To God be the glory

Just got back from prayer meeting. Had a really good fellowship with the Lord. One of my aunties from Samoa led it this morning. What a blessing to have new voices of servants of God bring His message. Our theme this morning was remembering the love of God. That from His love, all blessings flowed. She said sometimes we forget where the blessings come from. We must always remember that everything we have we received from Him. Our possessions, our abilities and our lives. We are to return those blessings to Him in service.

We have been blessed this month with a fundraiser that exceeded our expectations. The program was extremely well received. It's almost enough to give you a big head. But this morning's theme was a great reminder that we are nothing without the love of God. His grace enabled us to be reconciled with Him. We must humble ourselves and use all of our God-given abilities to return the glory to Him. Sometimes when we think we are 'all that' as the kids say, it's always nice to be reminded where the true source of our success comes from.

The youth are very succeptible to this mentality. As young people, we think we are invincible and the world revolves around us. We forget that to live for Christ is to live for others. As we continue to prepare for our Labor Day mafuataga, may we remember that we are ambassadors for Christ and we should reflect Him in all we do.

I can wait

In this fast paced world, we become impatient if we're asked to wait. We want things now. We judge good service by how fast they are. We hate having to wait and extra minute at the drive thru. We wait impatiently for thirty seconds as the computer ramps up or as we wait for pictures to upload. And that most anxious of waits, as we give the cashier our credit or debit cards and wait for he 'approval.' There were many times in my youth that I would say a hundred silent prayers while waiting for the answer from the cash register. LOL Good 'ole college days. They seem so far away. It seems like an insult to us to be kept waiting.

The Bible is different. The word wait is more an attitude than an activity. To wait on the Lord is to trust the Lord. The Biblical concept has more to do with trust and faith. Sometimes God has a reason for making you wait. He took the Israelites through the desert for over forty years and made them wait to enter the promise land. He made Paul wait in a prison in Rome. The lesson seems to be that if we truly trust in God, then we can wait patiently for His timing.

There are times we want God to hurry up and answer our questions and solve our problems already. It seems like our prayers go like this: please do this and this for me. Oh and by the way, can you do it by next Monday because I really need it before the weekend. It's like we are putting God on OUR timeline. Our church has been waiting for over a year to have our building renovated. We have faced one delay after another. Our loan was disapproved. Then it was approved. Our blueprints were approved, then they had to be readjusted. We are becoming more and more impatient. Sometimes we wonder if there's ever going to be a new building.

When I get discouraged from waiting on plans to materialize, I go back to Isaiah's words. He said that those that wait on the Lord will be blessed. We will have our strength renewed. We will run and not be weary. We just need to trust that God has our best interest at heart. It takes a lot of faith to wait. It's human nature to want things now. It's the person of faith that can say, I can wait.

Stand in the gap

When the Israelites where under attack from the Babylonians, God asked people to come and stand in the gap of the crumbling walls of the city of Jerusalem. He wanted to find someone to come and stand in the gap before Him to justify why He should save His people. He found no one.

In today's world, spiritual walls are crumbling all around us. Sin and temptation are all around us. And they seem to be taking straight aim at our leaders, particularly are spiritual leaders. When the devil sees that a person of God is winning souls for the Lord, the devil attacks that person relentless. He uses our flesh to entice us. Some of the leaders have fallen to sex, alcohol, gambling, greed. You name it, the devil will use any means to bring down a person who stands strong for the Lord. That's why it's important for us to stand in the gap for these leaders. Lift them up in your prayers that God sends down an force of protection for them. They are the most vulnerable to attack. The devil knows that if the shepherd falls, many in the flock will become discouraged and will stray from the Lord. So please keep God's messengers in your prayers. Stand in the gap fro them.

But also stand in the gap for each other. If you know someone who is vulnerable to attack, stand in the gap in prayer for them. If someone you know has weaknesses that the devil can exploit, stand in the gap for them. Reach out in encouragement for them and let them know that we are praying for them. Some of us are called to minister. Some of us are called to be missionaries. Some of us are called to prophesy. And some of us are called to be prayer warriors and to stand in the gap for His people.

