Michael Iskander: God has a will for us, even in something that we think is unimportant or that doesn’t have a big impact. Maybe it feels like we’re throwing a tiny rock in the ocean and it has no ripple effect. God wills for that to happen, because He is pruning us and training us for something bigger. And even something so little as taking care of sheep for David, it had the ripple effect that he didn’t realize—that he would be taking care of an entire nation.  

Trusting God with the Glorious and the Ordinary: Michael Iskander & Christian Dearman – Episode #484

Narrator: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. This week, we’ll hear from actor Michael Iskander who currently portrays King David on the House of David series. Michael opens up about his unconventional route to acting, the prayer and fasting that became his ritual as he waited to hear whether or not he would be cast in his dream role, and what portraying David has taught him about trusting God in every moment and in every decision. 

Later in the episode, we’ll hear from Christian Dearman—a professional baseball player with the Savannah Bananas, a team known not just for their show-stopping performances, but their heart for people. Christian shares how his journey toward the big leagues was nearly cut short by a career-threatening injury and how that difficult season became a turning point in his faith. 

Let’s begin with Michael’s story.

Michael Iskander: Hi everyone. My name is Michael Iskander. I’m an actor. I currently portray King David in the TV show House of David on Prime Video.  

From a young age, I knew I always wanted to be an actor, and I would tell [that to] my family. But all my family are doctors, so their response was, “No, you’re gonna be a doctor.” I kind of lived my life like, “Yeah, I guess I’ll be a doctor,” but on the inside there was this kind of tiny dream.  

One day in history class—it was sophomore year of high school—and three weeks in, this girl, her name is Jeannie Skidmore, she turns to me and she’s like, “Michael, do you like music?” I said, “Yeah, I love music.” She goes, “Do you like singing?” I was like, “I mean, in the car.” And she goes, “Well, could you do me a favor?” I was like, “Sure, what is it?” She goes, “My choir director is gonna give me ten dollars if I get a boy to audition. Could you just meet him for ten minutes during lunch, and just get me the ten dollars because I just want ten dollars.” And I was like, “Sure, yeah, I’ll do you a favor.”

So I went after the class ended and met that teacher, who later became one of my mentors and one of the most instrumental teachers in my career. He took me into a practice room and started doing all these tests on the piano. I’m doing what he tells me to do, and then all of a sudden he looks at me all weird and he goes, “Who are you?” I was like, “I just do math class, man. I do like shop and Discus [Track & Field]. That’s my sport. I mean, I don’t know. That’s what I do.” And he goes, “Okay, we’re gonna change your schedule tomorrow, and you’re gonna be in choir. We’re gonna put you in like one of the highest choirs we have and we’re going to put you in this and in this and in that. You’re a singer, man.” I thought he was joking, and I was like “Sure, sure.” But surely enough, the next day came and my entire schedule was changed. He put me in the choir, and that’s how I kind of got into acting. 

I was very shy and I was very timid and I didn’t want to be in any sort of spotlight. I just wanted to blend in. But God just kept moving everything and opened these doors and kicked me through it. He’s like, “You’re gonna go through this door and I don’t care.” What other thing, you know?

A Dream Realized to Play the Role of King David

The journey to my portraying David has been a very kind of coincidental and also a spiritual journey.  

I grew up with David in Sunday school. I don’t remember a time that I didn’t know about him. I would always kind of sit back and imagine what this little, young kid—what his courage was like to go to be the only person to stand up against the guy who was blaspheming God. I always saw him as this courageous and almost hated person, but at the same time, I never saw him as this greater than or this kind of iconic. I just saw him as this human being who truly just loved God and defended Him. For me, going about David was just trying to find his humanity.  

I think it was in 2021, or even before that a little bit, I was watching The Chosen back in the very, very early seasons. I was obsessed with it, and I got all my family to watch it. I was like, “You guys have to watch this TV show. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen. This is amazing.” And it was right before I moved to New York to do Broadway. 

So my family started to watch it, and we were at the dinner table one time talking about The Chosen, and they said, “Well, you’re an actor, Michael. You should do stuff like that.” And I was like, “Yeah, I would love to.” They said, “Well, who would you play if you got a chance to portray a biblical figure?” And I said, “I would love to portray King David maybe when he’s young, and you know, playing the harp out with the sheep. I would love to do that.”

