July 21, 2023 • 60 mins
Receive hope every day with our inspirational devotionals at RelentlessHope.com.
This week in Relentless Hope, we follow the inspiring journey of Mike Kai, a man who faced deep struggles and heartbreak, leading him to the brink of despair. From a turbulent marriage to a crisis of faith and a sense of purposelessness, Mike's life seemed on a downward spiral. However, everything changed when he stumbled upon a church where he encountered God's love and grace. Through prayer, dedication, and unwavering faith, Mike's life transformed, leading to newfound joy, healing, and a fulfilling purpose. Join us as we delve into this tale of redemption and the power of prayer that turned his life around.
Learn to love your life, lead with purpose and leave a legacy of helping others with Relentless Hope. The Relentless Hope with Steve Gatena Podcast gives hope a voice by sharing stories from the world’s most passionate leaders.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let us pray. God is our refuge and strength of
very present help in trouble Psalm forty six one. My
Father and my God, thank you for always offering protection
and shelter in your loving arms. Stand by me to
day as I go about the day, and keep me
(00:21):
safe from harm, misfortune, and sadness. I trust in you
to keep watch over me and guide me along the
best path for my life. Let your light shine upon
me and provide me the strength needed to fight my battles.
Remind me that you are always by my side. Father,
(00:41):
Allow me to always trust in your power and protection. Amen,
thank you for joining us in prayer. Now for the
Relentless Hope Podcast, where we bring you true stories and
personal testimonies that will help you love your life, lead
with purpose, and leave a legacy of helping others.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Welcome back to Relentless Hope, the podcaster where we explore
inspiring stories of faith, transformation and the unwavering power of
God's love. I'm your host, Matthew Potter, and today we
have a truly remarkable tale of redemption and hope that
will touch your heart and uplift your spirit. In this episode,
we'll dive into the life of a man whose journey
(01:32):
took him from the depths of despair to the heights
of faith and purpose. Born and raised on the enchanting
island of Hawaii, he experienced the struggles and temptations of youth,
strained far from his spiritual roots. But in his darkest moments,
a glimmer of hope appeared, a chance encounter that led
him to a life changing decision. Through tears of brokenness
(01:56):
and nights filled with prayers, he found solace in guidance
in the arms of God. The power of grace transformed
his life, setting him on a path of growth, enlightenment,
and an unyielding devotion to Jesus Christ. Join us on
this episode of Relentless Hope as we hear Mike Kai's
powerful testimony how he faced heartbreak and loss, but through
(02:18):
unwavering faith, he found the strength to rebuild his life.
This captivating story will remind us that even in our
lowest moments, God's love is always there, ready to embrace
us and lead us towards a brighter future. Let's begin
today's episode of Relentless Hope with Mike Kai. Amidst unchanging circumstances,
(02:43):
Mike Kai discovers the true power of growth, prayer, and
God's profound impact, leading his life from darkness to an
inspiring upward trajectory.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I hung in there.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
I thought my marriage would get fixed. I thought she'd
come back, and like the changes, I thought things would
be different. But even though my circumstances never changed.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I was changing.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
I was changing, I was growing, I was reading the
Bible of his learning how to pray. I was hearing
God's voice in my heart of hearts, and.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
My anger was going away. My depression was gone.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I found purpose and reason for living, and things started
to work out in small ways in my favor and
in big ways as well. And God began to turn
my life around and changed me in an instant. But
my life began to change, and the trajectory of my
life began to go from the left side to the
upper right, and things were beginning to change.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
On part one of this three part series, we hear
the powerful story of Mike's journey from despair to redemption.
Through faith and prayer, he discovers the transformative power of
God's love, leading him to find hope and a remarkable companion.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
I come from a small town of two thousand people
on the big island of Hawaii. It's called the Island
of Hawaii in the state of Hawaii.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Grew up.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Being the second child of four siblings, have an older brother,
a younger brother, and a younger sister. Grew up in
the early eighties, so to speak, is when my formative
years of my childhood.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Coming from a small town. Of course, I went to
a small.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
School, and when I graduated from high school, I would
say that I embarked on an incredible journey for my life.
