...malia...

                The resounding gong of humility seems to play over and over in my life.  Whether I embrace the revelation and/or necessity of humility on my own, or maybe God Himself gently brings me to my knees, this is one thing I wish you could just take a pill for…  This year, even with four months still to go, I’ve already had enough ‘drop to my knee’ moments with God to leave imprints in my wood floors.  If it isn’t the constant need to rely on Him for His financial, emotional, relational, psychological (haha, yes, this one too) provision, it’s the mere fact that He places the lives of young people in my hands every day to mold into passionate people for God.  What experience do I have or what do I know to be qualified for this?  To be entrusted with this ridiculous and yet tremendous responsibility?  Or the all too familiar cry of David, “Who am I” that You would choose me?

                I think the hardest part in all of this is that I’m constantly reminded that I don’t have anything special, nor am I extraordinarily talented, nor do I even have some sort of documentation or certification beyond the school of campus ministry, to dub me sufficiently worthy of leading others...well I am licensed to marry people (you know, conduct weddings).  In my mind, I’m just a girl that loves God and chooses to be used by Him.  So I guess that’s where the extreme necessity for humility has come in. 

                To consummate this thought, I randomly picked up ‘My Utmost for His Highest’ from my bookshelf this morning and read in today’s excerpt, “We say – God intends me to be here because I am so useful.  Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use.  God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is.”

In the end, no matter our calling, whether ministry, running a business, or forecasting the weather, we are placed in order to constantly rely on His direction, knowing that we are not here to satisfy some life calling that He is incapable of fulfilling without us, but to glorify Him in whatever we do.

And somewhere along the way, He uses us. 

                “"For My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being," declares the LORD.  "But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.”” (Isaiah 66:2 NASB)

Matt 11:28-30. 'Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light."' NLT

Gosh, I love the Lord...Even with a dozen things on my plate right now, I couldn't be more thankful for His yoke that He's chosen, to refine and mold ME!  Step by step, walking into the sunset of His bigger vision...

This was just an appropriate revelation to start the day...thought i would share it with you ;)

Lately I’ve been contemplating this idea of the standard of living.  This generation seems to feed off of living in the ambiguity of mediocrity, of aiming for the expectation level, of drawing satisfaction from just getting by... It seems like we’ve stopped dreaming and have settled for much too short of the fairytale... maybe ending up with the coachman instead of the prince (I’m not advocating that the coachman never get a girl, okay...)  But we’ve trained ourselves to think this way so never get hurt or run the risk of being...ouch...disappointed...

Anyway, this is not exclusive to meeting our ’S.O.’ (significant other).  We’ve been conditioned with this capped expectation level in our careers, lifestyles, even friendships...

Well I think there’s a solution...  In the Message Bible, it says "Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God....Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."  (Romans 12:2).   The world says your dreams are a waste of time, but I believe that not only does God want us to rise to a new expectation level, but promises that He’ll give us the stamina to get there (and heighten our maturity along the way). 

So I’ve been challenged, and extend this same challenge to you (haha...to all of you, my readers!), to DREAM BIG…to not settle for the hills and valleys of life only to return to the same, worn-out spot, but to up your faith to a higher point and believe that with a little work, a lot of heart, and God, anything is possible.

What's the standard of living that I'm believing for?  To change the stinkin’ world of course!

One of the most surprising elements of my trip to Kauai this time around, and quite possibly, the only reason that I truly appreciate the 11 days that I’m here, is the fact that I believe I’ve finally found my home…on Oahu :).  It’s crowded, there’s too much traffic, and stupid random black trucks stop in the middle of dark side streets only to be hit by usually very cautious, unsuspecting drivers…yes, it’s true, beware!    Yet strangely enough, I kind of like it now.

Anyway, for the past three years plus, I’ve been traveling the world (well, mainly just the west coast and Hawaii), in and out of school, back and forth between houses, roommates, jobs, churches, and wardrobes (I don’t mind that part), and never really knowing where my “home” is.  And even though home is such an ambiguous term (you know, ’home is where the heart is,’ ‘my home is in heaven,’ ‘there’s no place like home’) …realistically, home hasn’t been a term that I could identify with, quite possibly since I left Hawaii in 1998 to attend Oregon State.  Just in the past three years, I’ve gone from Oregon to Kauai to Oregon to LA to Oregon to Kauai again, back to Oregon, and finally to Oahu this past December.  I’ve been greeted by more flight attendants,  saw more green road signs, packed and unpacked more black suitcases than I would’ve ever thought possible, but praise God, I believe the moving has come to an end…at least for now ;)


Undeniably, I’ll always be a Kaua'i girl at heart…I love wearing surf shorts and slippers, eating at some of our local favs (bread & deli, kalena’s, and yaay for Koloa Fish Market Hawaiian plate with Korean poke…I tell you, it’s the best!), and the fact that I never REALLY have to lock my car is a major plus.  But maybe it’s just the nature of this trip, or that I'm bored enough to be writing a blog right now, or the fact that my most regular companion is my schizophrenic feline friend that lives at the house I’m housesitting for (of which has completely lost my trust due to frequent random attacks from underneath the couch…umm yah, I’m serious).  But whatever it is, it makes me thankful that I can say that I’m here for a visit…but I won’t be staying…

So Monday afternoon…I’m going home.

Disclaimer: I'm kind of partial to intentional acts of kindness and run-on sentences... Use this information as is applicable .

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end of the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt


I just liked this quote and i wanted to see how this blog thing worked....haha....