Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington, an outspoken Christian who recently was baptized and received a minister’s license, offered words of faith and encouragement last week to football players at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder.
Washington, 70, talked about some of his struggles, his roller-coaster relationship with God, and how he eventually realized that “God put me on this planet to preach.”
CU head coach Deion Sanders—also an outspoken Christian—opened a recent team meeting by playing a clip from Washington’s 2000 movie “Remember the Titans.” Then the man Sanders called “the greatest actor ever” appeared on a livestream to talk to and interact with players.
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Washington began by reciting Psalm 19:14, praying that his words would be pleasing to God. Then he described himself as “a man of God who’s been through every machination of faith, from faith to eff it.”
“I rejected God. I hated God,” he said. “I loved God. I appreciated God. I’ve had no patience with God, and God has had nothing but patience with me. That’s why they call it grace.”
Only by God’s grace, Washington said, did he survive a rough upbringing. He sold drugs, shot up heroin at age 13, and saw people get killed. Even after being “filled with the Holy Spirit in the ’80s…I still wanted to go party,” he said. Washington also described the extreme highs and lows of fame and the world’s fickleness.
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The actor told CU’s football team that people all have different platforms but one God-given purpose. “I’m here to tell you God did not put you here to play football,” Washington said. “He gave you that gift, but that’s not your purpose in life.” He urged listeners to have a solid foundation and to be rooted in faith.
Reading from the devotional book “Jesus First for Men,” Washington talked about Jesus’ parable of seeds sown on barren places—and what a rocky heart might look like. “I had a rocky place in my heart and deserted God,” the actor said, “but thank God he had mercy on me.”
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