I love that song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Whistle While You Work. But I have to tell you most mornings I do more moaning while I work than whistling! Even doing the things we love to do and are passionate about gets boring and laborious.
I co-directed the Biola Media Conference from 2007 to 2011 on the CBS Studio lot in Hollywood. One year, I started talking to the crew members that cleaned and then finally painted the floors of the giant soundstages after a TV show had wrapped shooting. Talk about a laborious job! If you have ever seen a soundstage you know how HUGE they are – larger than an airline hanger sometimes. They can build whole mini cities in them and many times they do.
They told me how excited they were that a Christian University was coming in to take over the soundstage we were standing in. You see, many of them were Christians on the crew. They didn’t always agree or like what was being shot on the soundstages. But, it wasn’t their job to determine what was shot on them. Their job was to clean up the mess.
So they would go in and clean the stage and finally paint the floors. As they cleaned they prayed for the show that had been in there previously and that it would be swept off the airways if it would bring harm and immorality into homes. And as they painted the floors they prayed that the next production on the soundstage would bring a new clean show that would be healthy, have redemptive values, and show God’s truth and love. It made me cry as he said, they were singing God’s praises as they painted the floors for our Christian film and TV event that was going to take place that week. “We have never been so delighted to do our jobs knowing that there are Christian men and women in Hollywood who are called to create shows that can make a difference in peoples lives around the world,” he said.
Our being there was God’s answer to their years of prayer for truth and story makers to come and create stories of God’s redemption and love. Having Christians in Hollywood matters. We should be praying for them everyday to break through and create shows that will change our culture and our world. Psalm 22:3 God inhabits the praises of His people.
Whatever challenges you have today, He is in the midst so “whistle” while you work!
