By Allie Scribner –
Nick Shakoour – who plays Zebedee of The Chosen – thought he wouldn’t get the role, he didn’t want the job, and the job would be the “final nail in his career.”
Little did he expect the role would launch his stardom – and more importantly, get him in contact with Jesus. “God came and burned all of that (ambition for fame) away,” he told the Washington Times.
“I was on the airplane to Texas mumbling to myself, I can’t believe I’m going to play a 55-year-old fisherman on a religious project,” he remembers. “Yup, this is what it’s come to. This is the final nail in the acting career.”
Instead, Shakoour, who also is the voice of Grumpy Bear on The Care Bears: Unlock the Magic, became more famous than ever. But it didn’t matter to him anymore.
On the third season, in his apartment, he had a vision that changed him forever.
“It’s like somebody beamed a projector from my right shoulder and left into the ceiling where I saw a gilded cage encrusted with diamonds and rubies and like a floral design all over this cage with a key and a door,” Shakoour tells. “There was just people in silhouettes all around the cage applauding and they had kind of like a smile like the Joker did. It looked kind of disturbing.
“A secondary image projected onto the ceiling of this white dirt road with green pastures and a blue sky in the sun,” he adds. “I was like, Whoa what the heck is this? Why am I being shown this right now? No matter where I walked around in the apartment the projections wouldn’t go away, and I’m like, am I supposed to pick one?
Shakoour heard a voice: You’re at a crossroads right now, you’re at a fork in the road. You can have one of these and you’ve got to pick.
Shakoour chose the path. “God, you know I want a huge life, I want to live large but not with material things, not with cars. My soul is crying out for something bigger.”
Up until then, his reference point for Christianity had been his grandfather who was a Greek Orthodox priest. Shakoour is of Lebanese, Greek and Armenian descent.
Towards the end of Season 3’s filming, he accompanied some set guys to a church conference. He had never seen such love before, nor had he experienced their earnest love for Christ. He was simultaneously drawn and weirded out.
Towards the end of the conference as he was driving home, he felt the Spirit descend upon him.
“I screamed and cried out to God,” he said. “God my soul is lost, it’s been lost for a long time, I need you now, not only do I need you, but I need what you and Jesus have to offer.”
The next night, multiples brothers prayed for him. “It was like a meteor hit my body. From the bottom of my feet the fire just started building to the top and then by the time it reached my head I almost was going to run out because I felt the sensation of passing away.”
Indeed, he passed from death to life, as the Bible says. He is no longer a Christian who barely believes in God and is more worried about fanatics than a real relationship with God. He is no longer the Christian who knows about God through his grandfather but doesn’t read his Bible. He longer is acting the part of being a follower of Jesus.
Now, Nick Shakoour can’t shut up about Jesus. “I met God the creator of the whole freaking universe. Why wouldn’t I talk about it?”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
About the writer of this article: Allie Scribner lives in Santa Monica and studies at the Lighthouse Christian Academy.
