The audience at the Temple for Performing Arts laughed and said, "Amen," throughout the speaking and performance of best-selling author Donald Miller and actress/author Susan Issacs on Sunday night as the A million Miles in a Thousands Years tour stopped in Des Moines. The tour paired energy of thoughts and conversations from two people who have lived clearly different lives.

Susan Issacs, the possibly lesser known of the two on the tour, relied heavily on her acting background, using an excerpt of her book Angry Conversations with God to create a fascinating one-woman performance piece.

After a terrible year in which her father died, her mother had a stroke, her acting career tanked, and she broke up with her boyfriend, she found herself doubting God for the first time.

When people are having problems in their marriage, she thought, they go to a counselor. So why not go to couple’s counseling with God?

As Issacs acted out her counseling sessions with God, she delved into a deep history with the Church and a past that greatly influenced how she heard God speaking to her. It was obvious how much her view of God was influenced by her emotionally distant, angry father. Issacs’ God was angry, snarky, and hilariously British.

With a good amount of wit, and an even better amount of candor, Issacs counseling with God progressed into a realization that she “married” God for “the money and the power.” As Issacs stated this out loud, God replied to her that what he wanted was her heart. And until she wanted the same things in the relationship, he was not going to speak to her.

Even while battling alcoholism, Issacs could always feel God there with her (as she hilariously recalled calling him “a stalker” and shouting at him to leave her alone). But for the first time in her life, she couldn’t feel God with her anymore.

Issacs’ performance ended on that sort of cliff hanger, but it was easy to understand her journey—how often we, too, want God for the wrong things, holding out on the best of ourselves.

Donald Miller, best-selling author of Blue Like Jazz, drew his talk heavily from his newest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

After finally realizing the success he always dreamed of from Blue Like Jazz, Miller found himself bored and addicted to Oprah. One day, a screenwriter approached Miller and inquired about turning the book into a movie. They talked about the project, and Miller gave the go-ahead.

Miller began learning about screenwriting in an attempt to turn a book that was mostly a series of essays into a movie about himself with a narrative. As he worked with the screenwriters, he realized that fictional Don was much more interesting than real Don.

Fictional Don had better friends, was younger, was better looking, and experienced every moment with deep significance and meaning. It basically looked nothing like Miller’s real life. Thus, Miller set out to make his real life more interesting and more like a story.

Miller weaved a tapestry of premises, but they can be surmised into a few different threads. First, like Miller, most of us (and particularly Christians) live boring lives. But Christians should be making the most interesting stories of all. We are the protagonists. Any good story needs a protagonist who has a want, desire, or dream, which everyone has. It’s just that those wants, desires or dreams often aren’t any good or they aren’t followed by any action.

Miller’s second premise was that a good story must have conflict. It is far too easy for the protagonist to just have one of his dreams realized without some sort conflict to overcome. That conflict causes the character to grow and change.  As a society, we want things to be easy and conflict-free. But Miller suggests that conflict is where God causes us to grow and change, and we shouldn’t hide from it.

Even before the fall of man, when Adam was alone in the garden, there was conflict. Adam was lonely; God could have given him Eve right away. But instead, he told Adam to go name all the animals, which Miller supposed could have taken anywhere from ten to one hundred years to complete. Even Adam, who was in perfect communion with God, had conflict.

Issacs and Miller use their humor to connect with an eclectic audience. Spiritually seeking college students, coffee-drinking young professionals and middle-aged parents alike enjoyed their storytelling and stage presence to get a better understanding of God and his desire to be in relationship with us.