" being delivered randomly to Evan's house, etc. One might almost wonder HOW Evan could doubt that this was indeed a calling from God, with such exaggerated signs. But I don't think Evan doubts it is God. I think that Evan, like most of us, is afraid of the responsibility that accepting that call entails, so he runs desperately and absurdly from this obvious calling.

I started to have that thought of, "Man, if only God DID speak that obviously! If only there were more burning bushes around, spelling things out for us! But there's that whole "mysterious ways" thing..."

And then I stopped and said, "Wait."

And I thought, "Actually, this is EXACTLY what my experience of a call from God has been. Persistant, unavoidable, absurd, humorous, and almost obnoxiously OBVIOUS."

Sometimes I think we convince ourselves that God is so sneaky and mysterious that we ignore the giant, glaring things he places right in front of our faces. When Jesus called the disciples, he did it by saying, "Come and follow me." And I don't think his methods have changed that much. I mean, don't get me wrong, God is the sneakiest. But, if you're looking for a sign, it very well may have been staring you in the face this entire time. And my experience has been that things that were once mysterious eventually become the most obvious things in the world.