And then fast forward three years later, I got this audition in my inbox, and it said it was for this role of David. And I was like, “No way.” I’m like, “Oh my goodness, someone is making a TV show about him. Finally, this could be an opportunity.”

So I sent the audition, and I would call my reps every single week [and ask,] “Hey, what happened with that David thing? What happened?” And they said, “Well, we don’t know yet.” Eventually, a month went by and [they] got back to me and said, “You know, it’s not going your way.” And then three weeks later, I got a call from my reps again, and this time they said, “Remember that David thing you auditioned for? They want you to re-audition.”

So I called my mom [and said], “Mom, you’re not going to believe it, the David thing is back.” And she said, “Okay, okay, but before you get too excited, I want you to fast and I want to pray.” “Okay, Mom.” So I fasted and I prayed and I prepped the scene and I submitted it.  

A week later, I was set to have lunch with Jon Erwin, the executive producer of the show. He was going to fly to New York and have lunch with me. I was thinking to myself, “Well, if this meeting goes well, it will probably last for forty-five minutes. If it’s a bad meeting, it’ll last about fifteen to twenty minutes, and he’ll say he’s got to catch a flight or something and leave. And we hung out for like four hours, and I really felt the connection. I knew that the show was in good hands with Jon Erwin and Jon Gunn, the co-executive producer with Jon Erwin. He said to me, “Now really begins the process. We’re going to screen test you, and we’re going to fly you to LA and all these things.”

Screen Testing for The House Of David

I went and did the screen test in LA, came back to New York, and they said, “We’ll let you know next week.” Next week came, and they said, “Well, it’s not a no, but it’s not a yes. Amazon is really worried that this is your first time ever on camera. They’re putting the whole show on your back, and they are a little stressed out.”

I was just praying and fasting the whole time. And finally, on this random Tuesday, Jon Gunn calls me and he’s like, “Hey, man, we have a question about the music stuff. Could you just give me a FaceTime call real quick?” And I’m just like, “Yeah, yeah. Sure.” And so, I pick up the phone, and he asked me some questions. Eventually, I’m like, “What’s this really about?”  He looks at me and goes, “Well, we kind of got some rough news yesterday. We don’t know how else to say this, but you’re going to be David, and you’re gonna be with us in Greece for four months filming the show.”

Michael’s Unbelievable Sheep Encounter

The first day I showed up in Greece they said, “All right, we’re gonna take you to sheep training.” They would take me to this shepherd and he had all these sheep and I would just stand with him and learn about the sheep. But there was one big problem—every time the sheep saw me, they hated me, and every time they saw me, they ran away. The shepherd would tell me, “Hey, come by, come stand next to me.” When I would stand next to him, the sheep wouldn’t run away, and he was like, “I want you to know something. As long as you’re by yourself and you’re trying to do this on your own, they’re gonna run away from you. You have to be right next to me and you have to spend a lot of time with me so that they know you are with me.”

I was like, “Huh. Okay.” And he said, “The other thing I want you to know is that when you lead these sheep, you don’t stand in the back, behind them, chasing them. No, I want you to go in front, and I want you to show these sheep where to go. I want you to show them the direction. A good shepherd is the one who’s in front of the flock. A bad shepherd is one who is behind it.”

This went on for a long time, and he’s teaching me all these lessons. One day it was kind of windy so they had all the sheep in this pen, and I was like, “Okay, maybe I can go hang out with the sheep in the pen. They won’t run away. They won’t hate me.” But surely enough, I showed up, and they ran faster than anything I’ve ever seen. I was trying for like three hours at that point, and the sheep didn’t want anything to do with me.  

But I saw this group of little lambs in a corner, so I said to the shepherd, “Hey, could I spend time with the lambs?” He goes, “Yeah, sure.” So I went, and to my surprise, the lambs didn’t run away. One of them came up to me, and he started biting at my boots and biting at fingers and everything. He’s this cute little lamb, and he was like a puppy. So I named him Puppy. 

Four months later, every time we’d try to do a scene with the sheep, we had no sheep that kind of were near me. This was the last day of filming, and they brought Puppy and said, “The whole premise of this scene was that David would be carrying a lamb on his back and he’d be going down to the hill leading them back to his home after the lamb on his back got attacked.”