That I had no idea whatsoever that I would end
up becoming a pastor one day.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Growing up in rural Hawaii was a blessing.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I had great parents who took us to church every Sunday.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I was an altar boy in the.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Catholic Church, and I loved serving the priests, and I
really enjoyed the opportunity for that to serve the congregation
as a young child. I thank God. All my priests
were godly men, and they taught me the ways of
the Lord. I learned how to pray, and when I
got older, I got confirmed. But when I left and
(05:30):
moved to the big city of Honolulu to go to
the university of Hawaii. I would say looking back that
I had a lot of great religious training, but I
really did not have a relationship with Jesus Christ as
my Lord and savior. Graduated at the age of seventeen,
moved to the big city of Honolulu. Starstruck in awe
(05:55):
of the size of the city. I could not believe
that my university class had so many people in it,
more than my own high school graduating class.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I got lost in the crowd.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Not only was I lost in the crowd, but also
I got lost in many ways looking for acceptance being
a younger underclassman from all the athletes wanting to walk
on the basketball team or the football team had my choice.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Wasn't sure which one I wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
I ended up doing things that, of course, when you're
far away from God, that you do. I got caught
up in a lot of drinking, got caught up in
the party scene, hardly went to class. Eventually, even though
I wanted to be in the Air Force, I was
in an ROTC program my freshman year.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
By my sophomore year, I was.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Really just letting loose and quickly began to see that
if I didn't make a change, I was going to
be out of college pretty soon, out of the university.
In the meantime, I met this girl, and I absolutely
could say that I head over heels for her. I
never really had a girlfriend growing up, you know. On
(07:04):
the growing up, I was a little bit shorter, I
was smaller, little immature in my growth process. But I
definitely loved girls, no doubt about it. So when I
had my first girlfriend, I hit and I hit it
hard man, and I just contributed more to a downward
spiral of my life. Even though I wouldn't listen to anybody,
(07:28):
was doing what I.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Thought was right and what I wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
My parents try to speak into it from long distance
telephone calls, long distance letters. There was no email back
then when dinosaurs roam the earth, and I basically ran
my life the way I wanted to before I knew it.
As time gone by, I became the person that I
didn't really want to become. And then, to add even
(07:52):
greater pressure to what I was going through, I found
out that at the age of nineteen that I was
going to be a father.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I was not ready, I.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Was not prepared, but her mother and I decided that
we definitely were keeping this child, and we were bringing
this child into the world.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So I did what I believe was the right.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Thing to do, and we got married. I'm nineteen years old,
I'm married.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
I'm young.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
My whole life was ahead of me. So in order
to pick up the responsibility that I have to take,
I quit school and I pick up a job at
a shell service station and I ended up working at
a pizza hut.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
My life as I saw it.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I couldn't believe that this is what was going on.
I didn't realize that this is how far I'd fallen.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
But I was bringing a child.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Into the world, and I.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Had to really grow up very very quickly. Marriage was tough.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Two people who don't know God, who are not going
to church, and now all of a sudden you thrust
into this a trying to make a marriage work. It
didn't last very long. Within a year and a half
we were already separated. I was absolutely lost and devastated.
(09:21):
I wanted to stay married, but it takes two to
make things work, and it was not working. I ended
up having custody of my daughter, and that was the
blessing that I had. And while I was raising her
by myself and working my jobs and trying to make
things work. My heart was broken. I realized that I
(09:43):
wanted to remain married. I realized that things needed to change,
but they were not changing in that by the time
I'm twenty one years old. Now I am so rock
bottom that I'm thinking about ending my life. But because
I have this girl that's keeping me alive.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
She needs me. Her mother's not in the picture.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
I didn't want to live anymore, but I had to
because I have a mother and a father who love
me and don't know the whole story. And I have
two brothers and a sister who I could just envision
my funeral and realize that they would be blaming themselves
for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So I knew that I needed to live.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
In the meantime, I'm switching jobs and my new friends
are telling me that I need to come to church
because now we're becoming very close, and they're telling me
I need to come to church, and I tell them
I don't want to go to church. They said, no,
you got to come to church. I don't want to
go to church, and they keep on bugging me about
coming to their church. So one day after bugging me
and I'm trying to avoid the question. My friend Brandon says,
(10:51):
come on, Mike, you got to come to church. I said,
I don't want to go to church. Says you got
to come to my church. I said, I don't want
to go to your church.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
He goes, you would love my church.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
I said, well, tell me about it, and just to
get him off my back, and he says, you know, well,
my church has got drums. I said, your church has drums.
