It’s no secret that we are living in some very trying times. Indeed, after everything that has happened in the last few weeks, it oftentimes appears like it is harder to maintain one’s faith than ever.
That’s why the Oscar-winning star Matthew McConaughey, who has long been known as one of the only openly devout Christians in Hollywood, is speaking out to urge fans to overcome doubt by keeping the faith.
‘If Doubt Wins, We All Lose’
“I found myself, a couple years ago, getting a little cynical,” McConaughey, 55, told Fox & Friends. “And cynicism, that’s a chosen disease that I swore I’d never fall prey to.”
“I was looking around at the world, reading the news, and going…man there’s not a lot of reasons to believe when you look at the evidence,” he continued. “And I’m not ready to quit believing in God, in myself, in you, and each other.”
That’s why McConaughey took action in a surprising way. Indeed, he grabbed a pen and paper and got to work.
“So I started writing a lot of poetry,” he explained. “I found that I’d written a lot of poetry over the last 30 years. I gathered them all, a lot of them are poems, a lot of them are prayers. It’s as much for me as for everyone else.”
“I think belief is in short supply,” McConaughey concluded. “I think everyone’s looking for it. I think if doubt wins, we all lose. And that’s what I’m selling here: belief.”
McConaughey’s Book ‘Poems & Prayers’
In the above clip, McConaughey is referring to his new book “Poems & Prayers,” which hit stores this week. While promoting the book, McConaughey further opened up about his feelings on cynicism, explaining why people need to fight against it with everything they have.
“We’re born, we are innocent, then we’re naive, then we grow and we mature and we become skeptical,” McConaughey told The Texas Standard. “We need to stop there, because the next thing is cynicism.”
“And I see it being a disease of getting older that some people have,” he lamented. “And yeah, it’s very clever; it can get the laugh at the party. It can be snark, and it can be full of doubt and sometimes accurate. But – it means you quit believing, and I’m not ready to quit believing.”
As soon as McConaughey felt himself becoming cynical, he checked himself.
“I called myself out on it, and I said, ‘no, I’m not ready to,’ and I have enough people around me that I know aren’t ready to stop believing, either,” he stated. “I’m not ready to give in to the doubt.”
Watch McConaughey talk more about this in the video below.
‘Belief Is In Short Supply…’
Though he’s a religious man himself, McConaughey doesn’t think this is necessarily about faith in God.
“And I’m not only talking about belief in God,” he explained. “Personally, I am, for me, but for a lot of people, my agnostic friends, I am talking about belief in self, belief in others, belief in tomorrow, belief in their children, whatever that may be. Belief is in short supply, and I think we need it to survive.”
With all of the negativity going on in the world today, maintaining any kind of belief is easier said than done. However, it’s also more important than ever to keep the faith, as surrendering to doubt and cynicism is sure to doom us all.
God bless McConaughey for using his platform to spread this powerful message. If only we had more stars in Hollywood like Matthew McConaughey!