I was sitting on the edge of my bed at the Holiday Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, mulling over my flat-lining career as a director and the lack of progress I was making toward my goal of directing feature films, epic television dramas, even mega super-star music specials (they still made music specials back then!).
Why was I on a bed in Asheville, North Carolina, the undisputed film capital of nowhere? I was in town to direct television coverage of the Billy Graham crusade. That was part of my dilemma. I had been directing Billy Graham specials for over a year and getting no closer to my perceived creative Hollywood mega-star director goals. I had reached a creative stalemate, a plateau from which I saw no progress on the horizon. I was the ripe old age of 26.
I distinctly remember what happened next. The thought crossed my mind that what I was doing was dull and boring (those exact words)! Now I hasten to preface the rest of the story with a disclaimer. I have never physically seen God or heard an audible voice that others in a room could hear. But what happened next was just as real as if I had. I suddenly sensed the presence of someone else in the room and then it seemed that God himself (or possibly the Angel Michael acting on orders) hit me across the side of the head with a grand slam slugger baseball bat as God literally shouted at me, "Don't you EVER call what I give you to do dull and boring!" The voice continued, "If you are doing what I have you doing, it is because there is nowhere else I want you to be or to be doing it right now!"
It could not have been more real to me! I was devastated. I fell to my knees, begging God for forgiveness for my stupid arrogance and ingratitude for what He had done for me, how He had blessed me. I vowed that I would always, from that night forward, be grateful for whatever task He chose for me to do. A warm peace seemed to settle across my spirit and I drifted off to sleep.
The following evening, I was back in the director's chair at the Asheville Billy Graham Crusade. The music was the same, the entertainment value had not improved, nothing had changed...and everything had changed - because I had changed on the inside, though I didn't yet know it. I WAS aware that I felt good about what I was doing, that somehow I felt more professional, more engaged, even excited about my work. I couldn't explain why.
Two weeks later, Walter Bennett, my boss and the executive producer of the telecasts, called. Walter had just hung up the phone with Alan Chapman, a television executive who occasionally sat in the control room at the crusades. Alan had been in Asheville. He wanted to know what had gotten into Tom, who seemed to be more on top of his directing than he had ever seen me before. He had been impressed both by my performance as a director and by my professional attitude that had inexplicably greatly improved. He wondered why?!
I knew why! Tom Ivy had not lost his drive or determination to creatively grow and exploit new opportunities, but he had lost his ambition to do so at the expense of the mission at hand. Directing that Billy Graham crusade had become the most important creative opportunity of my life for those five days.
In the seven years that I continued to direct Billy Graham telecasts, there was little that changed in the predictable format or staging of the programs. But I can honestly say that not once did I ever again sit down in the director's chair without feeling this was the most important assignment, the most creative opportunity of my life. I have tried since then to apply that principle to EVERYTHING I do in life and to every relationship I have.
Let me bring this story home to you. Students and young professionals often ask me how you get a break in the tv/film business, how do you advance in your career. That's for another discussion -- but if after you've done all you know to do, as little or much as that may be, I encourage you to rest on THIS truth: If you have asked God to guide your life -- to superintend what you do and who you know, where your life and your career is headed -- if your desire is with all your heart to serve His kingdom purpose in and through you, then rest assured that where you are right now, what you are doing today, IS precisely where He wants you and what HE wants you to do...even if it SEEMS to be far from the place you think you should be or want to be. God may be wanting to teach you something important here -- or wants you to help someone else who He will bring across your path. He may have you here to introduce you to someone who will someday figure in the future He has planned for you. Only He knows WHY he has you here. You don't need to know - not right now. But if you trust Him and His perfect grace and purpose for you in everything, you'll discover a remarkable peace in your dream for meaning and achievement. In the end, He'll get you where He wants you to be...trust me! But on the way, may I also offer this bit of experienced advice? Don't wait to learn this until YOU have to feel a spiritual baseball bat hit you up the side of the head to get your attention, like I did!