You got drums in your church? He said yeah, and
what else? I said, what else about your church? He says, well,
my church has a pastor. I said, you have a pastor.
You mean you don't have a priest. Say, I have
a pastor. And he said, well, what does your pastor
look like?
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Well, he wears jeans.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
And I said what does he teach from? He teaches
from a Bible. Your pastor wears jeans. You teach from
a Bible. You've got drums at your church. I said
that does not sound like a church, bro it sounds
like a cult. And he goes, no, no, no, it's
a church, man.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
You would love it. You would love it.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
It's called Hope Chapel. And his pastor's name is Ralph Moore,
and you gotta come. And I said, well, one day,
one day.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I'll come.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Well the next day he says, you know, if you
come to my church, he says, Mike, I'll buy you breakfast.
And I said, okay, sold uh, I mean breakfast, right,
I'm not making a lot of money. Someone wants to
buy me breakfast. Of course I'm going to go to church.
And so finally I said yes. I said hey, And
I want to say to everybody out there, do not
underestimate the power of Baker, okay, because Bacon is powerful.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
And I said yes.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
And I remember getting Courtney, my two year old daughter,
dressed up for church, got her all ready, and here
we are going off to church, and I'm so excited
but also nervous. At the same time. I'm wearing my
Sunday best. She's wearing her Sunday best. And the closer
we get to church, I can hear those drums, and
those drums are pounding, and those drums are my heart's
(12:23):
pounding like a drum.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
And we get closer and people are hugging me.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
They take my daughter Courtney to the children's church, and
I'm going into the other direction. And I they seat
me in the second row. I mean, who sits a
brand new person in the second row. And I'm in
the second row, and I'm thinking, oh, great man, the
pastor can read my mind. He knows what I'm thinking,
he knows what I've done. And I'm feeling so convicted there.
(12:49):
But in the same time, I'm just feeling love. I'm
feeling love, I'm feeling lighter, I'm feeling something I cannot describe.
And I'm reading the worship words on the old overhead
projector and they look like love songs to God, love
(13:09):
songs to God. That's the way that I would call them.
They were ballads to God. And I could almost take
her name and put it in the place of God.
It was as if God was They had written songs
that were love songs to God, and they were praise
and worship songs, but I didn't know the words to that.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I used to go to kuta oka or karaoke.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Bars, and that's how I would spend some time, and
I would sing and people would give me money, please
sing this song, and I'd sing that Elton John song.
I'd sing this other song, unchained melody, but this was this.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Was love songs to God, and he grabbed me.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
And I don't know what the pastor preached, and I
don't know all the things that he said, but I
do know at the end that if there was any
way that I could sign up, if there was any
way and I could.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Raise my hand and respond, that I would.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
And at the end of the service, he gave what
we call an altar call that if you want Jesus
in your life, if you want to be freed, if
you want forgiveness of your sins, if you want the
assurance of heaven.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
He said, if you want a new life, and I
my life.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
I've raised my hand and I gave my life to
the Lord that Sunday A long time ago.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
It was nineteen eighty.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Nine and over thirty years ago. My life has never
been the same since I hung in there. I thought
my marriage would get fixed. I thought she'd come back,
and like the changes, I thought things would be different.