Compartments

Today [Saturday] was a really long day. Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like it happened in sections? Let me 'splain as my students would say. It's when your day has different compartments and they don't all necessarily fit into one another. OK, let me go at it another way. I always start my Saturdays by going to prayer meetings at 6:30am. I've found it a great way to start my weekends for about ten years now. The only times I miss is when I'm out of town or when I'm working. But those are far and few between. The irony is that I'm not a morning person. I HATE mornings. In fact, after I've brushed my teeth and put on my clothes, I feel like the day is done because the hardest part is over, getting out of bed.

Anyways, I am like the youngest person in this group. By about twenty years. Seriously, the person closest to my age is my mom and she's...well never mind she comes on here sometimes. LOL But you know what? It's actually kind of cool to hang out with the elders of the church for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning. I know, call me weird. And the meditation in the morning is awesome spending quality time with the Lord and singing the old LMS classics. It always gets my weekend off on the right foot. We go to breakfast afterwards and enjoy some good fellowship. Like I said, my Saturday are like compartments. That was compartment one.

Compartment two is going to school afterwards to work on getting my room ready for school on Monday. I met up with some co-workers and went over our lesson plans for the week and all the other teacher stuff we had to do. These guys are all palagi professionals who had no idea what I was just doing a few hours earlier. I spent a couple of hours with them.

Compartment three came when my sister visited me at school to go over the program for our upcoming Labor Day mafutaga. But before she could come, a good friend of mine dropped in for a visit. He's a fellow local boy from back in Hawaii. We reminisced about our times in high school and how much trouble we were for the teachers. I mean HE was for the teachers. LOL I guess being in a classroom brought back memories for him. When my sister came he left shortly thereafter. We got a little planning done, but before we knew it it was time for pese.

Compartment four was pese. I sang in the choir and sang very well, if I may say so myself. We went over our play list for tomorrow. Again these different compartments were totally separate from each other. Each of them play a big part in my life, but each different. After pese we finally met with the other leaders of the youth group to nail down the plan of action for the mafutaga. I believe we got it down.

Finally headed home, after 14 hours and on to compartment five. The most important compartment, spending time with my wife and daughter. It's been too long. I've talked to my little girl four times on the phone, but it's not the same. We spent about an hour together before my wife reminded me we had a date. So off I went to compartment six, the movies.

As I'm sitting in the movie theater, the prayer meeting that started my day seemed like it was last week. But it was still in the same day. Saw a really good movie, "Time Travellers Wife." Very thought provoking. It' about a time traveller, duh. But the movie evokes some important questions. Who controls our destiny? If you could, would you rather find out about your future or let it unravel on its own? Very poignant picture. Not something I'd see on my own, but with the love of my life next to me, it was very special. OK, I'll admit, I really liked it. Plus the main characters have a daughter the same age as Perise so off course I projected everything that happened to the little girl to my daughter and...well, I guess you'll just have to go see the movie yourself.

Then it's back home and on to the blog to unwind about my day. They aren't always this varied. Some days I'd spend all Saturday at one place. Today just wasn't one of those days. And it's still not over. There may even be a compartment...what number are we up to now?

A tough call

I've shared with you over the last month or so some of the changes that my family has gone through. We went up to New Mexico to help my brother in law's fiance move down here to Texas. We had her stay with us while waiting for her apartment to open up. We also had to deal with a death in the family.

But perhaps the biggest change we've had to deal with was taking in two children from our church who were looking for a home to go to. They were from a troubled background. A four year old and a one year old. As I've described in past postings, we weren't given much notice. We got a call on a Friday evening saying if we didn't take them in they would be put into the system and they could end up anywhere. My wife and I looked at each other and said, "we'll do it since it's the best thing for the kids to stay around family."

From the beginning, it's been a real struggle. Our daughter is also four and an only child. She's used to having the run of the house. She knows our rules and generally abides by them. She's no angel by any means, but she follows the rules. The four year old we took in was a struggle. She was thrown into a new environment and struggled acclimating to our rules. And our daughter was always happy to be the big sister. The problem was the girl didn't want a big sister. In other words, they clashed. Constantly. What contributed to the problem was that the state gave us guidelines as far as disciplining the children that we had to abide by. These guidelines were different than our guidelines. My daughter picked up pretty quickly that she was treated differently than the other girl. And so did the girl. My daughter questioned why we didn't punish the girl as did her.

