Sacrifice For The Love Of God

One of the first questions I get asked pretty often is, 'How do you manage your career and your relationship with God in the entertainment industry?'

First things first this article is not going to have the answer, 'cause I'm still working on it, and even if it had my answer it may not work for you.

Even if I were to put my faith to the side for a minute, and just talk about moral values, we all have them, but there is nowhere like the entertainment industry to make you second guess the worth of your values. Because image and perception is such a huge part of success in this industry, things will always look picture perfect to the outsider. The industry is slow, it takes a long haul to breakout the way we all dream of or hope for. When you're in that slow, seemingly never ending season you will definitely wonder if it will be a little faster if you compromised on your values here and there.

When I first graduated Uni and was entering this industry I drew up a list, that I still have to this day of things I am and am not willing to do and I stick to it. It's important to keep going back to why you don't do those things because compromise is a very slippery slope. You may start with one thing on your 'don't' list that seems small and like a minor sacrifice for great growth but that will often lead to bigger compromises and down a darker path.

When it comes to God, trust is key, will my compromises take me further from His path? Yes, if the answer is yes and you trust that God plan and purpose for your life is the greatest thing, can it be worth making that compromise to temporary worldly gain? No!

Another thing to ask yourself when making these compromises is, 'Is it worth it to be seen in doing something I don't believe in just because it'll mean being seen at all?'

Granted there will be things on my list of things I am willing to do that other Christians may not agree with and things on my list of donts that other people will say is no big deal, you have to be comfortable with your agreement with God and your set values, no mans race is the same.

I've learned more than anything to try not to judge what other people are willing to do that I am not. Someones walk with God could be in a different place from mine, so where they are what I consider a compromise they may not and what I consider sacrifice they may not.

Maybe I have yet to be tested to the extent that those lines may blur just enough, but I believe in always coming back to the centre and knowing what is guiding the decisions I make.

When You Realise God Named You Not Your Parents

I'm human, and it is normal for us to feel the weight of pressure. I'd even go as far as to say I feel pressure more than many. We put ourselves under a lot of pressure and society puts us under even more. The weight of expectation.

It's easy for us to compare ourselves continuously to the people around us, compare our achievements to others, compare our race. I am the king of letting other peoples success weigh on my mind. Questioning the rate of my career growth, or where I am in relation to getting married, future security, all sorts of things. Not being happy with where I am in relation to where I hoped I would be at this time.

Last weekend we had a program at my church called 'The Manifestation' where guest speaker Heather Lindsey preached a message entitled, "From The Pit to The Palace". She spoke about the 13 year wait Joseph had between his dream that his brothers would bow to him and his dream coming to fruition.

"The dream may be great but the path ugly" - Heather Lindsey

She spoke on being steadfast in the journey, it is being faithful in the trial that brings about the coming to fruition of the dream. Are you able, like Joseph, to trust God in the process? Or will you be like his brothers, so distracted and caught up in jealousy and envy of others?

Joseph was steadfast in the pit, in slavery, when he was thrown in prison, through the entire process he trusted God and didn't lose sight or faith in the dream. I find it so easy to let the process get in my head, to think it isn't happening for me just because it hasn't happened yet. I'm not living up to the societies expectations or even my own, I haven't garnered the status or the wealth or the esteem that I had hoped for and I'm seeing people around get so much. it's so easy to get lost in the irrelevant.

"There's something about continuing in the process and not giving up on God." - Heather Lindsey

The funny thing is this didn't hit me during the message but days after. I had an interview and knew they'd ask me about future projects and the truth is as of now I have none, so that had me worrying, what am I doing? Am I where i should me? Is all this work paying off? ...And that is when it hit me that my Christian name is Joseph. The crazy thing about this is that my name isn't meant to be Joseph. Family tradition is that the oldest so gets named Joseph, my dad is named Joseph cause he is the first born as was my grandfather, but I am the 2nd son and last born, but I was the one named Joseph.

In that moment it hit me like a train, that God was telling me, 'You're the one I need to be patient in this process, you're the one I need to remind that it may not be quick, or easy but My hand is on you.'