But even though my circumstances never changed, I was changing.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I was changing.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
I was growing, I was reading the Bible of His
learning how to pray. I was hearing God's voice in
my heart of hearts, and I was My anger was
going away. My depression was gone. I found purpose and
reason for living, and things started to work out in
small ways in my favor and in big ways as well,
(15:11):
and God began to turn my life around. He changed
me in an instant, but my life began to change,
and the trajectory of my life began to go from
the left side to the upper right, and things were
beginning to change. I had waited. I'd been a faithful husband,
and I waited.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
But when it.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Became absolutely apparent and undoubtedly evident that we would not
be together again, that's when I reality hit and I
realized that God, I've been faithful, I've righted some wrongs,
and I've done the right things, and I've been faithful
(15:52):
to you.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And you know, at that moment, it's real.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Easy for people to get discouraged and for me to go, well, God,
you never answered my prayer and this doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
And God, you never mended my marriage.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And even though I was a contributor to why it
wasn't working, God, you must not be real or you
disappoint me, and I'm not going to follow you. This
Christianity does at work. I'm so glad you know that
I didn't do that. I'm so glad that I hung
in there, that I trusted God through it all, because
I wouldn't be where I'm at today. So when it
was finally over, and when the ink was dry, I
(16:24):
finally said, okay, Lord, I'm going to be married to you.
I knew I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for anybody else.
I'm older. Now it's been three years since the separation,
and I'm like twenty four, and I'm moving on with
my life and I'm working for American Airlines.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Now.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
I got a job and I got involved in multi
level marketing, and it changed a lot of the way
that I thought and a lot of the way that
I did things, and I began to see a lot
of great things happen. But for the next year, I said, Lord,
I'm just married to you. I'm just married to Jesus.
I'm not dating anybody. I never did before that was
faithful to my vows.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And got one more year. I'm making a vow to you,
and I'm married to you.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
And when that one year had gone by, and that
one year had passed, that's when I said, okay, Lord,
if I can ever get married again, if you find
that I'm worthy of having a wife. Then God, Courtney
needs a mom and I need a wife. And I
began to pray specifically. You know this is pray dot com.
(17:24):
Can I tell you to pray specifically? Because I began
to pray specifically, I heard a pastor named Jack Hayford,
one of the most respected men in Christianity. I heard
him on the radio because I was discipled on Christian
radio and I heard him on the radio and he
said that if you're going to pray, pray specifically, do
not be afraid to ask God. And I asked God,
(17:44):
and I said God, Okay, I'm going to pray specifically.
And I said, Lord, if I can ever get married again,
and if you would ever bring me a wife, I said, Lord.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Number one. Number one. You're gonna laugh at this, but
I said number one.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Can she be gorgeous, drop dead gorgeous Chinese?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Beautiful Chinese?
Speaker 4 (18:02):
And because I thought Chinese women, I thought, if I
got married to Chinese woman, we make beautiful kids together.
I said, Number one, she's got to be Chinese. Okay,
drop that gorgeous Chinese. Number two, she's gotta love Jesus
more than she loves me. Okay, that's number two, she's
gotta love Jesus more than she loves me. And then
(18:23):
number three, she's got to be five foot seven. Gotta
be five foot seven because I didn't want I didn't
want short kids, you know, So five foot seven gorgeous
Chinese loves Jesus more than she loves me.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Because I felt that if she loves.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Jesus more than she loves me, we'll make it through anything, because.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Jesus will be our bond.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
And I wasn't looking in the church for every five
foot seven Chinese woman. I didn't take my tape measure
out with me and try to measure ladies and stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I just waited patiently on the Lord.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I've already waited three and a half years, four years,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And I just said, Lord, you know, and I'm patient.
I'm waiting on you.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
And I saw her and her name was Lisa Lum
saw her at a Christmas party.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And this was a long process.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
This is a long process of no dating, long process
of staying faithful, long process of lonely nights, long process
of doing work and becoming the person, and not about
so much anything else but raising my daughter and being
the best person that I could be, and growing in
(19:33):
every aspected area of my life.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
And that's what I did.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
And so when I met Lisa, we just were immediately
attracted to one another, but we needed to pump the
brakes and we decided that a friendship was what we
needed more.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Than anything else.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
And after about six months, nine months gone by, and
finally I realized that, I said, Lord, this is who
I prayed for, this is what I asked for, and
I think you've brought her.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I don't know. I'm waiting.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
I'm not getting any younger, and I'm not playing the field.