We were on the top of this hill and there’s bushes on this hill and so there were a bunch of shepherds hiding in the bushes with sticks holding the herd of sheep in the middle. They had Puppy on the side kind of covered in this blood—pretending. There’s all these cameras, and these sheep are scared, and I’m like, I spent so much time with these sheep. I know how they function. All of a sudden, I just felt this urge to move, and I just go. 

With Puppy on my back covered in blood, I went through the herd and started doing all my noises and just praying like, “God, please have them follow me, please.” And I went through without them saying action.  

I think it’s in those mundane acts like David taking care of the sheep every day—he would have woken up at 4:30 in the morning, taken care of the sheep, come back at 6:30 at night and defend them against lions and bears and wolves and all sorts of things. And he did that day in and day out. He walked through thorns, he buckled his belt and had his sling, and he would do that mundane task every day, and that was God’s will for him. 

I just kept walking and walking and walking and everything was silent. I hoped that the shepherds pushed them behind me long enough that it looks like they’re following me. I kept going and I’m really far at this point, and I still don’t hear a “Cut.” I’m like, I gotta look behind me. So I look behind me and I see all the sheep, one by one, single file, following. I was like, There’s no way. So I keep walking. I’m like 100 yards at this point, and the sheep are still following me, and it’s just me and the sheep. We’re like super far away from the crew at this point and I keep walking and I get to the house. I put them inside their pens, and they all listened. Immediately then I hear, “Cut.” And all the shepherds from the bushes jumped out running down to me, and they’re like, “How did this happen? What’s going on? This does not happen. The sheep don’t follow other sheep, and they don’t follow someone who’s not their shepherd. What’s going on?” And I went up, and everyone’s freaking out. I was looking back at the footage, and I was like, “Oh, they’re not following me, and they’re not following Puppy. They’re following the blood of the lamb.” And I realized in that moment, I kind of looked up to the sky, and I was like, “I see You. I see You, God.” 

That was one of the lessons that I learned—that even in the mundane, God has a will for us, even in something that we think is unimportant or that doesn’t have a big impact. Maybe it feels like we’re throwing a tiny rock in the ocean and it has no ripple effect. God wills for that to happen, because He is pruning us and training us for something bigger. And even something so little as taking care of sheep for David, it had the ripple effect that he didn’t realize—that he would be taking care of an entire nation.  

“Even in the mundane, God has a will for us, even in something that we think is unimportant or that doesn’t have a big impact. Maybe it feels like we’re throwing a tiny rock in the ocean and it has no ripple effect. God wills for that to happen, because He is pruning us and training us for something bigger.” – Michael Iskander 

Prayer and Psalms: Staying Grounded in God’s Word

One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 8:3-6. It says, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established, what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under their feet.” 

It can be a tricky thing to remember what we’re doing this show for. In the midst of the makeup and the intense schedules and the this and this and this and that, it’s possible to forget. Prayer is extremely important, and always having a moment of reflection of why we’re doing this is vital. For me, the show is not about David. The show is about God. The only reason David is important is because of Christ. I think even in the acting process of this, God was teaching me just to let go of any sort of idea of control that I have and just to surrender to Him and to trust that prayer is powerful, prayer is enough, and to put everything I have on God and He will lead me through it. 

“Prayer is extremely important, and always having a moment of reflection of why we’re doing this is vital. For me, the show is not about David. The show is about God. I think even in the acting process of this, God was teaching me just to let go of any sort of idea of control that I have and just to surrender to Him and to trust that prayer is powerful.” – Michael Iskander

I’m gonna be reading a passage from Jesus Listens on April 14th: 

Prince of Peace,

I come to You, feeling weary and burdened. I want to spend time resting in Your Presence. I need Your Peace continually, just as I need You each moment.

When things are going smoothly in my life, it’s easy to forget how dependent on You I really am. Then, when I encounter bumps in the road, I tend to become anxious and upset.

Eventually, this revives my awareness of my need for You, and I return to You—seeking Your Peace. I can pray these wonderful words of David: “I trust in You, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hands.”

In Your majestic Name, Jesus,

Amen

Narrator: To keep up with Michael and his work, follow him on social media. You can find House of David on Amazon Prime Video. 

Stay tuned to Christian Dearman’s story after a brief message.

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Jesus Listens for Every Season!

