Will Smith says he would not be where he is today without faith in the Lord
Actor Will Smith recently shared the role faith has played in his life while discussing the new film “King Richard,” which chronicles the faith-filled upbringing of Venus and Serena Wiliams.
Smith plays the father and first coach of the iconic tennis stars in the upcoming biographical drama. In an interview with his friend, author, producer and preacher DeVon Franklin, Smith was asked if he is a “man of faith” like his character, Richard Dove Williams Jr.
“You can’t get where I get if you don’t love the Lord, you don’t get to sit how I sit, move how I move if you don’t love the Lord. You’d be seeing a whole lot of other repercussions,” Smith responded.
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The “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” star said he connects with the faith of the Williams family because of his grandmother, who was an attendee of Resurrection Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
“You and I have talked about my relationship, my grandmother,” Smith continued. “So that concept of faith and that power of faith, I might be going a little too deep here, but there’s a distinction. There’s faith in God and then there’s knowledge of God.”
“So there’s revelation. Some people have had revelation. So when you have to have faith, faith is before you’ve had revelation,” he added, highlighting Oracene Price, the matriarch of the Williams family. “You have to have faith. That’s what Mrs. Oracene [had]. She’s so solid that she is completely, thoroughly and totally certain. She doesn’t walk in doubt.”
“She said, ‘In order to doubt, that means you don’t trust God.’ She said, ‘There was never a moment of doubt. When we set out as a family, we knew we were going to do what was ordained,’” the father of three told Franklin.
The actor maintained, “It was this family around this belief, and they trusted God. And they believed that their devotion would be rewarded and they never wavered.”
In a past interview with The Christian Post, Smith spoke of how his Christian faith was instilled in him by his grandmother.
“My grandmother was really my connection to God,” Smith told CP.
“She was my spiritual teacher, she was that grandmother at the church, the one having the kids doing the Easter presentations and putting on the Christmas plays and her kids and grandkids had to be first. She was the most spiritually certain person that I had ever met in my entire life. Even to the point that when she was dying, she was happy, like she was really excited about going to heaven,” Smith testified.
Smith made headlines in September after he admitted in an interview with GQ that he and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, are in an open marriage and have engaged in sexual relationships outside of marriage. He admitted that he did feel guilty for considering extramarital sex during the early phase of their marriage because his Christian upbringing thought him that such an arrangement is sinful. He said his wife had a different upbringing where she had relatives who were in "an unconventional relationship."
"There were significant endless discussions about, what is relational perfection? What is the perfect way to interact as a couple? And for the large part of our relationship, monogamy was what we chose, not thinking of monogamy as the only relational perfection,” Smith was quoted as saying.
“We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way. And marriage for us can’t be a prison. And I don’t suggest our road for anybody. I don’t suggest this road for anybody. But the experiences that the freedoms that we’ve given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love.”
Jeannie Ortega Law is a reporter for The Christian Post. Reach her at: jeannie.law@christianpost.com She's also the author of the book, What Is Happening to Me? How to Defeat Your Unseen Enemy Follow her on Twitter: @jlawcp Facebook: JeannieOMusic
