Nick Shakoour AKA Zebedee from the Chosen

[Applause] oh my God what's up idah hope it's my first time here and I love it it's cool it's cool so um nice to meet all of you it's it's a pleasure to be here I'm excited and uh I want to get right to it and share what my experience is been like with this journey with the chosen somewhere along the line during the chosen how my path kind of veered away from the chosen while we were filming The Chosen just the most unexpected ways um there's been a lot of stories out there with actors being low Point their careers when the chosen came along the opportunity to audition my situation was interesting because for years and years I had locked up and caged up this internal emotional and mental trauma while pursuing acting and as long as I could keep it locked up in a cage and book enough work and have the work replace the through all that I was going through then I'd be okay because I'd be worth something so by the time the chosen audition came in I wasn't really at a career low point I was voting an animated series called Care Bears loock the magic and I was doing the voice of grumpy and I was doing the voice of tenderheart ironically enough Grumpy's belly batch Powers the lightning bolt with the raincloud and the next thing I know I'm hooking the role of Ze who's Papa thunder so you know gry zey gry zey it's kind of God's got a sense of humor but the crazy thing was once I booked one of the jobs of my dreams which was to voice the lead in an animated series the turmoil continued but it not only continued it started to grow to astronomical proportions and that's when I began to worry leading up to Midway through season 3 after we come back from Texas uh taking break after the feeling of 5,000 the turmoil started to grow and grow and deep inside this unsettling feeling started to develop and I I didn't understand what was going on I felt separated from the production I start to feel separated from the cast I started to feel isolated it was very very odd something bigger was happening at the time I just didn't know what it was while walking around the apartment that they put us in in Texas the storm oil built to the point where an explosion happened internally and out of the blue an image of a golden gilded cage projected over my right shoulder and then an image of a green Pasture Road I hadn't begun reading the Bible yet and I didn't understand what these two images represented at the time the golden cage as these beautiful diamonds and rubies encrusted all around it the silhouette of people applauding with Sinister Joker likee Smiles on their faces and it was just odd and everywh I turn around to walk in the apartment these images wouldn't go away and I thought what's going on here what why why am I seeing this right now I look over the green Pasture Road it's not that impressive it's like dying grass and a dirt road leading up to of the Horizon and I look at the guilded cage with a door and a key on it it's held up on this pedestal and I was done I was over it I didn't want to be an actor anymore in that very moment I said to myself there's something else happening that I need to explore and I don't know what it is but I'm I'm very unsettled and of course I'll continue filming the chosen but something is not not right and I can't fight what's happening anymore by myself so in my mind I destroyed this guilded cage and I took off this Golden Crown of privilege that have been pursuing for years and years and years as an actor and I trashed it all then I've begrudgingly looked at this very dismal looking green Pasture Road and then I I remember yelling out fine I'll take this one right there and then the image just went it went away thought that was so odd from that moment on weird things started to happening at least I viewed it as weird I'd go to set on my off days to visit to watch some filming scenes I'd get off the bus and I look at the set but before I could head over my attention would be diverted over to the construction crew we've been working on our set it was very weird these guys look like they could kill you in the middle of the night by the way they were they were kind of frightening looking but they all had these highlights around their heads and their shoulders and I thought that's very odd why is it so bright on that I it's Texas Sun but I'm looking at them and they have silhouette of light all around them so that's weird I look back at the set I'm going to go film and I can't and I keep being nudged in this direction I like I want to go there they can kill me so I ended up going over started speaking with some of the construction crew next thing I know 2 and 1/ half hours goes by and I'm speaking to about 8 nine 10 of them as they start gathering around just for some reason sharing my experiences growing up in B Lebanon having my Greek Orthodox priest grandfather baptized me and I'm sharing their experiences with God but their experiences were different than mine my experience with God was what I knew through my grandfather he was the bridge and the example of who Jesus Christ was and that was kind of the only reason reason I sort of believed but God wasn't even on the back burner God was sort of in the pantry not even on the oven and then the lead construction worker came out and saw that I was taking up 2 and 1 half hours of his employees time he said hey what's going on and I said I don't know I'm just talking to your guys about I don't know they they've got this thing on their face I don't know what it is but I I don't know why I'm here even and him and his brother-in-law were to each other they said we think you should come to our church conference that's happening this Friday would you come and I kind of backed up cuz I felt a little weirded out and I said well what is it I said yeah it's a church conference it's Jesus Holy Spirit God it's non- denominational and I said okay let me think about it and then they both stopped and they looked at each other they looked back at me and both of them at once in unison we think you should come was very direct and forceful but it it I felt the nudge so I said okay okay fine I'll I'll go it was it was very bizarre on the way uh driving to the conference Friday and that that inner battle that had been happening inside of me all of a sudden the cage had broken loose and couldn't contain the darkness anymore you know when when Spider-Man gets overtaken by Venom you know the black stuff that's what was starting to happen to me while I was driving in the Midian mountains and it was frightening I felt like I was being sucked alive and so I heard my heart call out and say if you don't call out to God for help right now this is about to get really bad and then the secondary voice came in screeching saying don't you D admit what you're about to admit to God right now don't do that and I felt like I was drowning I couldn't I couldn't even breathe anymore and before it could consume the last bit of me I finally admitted what had been going on for years inside of me that I never could could say before maybe cuz I'm a dude and guys don't like to stop and ask for directions but I screamed out I said God my soul is lost my brain just had an