I'm not going to the club anymore. I hadn't gone
in a long time. There was no e harmony, there
was no online dating sites.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
It was the old fashioned way. And I found her
at church and I said, Lord, there's nobody else. This
is it, This is the best. And so I proposed,
and Lisa and I had.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
A short engagement. We got married in two and a
half months. Proposed to her and we were married in
two and a half months. And you know, and here
we are two more daughters. Rebecca she's now twenty two.
Carus she's now thirteen, We've got three girls, Courtney, Rebecca,
(20:45):
and Carus, and we've got two grandchildren. Believe it or not,
Bowie is four four years old and Otis.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Is almost going to make two years old.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
And they live in Portland, Oregon, and with the mom
and dad, Courtney and Jason. Courtney's a beautiful, beautiful mother
and hard worker.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
And my life is blessed.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
And here Lisa and I are here, we are married.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Twenty five years, twenty five years. Sin It's been the
best twenty five years.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Of my life. And I would say that God heard
my prayers. And even those nights where I was up
late at night, or moments where I would cry at
work when nobody would see, or just my heart was
broken for things that I've heard and I just longed for.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
God answered my prayers. And I'm telling you.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Pray, God, pray. Not all my prayers were answered the
way that I wanted them answered. I didn't get everything
I asked for, but I got more than I ever
expected or more than I.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Ever could deserve. Jesus is amazing.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
When he said I want you to pray about it,
I had to pray about it. I drove to that
side of the island. It's not my favorite side of
the time. It was hot, it's dry, it doesn't rain
very much. And got up into the mountains where it
overlooked that whole part of the island that I passed
her today and back then, I remember sitting up there
every morning before the kids would wake up, I drinking
(22:13):
a cup of coffee, and I said, God, I don't
know if you want me to be a pastor of
a church. I don't want to be a pastor of
a church already had five pastors before it, and they
want another one.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
And it's a young church, and they got.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Forty people, and I'm gonna leave this youth ministry. It's booming,
and said it's best it's ever been. And I'd wake
up the next day after camp, next morning, grab a
cup of coffee, sit in the same rock, overlooking the
same west side of a wall who up in the
mountains and looking over and praying, say God, I don't
want to be a senior pastor. I don't want to
(22:46):
leave my church. And Connie, oh, hey, but Lord, not
my will, but your will be done. The next day,
I wake up after running camp again and I sit
down on the rock and my prayers begin to change.
So I'm thirty seven Verse forces, delight yourself from the Lord,
and he will give you the desires.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Of your heart.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Interesting how I delighted myself in God, and he gave
me the desires of my heart. But my desires began
to change.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
My desires became his desires.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
I wanted what God wanted, not what I wanted. And
I sat on that rock and I said.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Lord, if you want me to go, I'll go. But
I don't want to go.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
But not my will, but your will be done.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
On part two of this three part series, Pastor Mike
Kei shares his journey from uncertainty to fulfillment, highlighting the
power of trust and surrender to God's plans. With a
hunger for greatness and a willingness to follow God's lead,
he finds himself on a transformative path to becoming a pastor,
demonstrating that God's plan always surpasses our own.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Growing up, but never saw myself as a leader.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
I always seemed to be the follower who wanted to
be the leader. But because of my probably my height
at the time. To be honest with you, and there
were guys that I grew up with were bigger, stronger, faster,
and they just had this natural ability to lead. So
(24:22):
I never saw myself as a leader as I was
growing up, but I think when I got into college
and even beyond college, you started to see that there
was a leader within me. I aspired to be a
great leader. There are people like John Maxwell that I
admired in his writings.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
There are people that shaped a lot of my thinking.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
On leadership, people like doctor Norman, Vincent Peel, Clement Stone.
