(All this week, WP Films will be making each of their films free to watch for one day. Today is the third of those films, Father of Lights. You can watch it free at wpfilm.com/holy-sharathon/).
Probably the most frequent question people ask me about my films is, “Which one is your favorite?” The correct response, of course, is that they’re like my children, and I love them all equally. And to some extent that’s true, at least from an artistic and accomplishment point of view. But it is not at all difficult for me to identify which of the films means the most to me. It is, without question, Father of Lights.
Every movie I make is ultimately for myself. Don’t get me wrong; I am overjoyed that so many people around the world love to watch them and have been challenged and changed by them, but I think part of the reason they work so well is that I’ve never set out to make a movie for other people. When you do that, typically you start making choices based on what you think people are going to want to hear. I always go into my films with a burning question that I need answered, and the journey then becomes my personal search for a better understanding of God and His kingdom.
Father of Lights is a great example. I had already made two films before this (Finger of God and Furious Love), and along the way, I consistently heard people talking about God the Father in ways that seemed very foreign to me. It was almost as if they knew Him very well—as though they were friends with Him. I had always had a kind of uneasy truce with the Father, because He made me nervous. Jesus was great, I liked what I saw with Him in the Gospels. The Holy Spirit was like smoke—I didn’t think about Him too much, although I knew I was going to have to deal with Him eventually. But the Father … the Father was something else entirely. I had the distinct impression that He always wanted to pound me but didn’t because Jesus was always there reminding Him that He wasn’t allowed to anymore because of His sacrifice for me.
Obviously, I knew my view of the Father was off base, but it’s hard for me to believe something just because you tell me to. And that’s how Father of Lights was born. I just wanted to know who the Father was once and for all.
Making that movie was enlightening to say the least, but true to form, God saved the best for last. I’m probably most famous for what happens at the end of Father of Lights, because it’s one of the most amazing surprise endings of all time, and it’s 100 percent true. You actually see it as it happens in real time. But while getting into the Dome of the Rock was incredible (I’m not going to spoil it for you), it was the part of that whole event that no one saw that actually meant the most to me—and had the greatest impact on my life moving forward.
You see, before I left to film in Israel, I knew I was going there to film the end of this movie. The Lord had told me as much even before I shot a thing, when He told me, “It ends in Israel.” The day before I left to film, I was praying in my studio and I asked God to allow me to film something impossible in Israel. My heart was pure—I had truly fallen in love with Him—and I just wanted to show the world something that no one could ever say I fabricated, or made up or planned ahead of time. I wanted them to see God as I saw Him now. A Father who can literally do anything, and who loves His kids so much that He’d kill His own son for us.
The Lord never told me to go into the Dome of the Rock. He never whispered the idea to me, or gave it to me in a dream or through a prophetic word. No, that was entirely my idea. While in Israel I had heard it was an impossible place to get into, and when I heard that word—”impossible”—I knew that’s where I wanted to go. So I asked God to get me in. God had 36 hours to make it happen, and it took Him 12.
So why is that the thing that sticks with me the most? After all, I’ve filmed a few things that were literally impossible before we did them, what is it about this one moment that so changed me? It’s because this was the moment when God stopped being my boss and became my friend. He did the impossible because I asked Him to, and our trust in each other had reached a place that was truly special. I trusted Him fully that He would do it, and He trusted me enough to know that I really did just want to make Him famous, and not myself. And we’ve been operating from that place of friendship ever since.
Father of Lights is available to watch for free today, April 18, at wpfilm.com/holy-sharathon/. You can watch the rest of the movies in the series each day leading up to Easter, when you can watch our newest film, Finger of God 2, for free.
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