To make a long story short, the arrangement wasn't working out. It seemed as if we were putting out fires everyday. And all our free time was spent running around getting things ready for the kids' school or daycare. We were also struggling with the notion of what would happen to the kids once they left us. Were we wasting our efforts in trying to stabilize them if they were returned to the environment that caused the destabilization. But the thing that concerned us the most was the toll it was taking on our daughter. She was beginning to exhibit some of the defiant behaviors that we saw in the four year old. And she was becoming more and more agitated and frustrated everyday. In fact, after one incident in which I had to punish her, she asked me if I still loved her.

So my wife and I made one of the hardest decision we've ever had to make. We decided to return them to Social Services. There was a large part of me that keeps questioning whether I did the right thing. My wife had a lot of doubts. Were we giving up too soon? Were we not upholding our Christian values of being our brothers' keepers? But in the end, we made the decision that was best for our daughter and best for the children. In fact, best for EVERYONE involved. They would now be in a stable household that has professional foster parents that have been trained in caring for special needs children.

As we dropped them off at the office, the four year old kept asking if she has to go look for a new house now. She asked if she was leaving because she was bad. I told her no. We told were going to a family that can better help them than us. I told her to say her prayers every night, which is something new we taught her and to look after her brother. It broke my heart, but I knew that her new home is better for her and her brother.

Failing the test

I read a story once about a class of seminary students who were given an assignment to preach on the Good Samaritan. The story about how people passed someone who was in need. Many of the people who passed this person in need were from the same tribe. The person that finally stopped to help was a person from another tribe, the Samaritans.

As they were on their way to deliver their sermons, they raced across campus. Their professor had arranged for someone posing to be in need to be ask them for help as they were going to class. Fearing they would be late, none stopped to help. When they got to class all delivered superb sermons. Theologically sound, supported by wonderful anecdotes and quoting all the major theologians and even a few contemporary figures. When the professor got up at the end of the sermons, he announced that they had all failed the assignment. Addressing the shocked group of seminary students, he explained what he had done. All hung their heads in shame. They knew the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan inside out, but given the real world opportunity to act on it, they failed.

As Christians we must realize that our faith is not abstract. Its not a code written on a piece of paper to be memorized. It is surely to be memorized, but most importantly it should be acted upon. Knowing the Gospel does no good if you don't put it into practice, work out your faith. So today, put your faith to work. Look for someone who is in need. A neighbor who needs a hand. An elderly person who needs companionship. A young couple who needs financial help. Our world races around us most of the times. Often we find that 24 hours is just not sufficient. But let's not be in such a hurry that we pass by a person in need whose burdens we could help lighten.

A step of faith

I often hear people who say they want to give their lives to Christ, but they're scared that their lives would change too much. They say there's too much they don't know or understand. So instead of acting, they remain frozen. They confess there love for Christ, but say they are afraid of failure and sliding back to their old ways.

I am reminded of the story of Joshua. The people of Israel had to cross the river Jordan but it's waters were raging. In fact, it was flood season and there was no way to cross it. But God told Joshua to tell the people to take up the ark of the covenant and cross the river. As soon as the feet of the people touched the Jordan, the water receded.

God wants us to come o Him, but He can't make us do it. And He also demands that we take the first step, to step out in faith. The water didn't start to recede until their feet touched the water. Until they left the comfort and security of the shore. We get into a comfort zone that anytime we are asked to leave it, we become tentative. There are areas in our lives that we're afraid to change. There are times when we know what the right decision is, but need a little nudge to get there. Faith isn't faith if everything was black and white. Faith is when there are shades of gray, yet we see black and white.

God is waiting. He's ready to pull back the flood waters and lead us into a new land - a land filled with His peace and true contentment. But we MUST commit. Let's trust Him with every area of our life. Let's take a firm hold of His hand and boldly step off the shore.