Actor and writer Matthew McConaughey is a faithful Christian who, during an interview with Relevant Magazine, spoke up about his Christian faith, describing everything from his unique approach to prayer to his regular and frequent church attendance.
Telling the magazine, “I’m a believer. I believe in God,” McConaughey spoke about how he sees his faith journey, saying that it requires a certain level of personal responsibility and understanding things from a place of humility about who we are and what we do.
Speaking about that, he framed God as the one providing the paths, or “highways,” while we have to keep our hands on the wheel and remember what’s important. “God’s laying out the highways, but we each have our hand on the wheel,” he said. He continued, “I look at Earth. I look at the little dot that we are on the planet. The world’s turning. And we’re that little individual on the planet. That smallness can make you go, ‘Oh my gosh. I’m nothing. None of what I do matters.’” Then, speaking about humility, he said, “But, a place of humility is actually when you realize, ‘Oh, it allllll matters.’ There’s a great empowerment that comes with that.”
Continuing, he spoke about how when he retreated from society to finish up his book, he realized how little old grudges mattered, leading him to forgive things he had long held onto. Speaking about that transformation, he said, “It ended up being the best time I’ve ever had in my life with myself. All the things I thought I was going to be so embarrassed about, I ended up laughing at. All the things I thought would be so shameful about, I was like, ‘Oh, I forgive you for that.’”
That wasn’t the only retreat from normal society that helped him. McConaughey also visited a group of Benedictine monks living in a remote region of New Mexico, and while there, he confessed his sins for hours, with the confession ultimately culminating in an emotional moment that helped him build his faith yet further, particularly given the incredible way in which the monk taking his confession, Brother Christian, responded.
Speaking about that confession, McConaughey said, “I confessed to him for four hours. I’m feeling like I’m at the bottom of the earth. I’m bawling and snot’s coming out of my nose. What does he say? The only word he says to me after four hours of my confessions. He looks me in the eyes and he goes: ‘Me too.’”
Continuing with that story, McConaughey explained how it impacted his faith, saying, “He let me know that I was not the center of the universe. He let me know it was a human condition, what I was going through. God’s not looking for us to come there perfectly. He’s not looking for us to come there all cleaned up and a halo on it. He wants to open the door when we’re groveling. He’s not going to judge us on that. God’s going to go, ‘Hey man, thanks. I’ll come with you through this. I’ll go with you through this. I’ve seen it all.’”
He then turned from the emotional time with the monks to how he tries to live out his faith in his normal life. Speaking about his unique way of thinking about prayer, McConaughey said, “Prayer is inventory. I go to church once a week. I go, I pray and I do inventory. I take a deep breath, understand myself as me being number two in God’s house, and go back through my week.” He added, “And then I come out of that church with whatever lesson the pastor shared and go, ‘Alright. Tomorrow’s Monday. Let’s see if we can put those into practice.’”
Featured image credit: By All-Pro Reels from District of Columbia, USA – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97724492