It’s an exciting week for us as #faithhealingmovie is heading to 2 FILM FESTIVALS!! We are so excited and feel so blessed to be a part of these events.
If you’d like to learn more or purchase tickets for the events, click these links below! https://www.cffilmfest.org/ https://glcff.com/
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This will be my final post for the month of June.
It’s no coincidence in my mind that all this started right as my pastors were going on sabbatical for the month as well. The first Sunday of that month was the first time in my life I truly felt like I not only heard God speak, but that I truly listened to what He had to say. It felt good to stop journaling, which is how I think and process, and admittedly overthink, and just listen. Be present, be still, and work in God’s presence. The truth is often what we make of it and what we chose to believe based on our own points of view. The truth is that I was trying to force God to show me what I wanted to see instead of focusing on the here and now. While I continue to struggle and earnestly pray for a change in many areas of my life, I also pray that God would help me to do better and to prosper and bloom where I’ve been placed right now. Knowing that where I am is only temporary and that God may be starting the change I pray for in my life put into perspective that this is where God has placed me and what He wants me to focus on right now. All of a sudden, that made bad days more bearable and even joyful. In the end, I learned this month that our greatest moments come in moments of surrender. And when I finally learned how to surrender, I began to walk with a new pep in my step and truly experience joy in all circumstances. Everything. Work. Ideas. Creativity. It all just began to flow with God instead of against Him. Instead of me working against God or running away from Him, I began to truly walk with God instead of ahead of Him. God was beginning to put something together one piece at a time because I began to pursue the little ideas He gave me instead of the big projects I wanted to do. I am so thankful and blessed that God allowed me to go through this month. It wasn’t what I prayed for or what I even wanted. I wanted to avoid something that dishonors God, but God used this short season to draw me into a closer relationship with Him and reveal some painful albeit necessary truths. Now as I wait and pray for change to take place, I walk with greater joy and trust in Him. As I pursue ideas instead of projects, I feel happy to fulfill my calling according to His will, not my own. Thank your for following me along this journey, but if I know God, this is only the beginning of something great and honoring to His name. On the advice of someone who has truly taken me in as one of their own and mentored me spiritually, I finally began a Bible study plan to read the Bible straight through from beginning to end within a year. Since then, I have learned things about Scripture that I never knew before. I now realize that I was lost, but now I’m found. I was blind, but now I see differently. And with that came a new spark of faith, a new desire to pursue God, and new ability to be strategic in my studies and seek God out in the areas of life I feel He is calling me to pursue.
That being said, the Bible says that God knows our needs before we even ask them. And God answered a prayer that I stopped praying a long time ago because it just seemed too far out. But with God all things are possible. And that’s what God revealed to me through experiences that led to the place I am now! Even in a season of financial and emotional hardship there are blessings. Combined with the debt of repairing my truck after a deer strike, I lost nearly $3,000 completing post-production for Faith Healing when a crew member and I had a falling out, forcing me to dip further into my own money to finally complete the project that was burning me out in every area of my life. It was hard and risky. I began to doubt God and feared falling back into a trap I’d been victim to in 2020. But recently, I have truly began to realize what a rich man I am as well as how essential tithing is to my walk with Christ. In a season where I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to pay the bills, not to mention being forced to put so many things on hold, God always gave me enough. Never too little. Not always too much. He never allowed me to go upside down, and while at times I was living with less than $150 in my bank account and nearly no savings to fall back on, God never gave me less than what I needed. But I realized that God needed me to give Him a little more. So I began to give God what I had plus a little extra, and He blessed and multiplied it just like when Jesus fed the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21). Financially and Spiritually, I felt like a rich man, and began to see it both in my heart and in my bank account. The Bible explicitly says that we cannot serve two master; God and money. Only one or the other, but we are to use the latter to honor the former. Our money is God’s that He gives and takes away from us. He doesn’t need our money, but He does ask that we use it to honor Him and demonstrate our trust and faith in Him. Personally, I pray that God would enrich all of us who tithe so that we may give more than what our bank accounts say we can.
On our last day in PCB, our prayers were answered. The storm clouds and rip currents gave way to clear, blue skies and water calm enough to wade. Calm by comparison to what Peter had to walk on to get to Jesus. It was disappointing to say the least that we waited all week for one day to play safely in the water, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
God needed me to be focused, not distracted. If I’d spent all my time sleeping or swimming, I would never have been in a place mentally or spiritually to hear what He was trying to say to me. In a season where God has felt a million miles away, to spend a week in His presence and realize that He is still at work in my life despite my feelings of depression, burnout, and inadequacy was worth more to me than any vacation. I’m so blessed that I get to come here, and I hope to be about continue to return to this place year after year. As the sun rose after a sleepless night midway through our week in Panama City, I sensed that it was time for me to make a change, and I recalled something my old boss and even my pastor told me once. You can’t grow if you remain in your comfort zone.
