REACHER’S ALAN RITCHSON TRUSTS GOD’S PLAN FOR WORK-LIFE BALANCE
REACHER actor Alan Ritchson sat down with Christian Huff, husband of Sadie Robertson Huff, to chat about family, faith and work-life balance.
It’s not easy, but with prayer and a peaceful spirit, Ritchson finds a way.
“This is…probably [the] greatest challenge I face…Where do I draw the line between the time that I spend chasing my own ambitions or my own creative desires, the things that I feel like I was equipped and called for creatively, my career, my desire to, you know, be there for my kids and guide and rear them well and be a husband,” the actor shared on Huff’s podcast.
“I mean, you know, where do I have time for spiritual growth…The time that I make space for…Instachurch, where I, you know, dedicate my platform one day a week…to spread the good news, I mean, that’s a taxing amount of time that I spend reading and preparing, and studying for,” he explained. “Those…minutes that I dedicate to that.”
Even though Ritchson’s “Instachurch” helps people grow closer to Christ, it still takes away from another good thing—time with his family.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations about that,” he said. “I pray about it a lot. I think I’ve been very lucky, especially in the last few years, where I’ve been more aligned with my faith.”
“Things are sort of happening for me in a way that allows me to be at home more. That allows me to…spend more time with my family or with things that really matter,” he told Huff. “Maybe a little bit of it is a divine happenstance, you know, but it’s hard, man.”
He acknowledged that he really doesn’t have a solid way to create balance. For the most part, he leaves it up to God.
“There are seasons, and I think I’ve also learned to just embrace that, and, you know, my wife has been really supportive of this too. She really understands the world that we’re in, the industry that I’m in and that there are waves that come,” the actor said. “And sometimes it means daddy’s gonna have to go away for a little while and we’re gonna have to ride this wave and figure it out, and sometimes that means we all pick up and go, like we did, you know, shooting the first season of REACHER.”
“I was finishing up a show, TITANS, for HBO, and they’d condensed all my work into, you know, a matter of months, and then I was going to stay in Toronto, where we filmed both, and just move right into REACHER. Such a span of time. We decided to move the kids, and we homeschooled, and, you know, we just…sort of bob and weave with whatever life [throws] our way,” he shared.
Ritchson sometimes feels jealous of people with normal jobs because they can make plans. As an actor in Hollywood, he doesn’t have much control over his schedule.
“I can never plan anything two days in advance because I don’t know what’s going [on]. You know, there might be a phone call tonight that has me in, like, Beijing tomorrow,” he said. “You know, like, I don’t know. So… we just have to be really flexible and fluid and trust that, you know, God’s gonna make a way for us to be in a state that you know promotes growth no matter what comes our way.”
Huff shared a clip of his time with Ritchson and called it a “privilege” to speak with him.Movieguide® recently reported how Ritchson spreads the Gospel through his roles:
“A lot of people, supposed Christians especially, criticize me for playing Reacher as if the only TV that should exist is seeing people silently folding their hands in the pew of a church. I mean, what kinds of stories are we supposed to tell?” he continued. “If we look at scripture, what do you find? You see a thousand years of an infinitely holy God holding tension with human beings as He tells the story of who He is.”
“[God] reveals who He is through an imperfect people, so we get stories of paganism and war and bloodshed and ghost stories, mysticism,” he explained. “We see miracles and magic; we see life and resurrection and death; and we see this incredible canvas where God is completely unafraid to tell the story of who He is through less than morally ambiguous characters: through pure evil sometimes.”
REACHER Season 2, Episode 5, has been nominated for a Movieguide® Award. Part of the review reads:
In Episode Five, Season Two of REACHER on Amazon Prime, Reacher and the surviving members of his former Army unit find out the reason their three friends were killed. It’s all part of a terrorist plot to sell 650 state-of-the-art anti-aircraft missiles that can shoot commercial planes out of the air. The team discovers the mysterious arms dealer’s henchmen have hijacked the missiles. Their plans to stop the transfer of the weapons to the highest bidder are put on hold briefly while they attend the Christian, military funeral of their third murdered friend.
Episode Five of REACHER: Season Two is an exciting, slam-bang episode. Season Two is one of the more gripping action series available on the major streaming outlets. Best of all, Episode Five has strong Christian, pro-family, patriotic values and overt references to resurrection and eternal life through Jesus. The best scenes, which are extremely moving and uplifting, are smack dab in the middle of Episode Five. However, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution because of strong foul language and intense violence involving ruthless, murderous terrorists in Episode Five of REACHER: Season Two.
TV Guide reported that REACHER will have a third season on Prime. The release date has not been announced, but it will likely arrive in late 2024.
