“I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. You have only a little strength, yet you have kept my word and not denied my name.“
Revelation 3:8
Back in the old days when families still gathered in the living room to watch a bit of TV, I remember seeing a commercial with my kids in which a wild-eyed film director appeared, screaming at the top of his lungs: “Bigger! I WANT IT BIGGER!” Bigger sets, bigger explosions, bigger stars, bigger everything. I don’t remember now what product was being peddled, but I do remember the manic and demanding director. My children and I had a good laugh at the depiction. “He’s like you, Dad!” they needled me. Well, maybe a little, I’ll admit… But I knew the inside story, too. As a director, I was much more a foot-soldier slogging it out in the trenches than a Hollywood general commanding budgets in the tens of millions of dollars.
Now, don’t take that to mean I never aspired toward being in the Officers’ Club. I surely did!
In the mid-1970s, when I was a film student at NYU, I had my sights set on being a big dog. I was going to wow ‘em, all right. My faculty advisor had mentored Martin Scorsese and was now mentoring me. My advanced screenwriting teacher, who had written Grand Prix and All That Jazz, considered me his top student. He even shared one of his scripts with me on the side. He wanted my opinion on it—little ol’ me! Who knows where I was headed…
Then I became a Bible-believing Christian (a story for another time) and put a “BUSINESS CLOSED” sign over my filmmaking career. I decided instead to take up the charge of following Jesus and becoming a “fisher of men” (Matthew 4:19). It helped being in a city of nearly eight million fish. Never a dull moment as I “shared Christ” on the subway, in the park, on the street, in the bus, the elevator, the market. It was a beautiful time of life, and I grew daily in my capacity to love and esteem others. At the same time, for all my efforts, I couldn’t help feeling that something was missing from the picture. I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly. It was like I was an ostrich trying to fly. For those of you who may not know, the ostrich is a bird that cannot fly. No matter how hard it tries or how fast it runs. As I prayed about the situation, the answer became clear enough. I had wandered from my original calling. You see, in those early days of my Christian faith, I had assumed filmmaking was something unclean, undesirable. God didn’t want me doing it. Or did he?
It says in the King James version of the Bible that “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29). Put another way, we need to accept God’s gift or spend a lifetime running from his will.
I was done with the running. I returned to filmmaking and started Messenger Films in hopes I could combine missionary work with the art of filmmaking. I saw it as a fusion of the best of two worlds. I would witness to the fish in the sea but use the universal language of cinema to impart the message. And I was ready to start work immediately. Get me out to the launchpad and let’s get this filmmaking show on the road!
But wait… I don’t see the 25-story-tall rocket ship. And where’s the cast of thousands gathered to watch the fiery liftoff? Where’s the NASA control room with all those gadgets and dials and softly glowing knobs and buttons and the hundred-plus “crewmembers” sending me into space and guiding my return in glory? It seems I’ve come to a place looking more like an empty parking lot with a Roman candle pointing to the heavens. “Bigger!” I shout. “BIGGER!!”
A cry in the wilderness.
When I made my first film in 1988 for under $10,000, I suppose I was like a little bird being pushed out of its nest. The budget on the second film rose to $95,000 and when I shot Final Solution in South Africa in 2000, I had close to a million dollars for production. Subsequent films had budgets of a little less, a little more, but let me be clear. Every film I have ever made falls in the category of Low Budget or Ultra-Low Budget. And though my movies have been seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world (as attested by audience surveys done over the years), to God alone be the glory. I’ve never had more than a little strength for the task.
I like what Frederick Douglass said, though: “One and God make a majority.” For nearly forty years now, it has been my story. And in all honesty, I don’t know if that will ever change. At the same time, though my strength is small, I have obeyed God and not denied his name. And now, if I’m to take him at his word, he has opened a door for me. Not just any door, but a door that no one can shut. I believe it may just lead to Beulah Land where I will enter the final phase of my creative output for God’s glory. Will you pray for me to find it? And when I find it, will you pray for me to walk through it? My strength is small, but I do cling to the belief that the little strength I have is sufficient for the task. Because it’s not about me anyway. It never has been. For “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
Which is why I say to God be the glory! And I say to you, my friend: Do you have but a little strength? Put it to work now! Use it for him and pray for open doors!
God bless you!