Zebedee Actor Shares Powerful Faith Journey

The story of Nick Shakoour, who plays Zebedee in “The Chosen,” is inspiring as that of the character he portrays. He traces his spiritual journey from Lebanon to the United States in a new book, “Transformer: Awakening from a Spiritual Coma.”

“I’ve always said ‘The Chosen’ was a conduit that God used to get me over to Texas,” Shakoour told CBN News. “Lo and behold, I didn’t think it would lead to a church conference invite with friends that I started to make with the construction crew, and then there are friends outside of the production.”

Attending that conference would change his life.

“It happened after the church conference was over,” he said. “We were in an empty arena. It was just me and pretty much nine people praying over. For some reason, I was thirsty to know who God really was. I was growing tired of people telling me to refer to scripture.”

The Bible had started speaking to him at the time, but Shakoour still had questions.

“[I was like], if this is real, like, where is God?” he said. “Where is God?’ On the way to the conference, I actually had a physically tangible — I guess you could call it low-energy — demonic attack where I felt like I was being swallowed alive and my body froze.”

Shakoour said he was terrified by the time he reached the conference, finding himself “completely broken and disarmed, and desperate.” He said he had no idea where life would be heading after the conference but ended up leaving totally transformed. “A force outside of me was growing larger and larger  and larger as my body was just almost shivering, quivering in fear,” Shakoour said.

He believes he was experiencing the presence of God in those moments, describing the profound impact it had on his body as the group continued laying hands on him and praying. Shakoour believes it was the moment he received the Holy Spirit, although initially, he was confused.

“I said, ‘yeah, but I thought that happened when my grandfather baptized me,’” he said. “And the intercessor there said, ‘Well, that may have been resting on you when your grandfather baptized you, but he’s resting in you.’ It really changed everything.”

Shakoour hopes his autobiography will inspire people to look deeper at his journey and to discover the power they, too, can find in the Lord.

–Alan Goforth