There’s nothing like going down to the beach early before everyone else arrives and smelling the fresh ocean air in the morning. I’ve been coming down to Panama City for years, and not once have I really noticed that smell or been on the beach almost completely alone. It was a welcome, beautiful sensation, as will be what I hope and pray God is about to allow to happen. I’ve been praying for a change in many areas of my life, and I realized that it was time for me to start seeking out those opportunities and praying for open doors. I believe that God was beginning to guide me through steps I need to take to make that happen. I pray it would be so. I had prayed leading up to my vacation for a divine encounter, but I figured that was with a person or something. In actuality, I was praying for a divine encounter with God, and for the first time in so long, I felt like God was speaking to me directly offering me His wisdom and guidance as I tend to pray for night after night. Now I just pray for the strength and courage to carry out these steps He’s calling me to take. I encourage you that if you are called to take a leap of faith, God will surely catch you when you jump. I don’t know why, but I felt led to pray that when I went on vacation mid-month for a “divine encounter.” I didn’t know what or who I was looking for or why I would even ask God to ordain that. Especially because anyone who knows me knows I hate talking to people out of social anxiety. But rather than that, God revealed His presence in my life in such a creative way. Our God is the God of Creation. One night after Bible study, I spent some time in prayer and felt like God was telling me to go down to the beach. So I went, wondering what or who I was going to find, and sure enough, I had a divine encounter, albeit not how I thought it was going to happen. I went down to the beach and saw this magnificent display in the sky. The sun had already set behind some storm clouds, but it was still shining so bright it may as well have still been up. Colors danced across the sky and the extreme wind was blowing the storm clouds away so as not to obstruct the view. It was then that I felt God showing me His immense presence in my life and telling me that He was blowing the storms out of my life. I had certainly been seeing Him do that in the weeks leading up to that moment, but doubt had always a factor. With God though, I have no reason to doubt that seasons are just that, and seasons change. Just as I hoped my life was getting ready to change.
A few minutes later though, those colors were gone and the clouds changed direction. Still I knew that even when I stand in the storm, I never stand alone. God is with me. I’d been praying a for a space to go, get out of my house, and work, or rather create. But also to build community. Through a series of recent events I believe only God could’ve ordained, that prayer was answered, and I could not have been led to a better place. It’s an open door, which are so easy at times to overlook because at times they seem so insignificant. But God can build something great out of the mundane. I believe in my heart of discernment that God is going to do great things and open many doors there. I just have to be faithful and wait. And I hoped that God was about to do a lot through this little thing He’d done.
While I was on vacation in the later half of the month, something else happened. I realized that I had put my hope in my achievements, and me realizing that I could not achieve them, at least not yet or by myself anyway, was what broke my confidence and burned me out. That’s when I realized as I revealed in Post #1 that I was trying to push my way out of God’s will for my life. I realized that I needed to put my hope in, or rather back into the one whom my hope comes from; Jesus Christ. So that being said, in the month of June I finally learned how to Surrender. My hopes. Dreams. Goals. Business. Ministry. I finally learned how to surrender it all to God, and since then, simply being able to pursue a few little ideas here and there as opposed to one big thing has been quite refreshing and liberating. With that, I truly found rest in the presence of God. I sensed that God was going to do something while I was on vacation, and sure enough, God opened a door. I received a message on our second day of vacation that our short film “Faith Healing” was an Official Selection for the upcoming Christian Family Film Festival in Ellington, NY. These last few months have been exhausting and uninspiring for me and many of my filmmaking brothers and sisters, but I truly hope this can inspire everyone to carry on, even if your life or career seems to be on hold. Then a few days later, something else happened. I received another message. Faith Healing had been selected for the Great Lakes Christian Film Festival, and we couldn’t be more excited! All this I believe proves one thing; be still and know that He is God. Be patient and trust in the Lord. His Time. His Provisions. And His Plan. But remember, it’s not about the accolades. Let the accolades inspire and motivate you, but use them to honor God in our craft. Let them confirm your calling from Him. We feel so honored to have been chosen for the film festival, and we can’t wait to see what God will do through this open door.
With all that said and so many seemingly small new ideas coming to light, I felt ready to pursue new ventures. Perhaps even new doors. Even on sentence a day gets you one sentence closer to a story, and I was ready to start writing new ones. Dave Ramsay once said that when you try to do everything at once, nothing gets done. There are so many project I want to do in my life and that I wanted to work on every little bit of all at once. But I couldn’t focus, and nothing was getting done. All of that was contributing to my ever-present anxiety, depression, and constant exhaustion on top of everything else. The thing that was both my calling and my passion was becoming my dread and detriment. I made the decision to step back from Project 29:11 Productions completely, and I’d been praying for rest, but like I said before, I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to release control, and I truly don’t know what I am in God’s eyes, my own, or everyone else’s if I’m not pursuing the calling Gad has on my life and my passion. I felt like if I didn’t push forward, I’d fall behind. But the discouragement I was feeling was killing me. Not only that, but I later learned that many of the people I thought were ahead of me were actually in a similar place as me. It seemed like everyone kind of just stopped, but I still didn’t know how to just be still and rest in God’s presence. So I began pursuing ideas. Not projects. And not full on scripts. But a million little ideas began to build a project I’d been wanting to do for a long time and began to write a script. To have God’s anointing on something seemingly small or that I wasn’t even planning on starting yet was truly a blessing. And it reconfirmed the calling God has on my life as a filmmaker. Going back to where I began, spending years at time working on ideas before committing to any one of them as a project. Not only that, but these ideas are something I never in a million years would’ve thought about, let alone felt so strongly about. And if they are what God wants me to make, I believe He will guide me down avenues that will provide what I need. For God knows my needs before I even ask Him (Matthew 6:8). All in His timing, planning, and provision One day I even took a surprise trip down Memory Lane to retrieve some reel footage for a crew member to where Project 29:11 Productions got its start; our first ever award-winning short film, Good & Faithful. I’ve been so focused on Faith Healing and other projects these last few months that her older sister project got completely overshadowed. Seeing where we came from and how far we’ve come since then lended perspective to where we are now. And now God has opened a door that once again confirms the calling He has on our lives, as you’ll see in tomorrow’s post.
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