Preacher is almost over, but it seems the series may have finally revealed God's actual plan. Preacher has some big questions to wrap up heading into its series finale, including mysteries regarding God as well as God's big plan for Jesse (and humanity as a whole). Jesse initially went in search of God, and then (having found him), he became increasingly annoyed with his creator's mysterious ways.
Throughout Preacher, God has been messing with Jesse, Cassidy, and Tulip - evading them, seeking them out, and conspiring with the Grail against them. God has also been helping them from time to time, and so it's never been clear what his endgame truly is.
In Preacher's "The Lost Apostle," viewers may have simply seen more of the same: Tulip and Cassidy trying to save Jesse, only to be thwarted by God at the last moment, while God continues to aim for the apocalypse and enjoy messing with Jesse as much as possible. However, the opening scene of "The Lost Apostle" may have revealed his actual plan: God just wants to be loved, and is attempting to turn Jesse's hatred into love and gratitude - the ultimate challenge, for the ultimate being.
God's Home Movies Show What He Wants
'The Lost Apostle' starts with what seems to be another flashback, this time to Abraham, about to kill his son, Issac, because God told him to. As the traditional Biblical tale goes, Abraham takes his son outside, and is about to slaughter him when God descends to stay his hand. It was a test, to see if Abraham loved God enough to do it, and Abraham passed. Other than a few Preacher-esque tweaks (like Abe's accent), the story is plucked straight from the pages of Genesis, and Abraham is overcome with love and gratitude for God - which he laps up.
However, this isn't just any flashback. This is a home movie (or the divine version of one), and God is watching it on repeat. After a rewind or two, the shot then pans over to the tabletop diorama where God has figures of Jesse, the plane, and the bomb (as well as other models from various parts of the story so far). This seems to be a pretty solid hint: God's plan for Jesse is simply that he wants to get back to the days of Abraham, when he could test people in order to make them love him for sparing them. The fact that the story God chose to rewatch is from Genesis also seems like a serious wink toward the idea that God actually wanted Genesis to be created, so that it could come to Earth, find Jesse, and set this whole thing in motion.
A Capricious, Selfish God
While this may seem to be a ridiculous reason to plan out something as complicated as a superpowered preacher and a potential nuclear apocalypse, it actually fits with the character of God in the series. Although his appearance fits with that of the loving old-man-in-the-sky that many would expect, he's been shown to be selfish, cruel, and extremely mercurial. He'll switch sides, helping someone one moment and then hindering them the next. He openly laughs about 'carving a vagina' into Jesse's head with Herr Starr, and clearly wants to toy with him - Jesse's experiences on the raft at sea prove that!
His previous flashbacks also suggest that God's desire to be loved knows no bounds. When a dinosaur disobeyed his commands, he literally wiped them all off the face of the Earth. Apocalyptic responses to feeling unloved aren't impossible for this God, at all. God's conversations with Tulip also back this up; he consistently repeats that he is "a loving God" and that it's all part of his plan. God has even said that he is creating a 'pass/fail test' for humanity, which would fit with the idea that Jesse's decision to love him could be the thing that starts (or prevents) a nuclear annihilation.
Additionally, this is backed up by the comics (spoilers ahead!). In the original series, God is desperate for love, so much so that he arranges for Genesis to be created just to see if it could love him. And while the series may not choose to go that exact route, it's highly likely that God was in on the creation of Genesis from the start, and it's all just him amusing himself.
What This Plan Means For Preacher's End
If the big endgame is simply for God to turn someone who hates him into someone who loves him, for his own personal gratification, it would certainly make for an interesting end to the Preacher series. On one hand, this actually fits perfectly; the idea that God has no major plan but his own interests definitely suits a show that makes irreverence and dark humor its centerpiece. It would also be an excellent way to drive home the idea that it's not the major, apocalyptic, world-altering events that really matter, but the interactions between individuals (in this case, Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy). This plan also allows for loose ends to be tied up quite beautifully. Should God decide that Jesse passes his test, He would have the ability to simply stop the Grail (or wipe them out, because - let's face it - he does seem to enjoy that kind of thing), stop the apocalypse, and everyone gets to carry on as they were before.
However, this may well be an ending that is just a little too straightforward for Preacher - and there's something unsatisfying about the (literal) deus ex machina of having God just wrap it all up in the end. Could this entire, sprawling, complex apocalypse plan really all come down to God wanting a human to love him? Even for a God this selfish, that seems a little extreme. There may be much more going on here, including the apocalypse negotiations between Hitler and Jesus, and of course, the question of free will (something that also came up in God's conversations with Tulip). It definitely seems that neither the Saint of Killers, nor Genesis, are under God's command right now, which adds a wonderful layer of possibility to the proceedings, given that the Saint is currently out to kill God himself.
The most likely end is that God's plan is as selfish and simple as to make Jesse the representative of humanity in a pass/fail test to determine if a nuclear apocalypse is unleashed... but that Preacher is making a point that this God is fallible, by having his plan go awry. He may attempt to convince people that everything happening is something that he has planned, but the Saint of Killers, Jesus, Humperdoo, Hitler, and of course, Jesse & Co, are proving that free will is a powerful thing (perhaps even powerful enough to derail God's plans). With only four episodes to go, though, it won't be long before fans discover if "The Lost Apostle" was dropping hints or red herrings.