Could Denzel Washington be a preacher? Read these words:
“Everything you think you see in me, everything I’ve accomplished, everything you think I have—and I have a few things. Everything that I have is by the grace of God. Understand that. It’s a gift.”
Those are the words of Denzel Washington at the Dillard University commencement speech in 2015.
While they may seem like a warm and fuzzy Christian cliché from someone who clearly has it made, don’t let his current success fool you.
Allow me to take you back four decades. I will take you to a small salon where Denzel Washington’s present failure met with God’s future promise. That future promise from God met Denzel Washington in a way that he never could have imagined…
What is this about Denzel Washington the preacher?
The day in that small salon four decades ago was March 27, 1975.
The Oscar-winning actor we know today as the star of everything from Remember the Titans to Training Day was sitting in his mother’s beauty shop after just flunking out of college.
A dropout with no projected plans for the future, Denzel Washington had no clue what he was going to do with his life. There in that Salon on that spring day, Denzel was contemplating his future.
That’s when he caught the reflection of a woman who was staring straight at him every time he looked in the mirror. How strange that must have been! Denzel Washington was minding his own business, but this woman who was staring at him clearly had something to say. And Denzel didn’t know just how profound her words would be—words that would become the greatest gift from God he’d ever receive.