Interview with Comedian Ken Davis - Part 2

KD: It is interesting you say scary, but each of those is a learning experience as well. I've watched other comedians who have become very famous that bombed... and bombed... and bombed again. But there were very few times that I bombed. Maybe that's why I didn't become very famous. The one time I did was during an audition for HBO in Los Angeles. It was the worst performance I've ever given. For seven minutes nothing went right. I was performing on the same stage with Billy Crystal, Arsenio Hall and other well-known comedic talent. Top agents were sitting in the audience. And I bombed in front of all of them. But I think that was because God had a different direction for me to go. He knew that I should use humor to present life-changing truth. And, I think, He knew I was not equipped spiritually and morally to handle what might have come as a result of going another direction.

Those were difficult and scary times. I would answer your question this way: the scariest thing of all was to find myself in the middle of a measure of success, having left the foundation of my faith behind. Not that God had left me, but that I was reaching for something that I thought would bring more satisfaction than what his truth had brought to my life. When I look back on that time, I was doing acrobatics way up in the air, like trapeze artist without a net. God by His mercy spared me from disaster. I kept my family, and he allowed me to have a ministry. But he showed me that I was doing the high wire act without a net.

BMC: What probably felt like devastation then, appears like providence now.

KD: Not performing well for the HBO audition was pretty devastating, but I believe now that was providence. Scarier than that was the times of success I experienced where I was flying high without a net. When I came to the realization that I really needed get re-grounded in what I knew to be truth--that was a life changing experience. That gave me direction. If you came to me today and offered me some part on a television show, I'd really have to have two or three bolts of lightning in one ear to accept it.

BMC: Was there a particular event that made you realize that you were on a trapeze without a net?

KD: I remember going to a counselor and talking to him about some things that I was struggling with in terms of the direction of my life. His response angered me: "What we're talking about here, Ken, is a lack of character." He saw that my primary interest was just to know how to manage my behavior a little bit better; just enough to become a better person. In fact, I had drifted from the foundation. I focused my life on becoming a success, on fame, on accolades of an audience, rather than being what God created me to be. If your life is lived either focused in the wrong direction or with no focus at all, it becomes chaos. There is nothing more beautiful than knowing you are doing the right thing. Then when things get tough, if money gets tight, the economy takes a turn, if you lose your house, you don't lose your focus. You're still doing the right thing, and you live to do the right thing, not to get what you can get.

BMC: Have you received any criticism that has particularly been troubling to you?

KD: I want to encourage men and those that have committed themselves to God's direction with this: you will be criticized for what you do. The only way to avoid criticism is to pass away, because there is very little criticism at funerals!

My answer to your question is "yes." I have received criticism and in the past I paid too much attention to it. Once again, it's two ends of a coin; I paid way too much attention to the applause and way too much attention to the criticism. If you use humor, you will be criticized; there is just no doubt about it. I have been criticized for promoting child abuse by telling a story about driving to church and swinging my arm around to try and reach the kids in the back seat. Some who have gone through a particular tragedy have been upset to hear others laughing at something unique that may have happened to them. Others have told me that there is no place for humor in the presentation of the gospel. But I have gone from letting that criticism bother me for weeks, to asking what I can learn from it, and then moving forward. I am the one that has to answer to God for what I do. So, I just I try to obey Him. If I try to please everybody, I am in big trouble, because I can't do it.