Jesus Listens: Prayers for Every Season is a 365-day devotional prayer book by Sarah Young which offers topical prayers for issues like anxiety, grief, and gratitude and aims to help believers grow their prayer life through consistent, scripture-focused prayer.

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Our next guest is Christian Dearman, a professional baseball player for the Savannah Bananas. Christian talks about the joy of utilizing his platform to bring light and positivity to those around him. 

Christian Dearman: My name is Christian Dearman. I am from Pembroke Pines, Florida, and I am a professional Banana ball player.

Growing up, I had so many dreams and aspirations, but the one that obviously sticks out so much is I wanted to be a professional baseball player. I wanted that more than anything. I thought it was the coolest thing going to Marlin games growing up and watching all these guys on the field live the dream in front of these crowds and be like gladiators in the Colosseum. I loved it. 

I really aspired to be a professional baseball player when I was young, and people laughed at me. People have made jokes, but I really did not care. I had the faith and the drive that I knew that I could get it done if I really put my all into it and believed.

A Life-Changing Injury that Led Christian Closer to God

When I was a freshman in college, I was having a really good season. One game, at the very last pitch of the game, I heard two pops in my shoulder. For a second, I thought I got shot. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever felt, and I remember being immediately on the ground, and my teammates and coaches having to walk me off the field. And in that moment, I was like, “What just happened?” 

Well, a couple of hours later, I found out that I had torn my right latissimus dorsi tendon. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a pretty big muscle in the back that connects basically everything with your arm and your back. So my whole entire latissimus basically ripped off the bone.

When I went into the doctor’s office, they looked at me and said immediately, “Sorry, but you will never play baseball again.” Now, I’m a fiery person, and I took that as a challenge, and I said, “Oh brother, you don’t know me. You just gave me so much motivation, and I know that the plan goes farther than what is happening right now.” So I really just trusted the path that I was getting put on in that moment.

I basically tore my latissimus. I was the third person in baseball to do it. There was no real history about this kind of surgery and how to repair it, so no one in the Tallahassee area knew what to do. My doctor actually flew out to Chicago, and he met with a guy that had performed surgery on Jake Peavy, who is a pitcher—the first person to ever have this happen. He had meetings with him, flew back, and was able to complete my surgery. 

After, he was like, “Listen, we did the best we could. We don’t know how this is gonna go. If you’re able to have more than thirty percent strength in your arm for the rest of your life, that’s a success for us.” And right there, he’s got my mom and dad crying. I’m mad. I’m like, “Dude, you got no idea. Just let me get clear. Let me do my rehab. I trust in God. I trust in the plan. It’ll be okay.”

I gotta say, it was tough. It was a hard recovery. My parents I’m so grateful for, and my teammates that were just constantly taking care of me, constantly keeping me reassured that things will work out in our favor. And it got me at that point really into Scripture. 

I caught myself starting to look up at the sky and be like, Why me? And then I had a moment of, Wait, who am I to say this? I’m already saved. The job is finished, and we win every day, just in life. I’m just so grateful that God had put me into a positive mindset at this time, because through reading Scripture, I was learning a lot of verses that I was looking at as motivational quotes instead. For example, “You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.” That alone was so powerful for me. I was writing down all these quotes, and one of my favorite verses was 2nd Corinthians 5:7: “I will walk by faith and not by sight.” I was just able to live through that and be able to believe not having to see success through. Even though my rehab was not going well, even though it was so painful to throw a ball when I first started, I just kept believing in that path. 

“I’m just so grateful that God had put me into a positive mindset, because through reading Scripture, I was learning a lot of verses that I was looking at as motivational quotes.” – Christian Dearman

Eventually, through a lot of hard work and a year of straight recovery—waking up at 5:00 AM every day to do it—I was able to get back to the field, and I had the best season of my baseball career. I was given a scholarship to Florida International University, which is back home for me. And since then, now I’m a professional baseball player.

It’s insane because at one point, they were telling me I would never be able to pick up baseball again, and now, my name is in the Hall of Fame. It’s surreal. God is so good all the time.

“It’s insane because at one point, they were telling me I would never be able to pick up baseball again, and now, my name is in the Hall of Fame. It’s surreal. God is so good all the time.” – Christian Dearman

Becoming a Savannah Banana: Finding a Place on the Team

Everyone’s process of becoming a Banana is completely different. Some guys try out, some guys get invited. For me, I’m one of the rarer cases where I actually played for the team in college.