aneurysm and EXP floated into pieces and all the screeching voices went and I had an emotional nervous breakdown while I was driving this really nice Dodge Charger that they rented for me and I couldn't believe that I said my soul is my soul is lost I started screaming out I said Okay God I'm on the show I'm sick of being in these scenes I'm sick of people telling me to read the Bible actually I'm sick of about hearing about you from other people I want to know you directly like I want a relationship with you [Applause] directly I was being really rude to God but he's God he can handle it and then I just remember being frustrated screaming out and what's the deal with this Holy Spirit anyway like I'm just sick of doing the gestures like is there he used to this like what is he supposed to do I I was even shocked at how I was like why do I care so much about this kind of you know like why do I care so much so next thing I know I'm showing up to this church conference completely disarmed walking in like I'm just just open I walk into a Convention Center that's about this size and it looks like it's Las Vegas with people swaying side to side people behaving like they're ballerinas I I was like what is going on here you know I was used to growing up to the Greek Orthodox church so we weren't trying to do marionettes and backflips while we were worshiping it just so weird but it was genuine I didn't feel like Oh I thought it was weird but everybody was so genuine there and I thought okay I'm here I'm going to go in and try not to judge this meet up with my buddy Seth who invited me his family was there his brother-in-law and their families and his wife one of their wives came up and said oh my gosh isn't he amazing and I went what are you talking about what are you talking about she had this glow in her face she said Jesus I'm like yeah sure I don't know when but I'm glad you do great um so bizarre things started to happen there while I was there I decided to put my head down I said while I'm here I'm going to pray and this impression was pressed upon me to ask God to remove this burden that's been on my shoulders since my family escaped the Civil War in B Lebanon and I was carrying the same thing they were carrying and I never thought of even praying for that I put my head down I close my eyes and next thing I knew 10 minutes later my buddy step son came over at me on the shoulder 19-year-old kid and I kind of was jolted and I looked up and I turned to him I thought he was going to told me to sit down CU he was a volunteer and I may been standing in the way and he leaned in and he told me he said I I want you to know I was praying for you from back there and God told me to tell you about showing up tonight you've broken your family's generation [Music] [Applause] curse he hugged me I broke down I I couldn't believe it I was just dumb sounded later on the pastor she gets on stage by loving we call Pastor Aros Smith cuz everything was so emotional to her it's all so emotional she was amazing as a voice actor I was impressed she's walking around screaming for 3 hours did not lose her voice one bit she had us do something I've never heard of which is burying your Idols get on your knees and bury your Idols to God and I thought well that's Lis I don't have any Idols deep comforting voice came back in again and said yeah you do um these are the things you made your God before me mom dad sister other sister brother-in-law sisters fiance your acting career your voiceover your chief commander your bank accounts your money your clothes all the and I'm somewhere down there and I felt like I was in trouble and I thought oh my gosh okay help me get on my knees and something bizarre happened in that moment I got on my knee but I wasn't just giving it to God the world had nothing left to offer me at that point was the realization that I had and I was in such a place of being backed into an alley and all the lights were going off around me that in that moment I gave all of that to him everything but with the intention of I would be okay if I never saw any of these things again including my own family I said I want to be with you and I just want to know if you're real nothing happened I got up conference was over next thing I knew this gentleman that Seth introduced me to earlier that night were they call Papa James older gentleman big with a beard he looked like Papa Smurf to me from The Smurfs and it made sense cuz he was an intercessor and they were all his little smurflings at that treur he came up to me and he said oh oh good I'm glad you're still here God wanted me to to to to do something for you God told me you're here hold out your hands and I said what he said hold out your hands hold up my Palms takes anointing oil anoints them with cross anoints my forehead places his palms over mind starts playing praying in this indistinguishable indistinguishable tongues the families around me ganged up on me and started placing their hands on me started praying over me as well I couldn't move anymore I was frozen I was going to run out and the next thing I knew it felt like what I call radioactive love started pulsating throughout my entire body every single being of my cell vibrated in such a capacity that I felt like I was about to be torn apart and right there and then the answer I'd been waiting for for a long time arrived in the form of the Holy Spirit where his presence live literally just Rose above me and towered as high as the ceiling of the convention center I couldn't see him with my eyes it was like I was seeing him with my soul and the guy scared me the guy is I was going to faint I was thinking this is God he wasn't what I was picturing him to be he was there enveloping everything and before I was about to faint he shot a piece of himself in me and it was over fire started from the bottom of my feet moved through my legs burning every single nerve muscle intestine everything I had and by the time he reached the top of my head it was done I experienced the sensation of passing away for a brief second and then it was like I came back to life and my body gestures were different my voice was different [Applause] all that drama was white and I thought who what did you guys do they said you received the Holy Spirit like your face looks different I said no no no my grandfather baptized me as a kid I already received the Holy Spirit they said no no no no no it was resting on you and now he's in you and around you my response was this is why you all are crazy about Jesus oh my gosh he rocks and that that was my journey during during Midway through season 3 from from not knowing him to really to really knowing him to really knowing him and knowing him has made everything else in life either a plus or obsolete because when you bring anything up to him it burns away in his presence it cannot stand to be in his presence and that's why they call him your majesty I love you guys thanks so [Applause] much before I leave I want to introduce a very very talented musician and singer Jak gik

Channel: Rosealyn _

Views: 7,451

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Id: um1ixStSL2M

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2024