Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Jesus

Don Williams, head sketch artist for Disney.  If you see a Disney Character on a brochure, billboard, or anything that doesn’t animate, Don Williams drew it.  He has been with Disney since the mid ‘70’s; but it wasn’t always that way. Last month I saw Don (I’ll call him “Don” and pretend we are close friends) do some live sketches (amazing) and tell his story.  Seems that in the 1970’s Don was a banker and aspiring artist in the New England area .  Loved to draw Disney characters.  One month Don hung some of his art in the bank for customers to see.  A local news crew did a feature story.  One of the bank employees (a janitor) was so taken with the art that he sent the news video to Disney.  The Disney company and Don eventually began communicating and  told Don “You are good, but we need to see more.  Do some sketches and send them to us.”  For years, Don’s dream was to work for Disney.  He did about 100 sketches the 1st week and sent them South to Disney.  They responded: “Keep them coming.”  Don continued his pace; for 2 years.  100 sketches a week for 2 years.  Do the math.  It’s pretty impressive.  As time went on, Disney was not pursuing Don so he decided to pursue them.  He quit his job at the bank and loaded up the family and moved to Orlando with no promise of anything.  He figured that being closer to Disney would get him closer to his dream.  Continuing to draw 100 sketches  like a mad-man, Don went to the Human Resource department day after day for a job, any job, at Disney.  As he was about to take a job in a Disney related hotel as a night shift maintenance supervisor, a sketch artist job in one of the parks came available.  With his foot finally in the door, Don continued to work and years later found his way to the top of the Disney art department.  Sounds like Don wanted the job pretty bad.

So I am reading in Acts last week and a similar thing happened (hang with me here).  Acts 1 – Jesus is gone, Judas has killed himself and the disciples are looking for someone to replace Judas.  So they get together and one of them says ” . . .it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with John’s Baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us.” (Acts 1:21-22).  Evidently there were some (other than the 12) who followed Jesus wherever he went.  Guys who so much wanted to be part of WHATEVER Jesus was doing that they didn’t wait for an invitation.   It didn’t matter that they wouldn’t get to sit around the table, or be spoken to directly by Jesus.  Like Deadheads in a van heading to the next venue, these guys left everything for 3 years, just to go from place to place for one reason; they wanted to be wherever Jesus was, and they wanted it bad.

The spirit of God has put dreams in our hearts and minds.  Some of us are convinced that he is birthing dreams.  So do we wait?  Fall back asleep and hope that the dream continues only in our mind?  It time to pack up, get sketching and follow God wherever he is moving.  The question is . . .

How bad do you want it?

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