SERVANTHOOD: THE SOLOIST
There was an interesting movie recently. It bombed at the box office, but it was a very interesting film. "The Soloist" was a true story about a Los Angeles Times columnist named Steve Lopez who discovered a homeless person on the street who, in turn, was a Julliard School of Music dropout. At one point in the film, the homeless person (exhibiting evidence of the schizophrenia he denied) shouted that Steve Lopez was his god. And Lopez, believing that he was turning that stated devotion into a good thing, commanded the man to do something that he thought would benefit the man. As a result, Lopez went through a personal crisis when he was rejected by the homeless man, frustrated because he had tried to provide good things to the fellow, but experienced only hostile ingratitude and even assault at the hands of his intended beneficiary.
The truth remains, no matter how beneficent our intentions, we be God for anyone else, we can only point people to God, the ONLY authentic and valid choice. A lot of people don’t like the idea that God would "command" people to love Him. They would perceive this as weakness in God, some human type of insecurity and neediness. As with all of the commandments, though, the commandment is for our benefit. God wants us to love the One who loves us.
Well, it works with regard to other choices, as well. If we care about someone, we don’t want to see them make bad choices. In the same way, God cares about us so much that God doesn’t want us to make choices that will eventually hurt us. God may be jealous, as the Old Testament tells us, but God is jealous for our benefit.