Hope Shows Up

What kinds of things do you pray about? Lately, I've been praying to understanding what faith is. You probably got a bit of that if you read the blog entry about my recent TV audition. But even beyond that, what does properly focused faith...um...focus on? I believe that being a strangely ambitious person with highly defined goals has made my understanding of faith difficult. Why, you ask? Because at my worst, I've placed my faith in God to make all my dreams come true, in exactly the way I think he should do it. Wouldn't you agree this makes God a bit like Aladdin's genie in a bottle—simply meant to grant my wishes? I'm humbled and a bit embarrassed to admit this. But I'm thankful for a breakthrough that came this week, showing me how my perspective was all wrong.

A friend told me how he was trying to a sell a house in a different state...for three and a half years. Uggh, right!? He was frustrated most of that time, until he decided to completely surrender the house to God. He said it's been an amazing six months of trusting that God was in control...and that he was going to be alright, if or when the house ever sold. I saw my own life goals so clearly in front of me as he told his story.

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Close, But No Cigar - Pt. 3

If you haven't read Pt. 1 or 2 yet - catch up by clicking here!

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I felt the support of so many people carrying me into this audition. The casting director asked me to call her. She reminded me to do my scene just like I did it the last time through on Wednesday. To wear the same thing. And don’t be shocked if I actually don’t get to see the director.

That last part didn’t make sense to me. But I chock it up to some Hollywood thing where it’s all about keeping the actors on their toes, never knowing what to expect, and to always remember who’s in charge. Kind of like how the guys are treated in prison. Except with the possibility of a cool, life-changing opportunity hanging in the balance.

Again, I was the first one in the waiting room. But it became apparent that there were going to be about eight of us seen. I was oddly nervous, and saw myself turn into a kind of party host meets stand-up comic. I introduced myself as everyone came in—partly to be kind, but also to find out what part they were up for. It didn’t look like anyone else was there to read for the part of Bucky, so that felt encouraging.

The first young woman went in, taking her fiddle. I took the ready seat, since I was next. She came out and said how incredibly nice everyone was. No sweat. They called my name, took me down the hall, and told me to stand outside the door for a second. This is when I got super nervous. Waiting for the gun to go off while in the starting blocks. This must be what it feels like before you go into the judge’s room on American Idol.

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Close, But No Cigar - Pt. 2

If you haven't read Pt. 1 yet - catch up by clicking here!

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Surrender is super tough. Especially when other people are brought into the story. I took a chance by posting something on Facebook about it—something I never do when it comes to stuff like this.

It was difficult to do anything productive the rest of the day. For some reason, this experience felt different than any I’d ever had. Was it the involvement of my Facebook friends? Was it the outpouring of love and prayers of my family and close friends who were so excited, and maybe even a little convinced that I would get the part? I felt very vulnerable. Exposed. Not that I’d let anybody down if I don’t get it, but how does it affect people’s view of God when they, heck…when I…pray for something, and it doesn’t happen? I also thought about how smart God would be to make this happen, because of the residual benefit it’d provide to my music ministry. Come on, God…right?

While the texts kept coming into my phone: How did it go? I laid sideways on my bed, trying to process some of these thoughts in my journal. I had just read Matthew 17 that morning where Jesus says, “If you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, ‘Move!’ and it would move. There is nothing you wouldn’t be able to tackle.”

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Close, But No Cigar - Pt. 1

Well, it’s official that I have not been cast in the pilot of TV show I auditioned for. I thought it’d be interesting to share what my experience over the past couple weeks has been like...let you see some of the craziness I call normal life. Parts 2 & 3 will post over the next couple of days.

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On a dime. The way I’m choosing to live my life, it can all turn 180 degrees in a moment’s notice. An unexpected phone call or email could send me around the world or onto the television screen in a matter of hours. It’s an exciting way to live. But it comes with more than a fair share of unsettledness—enough uncertainty to choke a horse...if I was a horse.

Wed 2/29/12 - I just came home from a really important audition. A “this could change my life” kind of audition. I’m trying to think ahead to someone reading this and already knowing the outcome, and the subsequent cancellation of the production. Or it could be the opposite: You mean, you had a shot at being on that show! Wow…

I’m incredibly optimistic about it. But I have felt this way before, so I’m slightly cynical, as well. I have felt hopeful about the possibility of getting a valuable, mortgage-paying gig in the past (I don’t mean completely paying off the mortgage, just helping to make the monthly payment!), and having it not work out. But now I’m kind of a jumble of emotions. I’m excited and tempted to dive into the fantasy of how great life could be if this worked out, then I feel guilty for that fantasy, and assume that I’m sabotaging the job by thinking too highly of it. Most actors would agree that you usually get the gigs you don’t care about, the auditions you work on in the car as you drive to them.

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How Robert Schuller Changed My Life

I don’t know why I did it. I would sit in my beanbag chair in front of the television and watch Robert Schuller’s “Hour of Power” and be transfixed. He was an unassuming and approachable, charismatic and positive thinking preacher—kind of like if Mister Rogers ran a church. He spoke in a way that my elementary school mind could process, and millions of others, as well, since his show was the most popular hour-long church service in the world.

At its peak the church had over 10,000 members. Schuller was the Joel Osteen of his day. He wrote dozens of books, selling millions with titles like Way To The Good Life (1963), Move Ahead With Possibility Thinking (1967), Self-Love (1975), You Can Be The Person You Want To Be (1976), Toughminded Faith for Tenderhearted People (1979), Self-Esteem: The New Reformation (1982), Tough Times Never Last but Tough People Do (1983), Living Positively One Day At A Time (1986).

Schuller opened Garden Grove Community Church in 1955 at an old drive-in movie theater, allowing people to sit in their cars and hear the sermon. He then built a facility where he could preach to 500 cars as well as people sitting inside the church. This eventually turned into the famous Crystal Cathedral, which is everything you’d think it’d be—a grand and glorious testimony to the goodness of God. And I helped build it.

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