Let us be more undignified than this...

Hollywood can be a truly taxing existence. The heaviness of the city can weigh on your heart like a two-ton brick forcing your mental state into one of complete doubt of everything you have ever known to be true. There is a fine line that has been drawn out in regards to compromise and change for the Christian man to walk in this city. My truest nature longs to be a part of this medium that translates, dictates, and creates cultural norms while at the same time striving to be different, change, and rebrand what is the cultural norm. As I sat in Bible study last night- yes ladies and gentlemen, Bible studies do exist out here-I felt the conviction of the Lord to remember that in order for the cultural norm to truly be changed, it is going to take someone to rise up and go against the flow, to look like a fool before the norms that are in practice now, and be a man of conviction. I don't have to accept the standard that has been founded out here. I can help revolutionize the standard by sticking to what I know to be true. Time and time again in scripture, the Lord uses the few, the unlikely, the underqualified, the weak, to defeat, to drown out, and to overcome the strong, the powerful, the cultural norm. The enemy delights in infesting our minds with doubt about what we can, and can't do. He takes pure joy in holding us back from being used by our Creator for plans that supercede our own beliefs of possibility. When we sit back and look at our lives, we all have countless opportunities to be bold with our beliefs, but the enemy likes to silence us because he knows that the truth appeals to the heart of all man.

It has been especially interesting to explore the heart of man in my acting class, as I have been faced with challenge, after challenge in portraying characters in various states of existence. Through this study, I have learned that at the core of all our needs, there is a need for something greater than this earth can offer. This desire can only be satisfied in the empowerment of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Whether it is feeling powerless in a scene from A Perfect Murder, or the need to be loved in Waitress, our day-to-day lives our filled with needs that we seek absolution on from the physical embodiments of the people around us. All of our needs and cares can be supplied for through the Lord, but we seek them out from those around us because there are more tangible results, or so we think.

If we truly want to find satisfaction in our lives, in our careers, in our relationships, we must first find our satisfaction in the author of all things. We must find ourselves standing before the Lord, bare and naked, without masks or walls, admitting our true natures, laying more undignified than this....

In return, the Lord uses us in ways beyond our wildest imaginations.