Faith: Humbled by Reality Contestant
Sometimes God can provide meaning in places you would never expect. Recently, I was watching a reality show called Outlast: Season 2 (on Netflix) about a game of surviving in teams in the Alaskan bush. These reality shows generally cast people who are long on drama and often of questionable character. But, in this case I was completely caught off guard by a contestant named Joseph Malbrough.
Let me set the stage by telling you that the 16 contestants had to form teams and then survive as long as they could until 2 teams were left. At that point a grueling final contest was held for the $1 million prize. Also, contestants were allowed to change teams at will (or try at least). You can imagine that this causes considerable stress. A social situation like this is even stressful in an office team building exercise, let alone in the wilderness. Also, hunger, cold, and the chance of considerable prize money generally does not bring out the best in people.
But here comes Joseph, a 33-year-old (at the time) from the swamps of Louisiana. Almost immediately, there was something different about the way he talked and his demeanor. There was a calmness over him that I can’t really describe. There are personalities on the team that are immediately rubbing others the wrong way. Comments are being made that could easily turn people against each other. But it was clear that Joseph was not going to allow that to affect him or his teammates if possible.
You continue to see glimpses of Joseph’s quiet faith throughout the first 6 episodes. But it is at the end when his forgiveness and transformation of the entire team overshadow the viewer’s interest in the contest itself and suddenly you don’t seem to care who wins. In an early episode, another player named Joey on a different team ended up without any teammates because they all tapped out or left for various reasons. A player cannot stay without a team. Joey approached Joseph’s team and asked to join. This was not an easy decision because adding a 5th person would potentially divide the winnings by 5 instead of 4 and it also risks messing up a cohesive team dynamic. But, Joseph’s team voted to accept him.
After 6 episodes, a point is reached where there are only 2 teams left, Joseph’s team with 5 players and the other team with 2 players. With one final tough test left to determine the winner, Joey decides to try to defect to the opposing team because they are younger, stronger, and more likely to win the final contest. This doesn’t go well for him, and he returns to his own camp hoping he won’t be kicked off Joseph’s team for trying to leave. Upon returning, his teammates, who didn’t initially know he had left, were immediately suspicious of his activities. It didn’t help that he lied about where he had been or why he took the boat and disappeared for so long. Other than Joseph, the rest of the team is angry and starts plotting to vote him off the team which, quite honestly, is a natural reaction and one that I think most viewers sympathized with and felt was justified. This was a huge betrayal by someone who was shown grace to be allowed to join a team that didn’t need him.
But Joseph just watches all of this and contemplates his own reaction. When he sees Joey go down to the water by himself, he takes the opportunity to talk to him one on one. By this time, Joey is expecting he will be voted off but continues to not tell Joseph the whole truth about what he did. Joseph listens and certainly sees that he is still being lied to, but he pauses enough to suppress his instinct of becoming angry and instead encourages Joey and forgives him and even invites him to stay on the team. It was just an unbelievable moment of not getting what he deserved. You could see the emotion welling up in Joey. You can’t help but think of what Paul teaches in Romans 12:20 (quoting Proverbs 25:21-22).
If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.
Of course, we know what this is really teaching is that we overcome evil through love and kindness. Also, and more importantly in this case, it shows the person the error of their ways through the pressure that their own shame applies to themselves and demonstrates Christ’s love and forgiveness.
Joseph then convinces the other team members to allow Joey to stay-which if you watch any of these survival shows is a shocking turn of events. It didn’t seem to take much of a speech by him either which I think is a testament to the trust he built up by letting his actions do the talking.
As I mentioned in the title, I found this to be a convicting and even humbling display of faith, trust, and self-control. It makes me rethink how I interact with others in my own life. You can even see in this story linked below by CBN that the aftermath was even more effective. Joseph reports that he literally received 1000s of messages from people saying how they forgave people because of his actions or even found God. It was just an amazing example of God taking a seemingly small thing and using it to reach untold numbers of people.
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