I was probably the original summer team where we were doing our dances just at our field. This was in 2017 when I started, and we just were going to all these different ballparks and experiencing a lot of people wanting to see our show more—but we were just playing normal baseball. 

As that grew, I got asked by our owner, Jesse Cole, if I would like to take on the next step of being part of the professional league right after I graduated. Of course I was like, “Yeah, man, let’s hop on this train. Let’s go all the way. I wanna see what is gonna happen with this organization.” And I’m really thankful that I did. So, I was able to try out, and ever since that day, I’ve not left this organization. Seeing it grow has been absolutely a blessing. 

With our organization, our motto is “fans first,” and we’re always looking to put people before ourselves. Just like the Bible says, “Love one another.” That is one of the greatest things that we could do. What I am able to do every single game is connect with kids about Jesus with something as simple as just wearing a cross. I have it by my heart, and every time I look into the crowd, I see kids with a cross on. I just point at them, and I’m like, “Oh, you love Jesus too!” And they get super excited and we just end up talking. I’m like, “What’s your favorite verse?” They’ll tell me, they’ll ask for mine, and we’ll just go on a little bit of rant talking about God, talking about Jesus. And that’s like just a little connection that happens every single game. 

“What I am able to do every single game is connect with kids about Jesus with something as simple as just wearing a cross.” – Christian Dearman

Making Connections and Bringing Joy to People

I remember a story I had with a young man named Tyson. He came to an event where I was working at Dunkin’ Donuts and Tyson had an American flag headband on. I went up to him, I thought it was the coolest headband ever. He’s nine years old. I said, “Tyson, that headband is awesome.” He just was silent, and kind of ran back to his mom. I was like, Oh, did I do something wrong? A couple of minutes later, his mom came up to me and said, “You just made my son’s week. Thank you so much.” And I’m like, “Oh, something just as simple as me saying his headband was really cool?” She said, “He lost hearing in his ears and has been having to wear this headband at school because he doesn’t want to show the hearing aid. A lot of the kids at school had been making fun of him and really were just giving him a hard time.” It was kind of like that week leading up to that, and me saying this to him, kind of made his day. To top it off, I had the opportunity to give him and his mom tickets to the game. If you could add just a smile to brighten someone’s day—that’s truly God’s work right there. It’s awesome. It’s those moments there that mean the most to me.

“If you could add just a smile to brighten someone’s day—that’s truly God’s work right there.” – Christian Dearman

It doesn’t matter what you’re going through—Jesus already accomplished the ultimate goal. He fought the ultimate battle, and we are saved by grace. Journaling and remembering some of these key phrases that keep me just thankful and grateful for the life I have and knowing that I am blessed and I am saved really is what helps keep me grounded. 

“It doesn’t matter what you’re going through—Jesus already accomplished the ultimate goal. He fought the ultimate battle, and we are saved by grace.” – Christian Dearman 

I’ll be reading from Jesus Listens, May 19th:

Precious Jesus, 

Every time something thwarts my plans or desires, I face an important choice: to flounder in frustration or to communicate with You. When I choose to talk with You about the situation, I’m blessed in several ways. First, communicating with You—in all circumstances—strengthens my relationship with You. Also, my disappointments, instead of dragging me down, can be transformed into opportunities for good. 

Please help me to practice this discipline in all the little appointments of daily life. It is often these minor setbacks that draw me away from Your Presence. Yet I’ve discovered that when I reframe setbacks as opportunities, I gain much more than I have lost. Someday I hope to reach the place where I can accept major losses in this positive way.

In Your marvelous Name, 

Amen

Narrator: To learn more about Christian Dearman, follow him on social media, and be sure to tune in to Savannah Banana games to watch him play.  

If you’d like to hear more stories about trusting God, check out our interview with Erin Hicks Moon.

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Next week: Jason and Erica Redman

Next time on the Jesus Calling Podcast, we’ll hear from Jason and Erica Redman. Jason spent twenty-one years as a Navy SEAL, and the husband and wife team share how they’ve learned to face life’s toughest battles together. 

Jason Redman: That night on the battlefield, I think there was no doubt I was dying. I prayed in that moment, “Lord, please let me go home to Erica and the kids again,” and I think that’s a miracle moment.