Trusting God, Pt. 3

Today, I want to share with you the amazing story of how God took a failing filmmaker and used him to create The Chosen, which has changed the world.

Trusting God, Pt. 3

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths."

(Proverbs 3:5-6)

Jordan Peterson's interview with the creator and director of The Chosen, Dallas Jenkins, is one of the best things I have heard in a long time. My workout at the gym felt like it was only a few minutes, as I was enthralled with the testimony Dallas gave about how The Chosen came into existence. Peterson said it is an excellent production and the best Christian mini-series ever. You can listen to the entire interview here:

My favorite part of the interview was when Dallas shared with much transparency and vulnerability how he hit rock bottom prior to The Chosen. Around 2016, Dallas produced the film The Resurrection of Gavin Stone. In his own words, he said it was a total failure. Dallas said this crushed him. He and his wife sat still and wept as they realized how poorly the film had been received.

During this dark night of his soul, Dallas told Peterson, who was absolutely fixated on Dallas and the story he was telling, that his wife told him something: she believed the Lord was telling her that they needed to read the story in the Gospels where Jesus fed the 5,000 (see Matthew 14:13-21). He thought that was rather odd, but Dallas went along and read the story with his wife. It is a remarkable miracle recorded in all four of the Gospels, the only miracle to be recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each, except for the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. Jesus took two fish and five loaves of bread and fed 5,000 men plus the others. Matthew 14:21 states, "Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children." (Some calculate that the number could have been as high as 20,000, an astonishing miracle.)

Soon after he and his wife read about the miracle of Jesus, Dallas said he was on his computer at 4:00 a.m. working away. He was writing a 15-page critique of all that went wrong in the film he had worked so hard on. At that time, he received a Facebook Messenger note from a friend. His friend said he felt the Lord wanted him to tell Dallas this: "Focus on the bread and the fish." His friend wrote this note from Romania and had no idea that Dallas and his wife had been focusing on the feeding of the 5,000. At this point, Jordan Peterson acknowledged that this was no mere coincidence.

Dallas said he got the message from the Lord loud and clear. He was to do what he was good at, and that was telling the good news of Jesus in fresh and creative ways. He had created some pieces for his church for their Good Friday services. He felt the Lord affirming him and reminding him that he was no failure. He was not to worry himself with pleasing men or Hollywood. Rather, he was to focus on what God had called him and gifted him to do. The next year, he began working on The Chosen.

I think of Proverbs 3:5-6 and how Dallas Jenkins gives us a modern-day illustration from his own life of the wisdom of the Word of God recorded by King Solomon. Dallas and his wife fully trusted in the Lord, and he quit leaning on his own understanding and abilities. Dallas acknowledged God and trusted him with his life and future, and God divinely directed his path. Millions of viewers around the world have been blessed by The Chosen.