Does this much coffee make me a better Christian?

Just kidding.

LOL..

It wasn’t even that good…

But seriously, art (even latte art) can be so extremely powerful.

How many of us have been completely changed by some work of art? I feel like I am personally affected every single day by the beautiful things humans create. Isn’t it amazing how one song, sounds put together in a specific order, can empower us to be brave or comfort us when we feel like no one else understands? Isn’t it perhaps an even greater wonder that we can still quote movies we saw when we were five?

Art changes our lives, and it has been both a part of and a driving force in cultural movement.

I watch It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas eve with my family, and I cry every single time because it reminds me of what great a life I have. It overwhelms me with joy and gratitude for the people in my life that truly love me. It absolutely draws me to worship. A movie, one movie, does all that for me every single time it interjects itself into my waiting, somehow anticipating, mind.

I have struggled off and on for about a year with the idea of pursuing film as a career. As a Christian, I am called to study the Word of God and let it change my life. I am called to take the gospel to the world and make disciples. How could these two be mixed… ever?

I didn’t used to see how it could be possible, but God has opened my eyes and my heart to Himself in so many ways. The film industry needs Jesus just as much as any of us do, and Jesus loves every film maker just as much as He loves anyone else.

Think about this. Those movies we watched as kids that shaped our immature little minds were written and created by real people.

Yes. Actual adults.

Being a missionary in the film industry includes, without a doubt, glorifying God by what we create, but perhaps even more than that it means reaching with the gospel those people who are truly changing the world with their films.

God calls us to give ourselves up for His will. He calls us to surrender everything, our passions and our talents, to Him.

But by no means does this mean He takes them away. I have found that nothing satisfies compared to the infinite love and holiness of Christ.

Therefore, I give all to Him because He knows what is best and He will use me for His glory, for His plans.

This way I can be sure that when He puts the desire on my heart to work in film, it is not of myself. It is absolutely of Him.

I feel that we think of surrendering everything to God as not being able to do those things about which we are so passionate. This is exactly not God’s plan, however.

The thing I often miss, or maybe just forget time and time again, is that God’s plan is the best…

That’s it. His ways are for His glory and my joy. Everything He does for us, in us and through us is to glorify Himself and to let our joy be found in Him, the only place it can be fulfilled.

So if God calls us to leave what we think are our passions, He will show us what our passions really are.

If we surrender all to Him, we need nothing else.

We do know what God has called us to do: make disciples. The amazing thing is He did not tell us one way we have to make disciples or one place in which we have to do it. He told us to do it.

Isn’t this incredible?

I can use film to make disciples. I can share the gospel in word and in deed to the dark places in Hollywood and change those people that make the films that change people’s lives. I can change lives with the films I create. Anyone else can make disciples and change the world anywhere else.

I believe that if we are using our passions to share the gospel and make disciples, truly loving God and others, we are living for what God has called us to.

Now this is not at all saying that we will not have to sacrifice or that we should not take the gospel to unreached people groups. We are absolutely called to that as well.

But I think the message of the Bible is that Jesus, not our passions, must be our focus, and I think when we realize this we start to realize that He is, in fact, our highest passion.

God has called us to make disciples. Let us not get caught up on our specific calling. Let us simply follow the calling and make disciples wherever we are and through whatever avenue we can find.