Professional magician Dustin Tavella is known for captivating audiences with his craft. But the “America’s Got Talent” winner is also an outspoken Christian who shares his faith with fans.
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Tavella told CBN News his love for magic tricks started at an early age when he would attend various shows and started learning how to perform different tricks. As he grew older, he stopped playing and performing, and it wasn’t until a friend decades later performed magic tricks one day that Tavella — then an adult — rediscovered his love for the craft.
“We’re at a coffee shop one day and [my friend] just busted out a deck of cards, and some coins, and, man, it was like all of a sudden there’s all these people around, different ages, different skin colors, different backgrounds,” Tavella said. “And I was like, this one simple thing’s brought all these people together because I watched them become like children in that moment.”
For some reason, this simple moment was like a “bombing off” in Tavella’s heart, leading him to once again start remembering his love for magic tricks.
“I felt like God was like highlighting this,” he said. “So I went home and told my wife. I was like, ‘Babe, I’m a magician now.’ Like, that’s what every wife wants to hear, right?”
Rather than denigrate his plans or diminish them, his wife dove all in and “took it serious.” She said she also received a word from the Lord on the matter.
“She went on a run one day and was praying and she was like, ‘I don’t know why this sounds crazy, but I feel like God just told me you’re gonna win ‘America’s Got Talent’ doing these magic tricks and stuff,’” Tavella recalled, noting the information was wild at the time considering he had never even sought after going on the show. “It was crazy. I was like, ‘I’m not even gonna get on the show, let alone win this show.’ But my wife’s always right.”
Tavella, who was running a homeless ministry at the time, truly didn’t think he’d get on the show let alone win. But God had other plans. Two and a half years after his wife felt God’s prompting, Tavella made it on “America’s Got Talent” — and won, an experience that catapulted his career and proved the message his wife received to be true.
The popular magician also shared his path to Christianity, noting his parents’ marriage was “in shambles” when he was a child.
“Just drugs, alcohol, affairs. My dad was a drug dealer,” he said. “That’s how my parents met. Her friend … used to pick up drugs from my dad, and the beginning of my life, my parents were just complete dysfunction.”
But Tavella said they came to the Lord because there was a Christian couple who came into their life, and helped them get back on their feet and get sober. Suddenly, drugs, chaos, and furor were replaced with the Lord.
“As I was growing up, I was watching my parents grow with the Lord,” he said. “I was watching, like, as all this nonsense was eliminated from our family, I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ So by the time I got to the age where a lot of my friends were wanting to party and sleep around and all this stuff, I was like, ‘I don’t want anything to do with this, man.’”
Ultimately, Tavella believes this was all “God’s protection” to hold him back from the chaos that had plagued his family for far too long. Watch above for his full story.
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