{"id":47432,"date":"2005-02-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/"},"modified":"2005-02-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-02-28T00:00:00","slug":"jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Foxx Motivated by an Indifferent Father"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jamie Foxx, the actor portraying Ray Charles in the movie <em class=\"citation\">Ray<\/em>, never had the relationship with his father that he wanted. His biological parents lived 28 miles away in Dallas, Texas, but rarely visited or noted his achievements.<\/p>\n\n<p>&ldquo;I passed for more than 1,000 yards, the first quarterback at my high school to do that,&rdquo; says Foxx. &ldquo;I was making the Dallas Morning News, and my father never came down. That&rsquo;s weird. Even to this day\u0097, nothing\u0085 but that absence made me angry. It made me want to be something. I said, I&rsquo;m going to make you look up one day and say, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s my son&rsquo;.&rdquo;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[409],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3374,3394,3862,3967,3971,4236,4245,4498,4596,5020,5102,5111],"tax_ctp_topics":[384],"class_list":["post-47432","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-achievement","tax_ctp_tags-affirmation","tax_ctp_tags-encouragement","tax_ctp_tags-fathers-day","tax_ctp_tags-fathers","tax_ctp_tags-indifference","tax_ctp_tags-influence","tax_ctp_tags-motivation","tax_ctp_tags-parenting","tax_ctp_tags-sons","tax_ctp_tags-success","tax_ctp_tags-support"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jamie Foxx Motivated by an Indifferent Father - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jamie Foxx Motivated by an Indifferent Father - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jamie Foxx, the actor portraying Ray Charles in the movie Ray, never had the relationship with his father that he wanted. His biological parents lived 28 miles away in Dallas, Texas, but rarely visited or noted his achievements. &ldquo;I passed for more than 1,000 yards, the first quarterback at my high school to do that,&rdquo; Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/\",\"name\":\"Jamie Foxx Motivated by an Indifferent Father - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2005-02-28T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2005-02-28T00:00:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Jamie Foxx Motivated by an Indifferent Father\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jamie Foxx Motivated by an Indifferent Father - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/jamie-foxx-motivated-by-indifferent-father\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jamie Foxx Motivated by an Indifferent Father - CT Pastors","og_description":"Jamie Foxx, the actor portraying Ray Charles in the movie Ray, never had the relationship with his father that he wanted. 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