[music]
Some of us learn lessons
by being told
and some of us learn lessons by experiencing.
I'm the latter more so
more often than not, and I wish it wasn't that way
life would be easier if I could just learn by hearing
instead of by, by doing you know.
And so here I was probably 19 years old
you know the world is my oyster
I can do whatever I want to do
and something inside me was saying there's more
you know there's more there's more
there's something deeper
there's something more lasting
and even there's something more exciting.
I remember actually being at a party
one night um...
and
thinking I want to go home
so that I can get up tomorrow and go to church.
I remember feeling like
why am I thinking that way right now?
I got this girl inside I'm pretty sure she wants to hook up
there's like...
a cooler full of super ice-cold
just delicious beers waiting for me over here
and I'm like
but actually
I actually want to go to church tomorrow
and it wasn't about like going to church and
being religious it was like
there was something else I wanted
you know
this idea of being connected
to the divine
being connected to the Creator of the universe
um, I had tasted that before
but I felt even beyond what I had experienced
there was something bigger there was something more.
and I remember during that period of time
I had started
reading my Bible
again
and seeing all these miraculous things that happened.
and being like
I want to be that close to God
because
dude like,
to know that the God of the universe is that close to me
that would be super cool.
I want that.
Yeah the film the Heart of Man
that I act in,
there's this scene where
the prodigal
is about to walk off this cliff.
The guys like totally blinded we've all been there.
We just have no idea what we're about to walk into.
We see something that looks to us
that's to be so good
and we're a bit blinded by
ah,
our ambition.
um,
there's just something that's off
and we're just too blind to see it
because were too driven
towards this thing we think it's gonna bring us life.
And here you have
God
portrayed by a loving father
and he's sitting there
he's not angry
he's passionately trying
to woo him back
with
the violin and the music that represents friendship.
So the father is never
he's not you know,
tackling his son or hitting him or calling him stupid
like what are you doing man
can't you see where this is gonna lead you?
He's sitting there saying
dude
how about instead of going over there
I know it's not gonna lead you where you want to be.
I love you, let's play catch instead.
You know he's always offering us this better yes.
Even when we're blind and
you know I'm one of those guys
and we all do this at certain times we all have to learn
the hard way.
We walk off the cliff
and it's not till later on we realise
that actually wasn't what I wanted
and the father is sitting there saying
come sit with me
I can show you what it is you actually want.
And that's been my life story for the last
17 years of him...
me saying, alright
let me hear what you have to say
and him leading me very specifically
down this path
of all these things
that are so much better than what I would have
had for myself if I had just kept doing my own thing
ya know
Jesus is not even
the slightest amount
intimidated by
our questions
or our
ah,
brutal
ah
inward
or outward ugliness
or
our
like very intentional wrongdoings
yeah He's bigger than all that stuff.
I now realise
um
just how much He loves who I am
and He doesn't love me based on what I do
and that changes everything.