Fear or God

We have a tendency as human beings to focus so much more on bad news. And the way the world we live in runs, you’d be led to think that only bad things happen. You never turn on the news and hear about the great things that happened in the world, because that’s ‘boring’. Instead, we’re spoon-fed natural disasters, financial crises, terrorism. So we’ve become believers in bad news as opposed to believers in The Good News.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” – Philippians 4:6(NKJV)

“Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. – 1 Peter 5:7(AMP)

“Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.” – Psalm 55:22

I read something in John Bevere’s ‘The Holy Spirit’ that really caught my attention. He said, “Fear is faith in the devil.” As Christians, we’ve alienated faith, put it on this pedestal as something hard to achieve, ‘Job-like’ faith. But the truth is, we put faith in something everyday. The question is: where do you put it?

It’s easy to desire ‘Job-like’ faith and to quote the scriptures above, but there’s more to faith than just reciting verses.

Here are two things I’ve learnt about faith:

1. Faith is an active thing. What you DO is what you believe. Faith is action in spite of circumstance; once you let fear determine your action, you’ve put faith in the devil.
2. Faith comes from God. The Greek word translated to faith in the Bible is ‘Pistis’, which literally means “divine persuasion”. This divine persuasion (faith) in God can only come from God.

We have to intentionally seek God’s face in order to receive the assurances of His Word.

In Philippians 1 Paul shows us decisive faith:

“This is in keeping with my own eager desire and persistent expectation and hope…” – Philippians 1:20

The words, “eager desire and persistent expectation and hope” come from one Greek word, ‘apokaradokia’.

• The Greek word apo means “to intentionally turn”,
• Kara means “head”,
• And dokia means “to stretch forward”.

So, apokaradokia means, “to intentionally turn your head and stretch forward.”

Paul decided in his spirit that it didn’t matter what his situation looked like: even though he was in prison, he would lean forward, believing in God.

This is where the importance of leaning on the Word, meditating on the Word and praying by the Word comes in.

It’s not easy to look past our circumstances, but Jesus died so that the Holy Spirit – our helper – would come to live in us. But in order for The Holy Spirit to manifest in us we have to know Him, and that is only found in relationship and in knowledge of who He is in the Word:

“So the faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” – Romans 10:17(NKJV)

For faith to come, we have to lean into God, we have to chase Him and persevere, no matter our circumstance.

One thing about the great men in the Bible is they found pleasure in their trial. It was – and is! – an opportunity to learn more about the goodness of God.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face a trial of many kinds, because you know that testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” – James 1:2-4(NIV)

Putting fear over God is putting faith in your circumstance and in what we can see. But no matter how we’re feeling, we have to decide to turn to God and to know that God works all things for the good of those who love Him. Smile and rejoice because your trial is the beginning of your testimony.

Can't Deny Your Struggle

Passion and purpose come at a price, they come with a burden. Though the two things are perfectly intertwined, they are two very different sides to the same coin. Purpose is permanent, you can deny it but you can't run away from it. Passion is fleeting. It comes and goes, passion comes in bursts, it is gratifying, but it at times is a weight, heavy and definitive of your struggle. The problem with the struggle is the indefinite nature of it. More often than not you might enter the struggle witha world of optimism, youthful energy and drive. But those things like all human natures are temporary.

I believe the reason purpose is coupled with passion is that passion is our God given source of sustenance in the struggle.

When I found my passion it caught me unawares. The memory of that discovery in itself is a fuel for my desire and reason for my ambition. For me there is a responsibility for the arts to inspire as well as entertain. From poetry, to theater and film, the arts require depth and a sense of self. Art like life requires connection, and connection requires giving. Art must effect change, more change in my opinion than schools or politics. Not all art is effective and if it was there would be no need for new art. But when art does effect you, even fleetingly, it comes from something real and honest. Be it art that makes you laugh till you cry, or art that makes you cry that solitary tear that you couldn't hold back because a moment gripped you, art that compels thought and provokes action. To be an artist is to be self sacrificial, to offer a part of you to a stranger, be you 10 feet from them or on the other side of the world.

I am an artist and I demand that of myself, that is my mission statement, to effect change! That is my desire, my passion and I believe my purpose. All purpose and all passion comes with struggle and the only way to fail is to deny your struggle, to try and put your struggle to the side. Struggle gives you a story, and your story is your art, your truth and the only way to actually feel your success. Success is when you look back and say this is where and this is where I am.  It is in your perception and acknowledgement of growth and the attitude with which you approach your opportunities to grow further.

The struggle is guaranteed, and the struggle is painful, because the result is not guaranteed, so your attitude is everything. The struggle is where you learn, where you grow and where your memories will be made and if you embrace you'll likely reach your purpose sooner than you imagine.