There are different people in different parts of my life
that have an authors.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Who mentored me through their books.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Because when I had to leave college, I didn't have
an opportunity for me to go myself to go back
because I was raising my daughter and working and just
trying to make it work and doing a multi level
marketing business. And this multi level of marketing business, believe
it or not, actually helped me become the leader who
I am today.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
It was groundbreaking, it.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Was foundation setting, It was what God knew that I
needed at that time. So because I couldn't go to
college anymore and because I got into this multi level
marketing business, they taught me about the importance of books
and listening to teachings.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Back then it was tapes.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Then it evolved to CDs and DVDs, and today we
listened to podcasts. But back then my version of podcasts
was a tape, so I'd listen to a motivational tape.
I would read books that were motivational. One of the
most impacting books that I ever read was by an
author named og Mandino, and the series was called The
(25:54):
Greatest Salesman in the World.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
And that book just grabbed.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
And touched my heart when it came to FI Finances
as a young man at the age of twenty one
twenty two, I read this really good book.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
It's very old.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
I don't even know who the author is, but it
was called The Greatest Salesman in the World, and it
was situated in the time of Babylon, pre Jesus days,
and it really resonated with me. There were people that
I read books about on my own leisurely, I would
read about them, and one of the books that I
read was on the Great pilot named Chuck Yeager, who
(26:28):
broke the sound barrier back in the nineteen fifties and
late nineteen fifties, And there was something about that book
that really spoke to my heart as a young man.
You see, when I left college, I hardly read, and
when I was in college, I hardly read anyway. But
while I was there, I was reading more text. I
(26:48):
was reading theory. But when I got out of college,
I read more about real life and books like how to.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Win friends and influence people.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
So there were books that began to speak to me.
One of them those books that I talked about by
Chuck Yeager and how he broke the sound barrier. In
the late nineteen fifties, I started reading books like the
Greatest Salesman in the World, but also how to Win
Friends and Influence People, such a pivotal book for young
person to realize how to talk to people and how
to get to know people.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Those are books that began to shape me.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Of course, when I was in the business, I did
aspire to be like certain people in the business, and
I admired the qualities and from what I could see
from the stage and from.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
The seats that I was sitting in.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
But as I outgrew that business and I began, God
began to call me into the ministry. Which is what
I will talk about, is I began to my definition
of leadership began to be shaped and changed according to
more of the Bible and God's word and the great.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Leadership that we saw in the Bible.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I always wanted to be a good leader, and possibly
even a great leader. Of course, I didn't want to
be average. I want to be great, and I began
to define leadership according to the word of God. Of course,
over the years, leadership is defined by character, competency, capacity,
(28:14):
and chemistry. But I think actually character is probably the
number one quality that you need as a leader. And
then I started to read about leaders who had quality.
I started to be led by leaders who had that
quality of character. My pastor who I got saved at
his church, Ralph Moore, the pastor's unstaffed that helped shape me.
(28:34):
Like Rob McWilliams, different people on the journey of my
life of becoming the person who I was. When I
was a younger leader, I was rash, I was loud,
I was opinionated. I had foot mouth syndrome. In other words,
on open mouth insert foot. I would say things I
shouldn't say at the wrong times. A lot of mistakes
that young leaders make. But there was something different. I
(28:55):
was hungry and sometimes in some sense, I kind of
felt like I was hungrier than most were. Maybe I
couldn't measure their hunger for the Lord, but I could
measure my own hunger for God and my own hunger
to become better at what I was. I don't know
if it's the underdog syndrome that I had growing up
(29:15):
of being the shorter kid. Now I'm not that short anymore,
but back then, I don't know. It's because of going
through a failed marriage and having a fight back through
depression and having to fight back through that scenario to
become who I was today. I don't know what it was,
but it was something about me that was hungry and
wanted to push through and fight.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
And so when I was beginning to question the call.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Of God in my life and all along for the
last three to four years, I thought it was in business.
I thought I was going to be a millionaire. I
thought that's the direction that I wanted to go. I
really began to have a crisis and wondered, maybe I'm
doing the wrong thing, and maybe it was ministry and
pastoring all along. In my second week of becoming a
(29:59):
Christian and going to church at Hope Chapel, I remember
that it was a second or third week, but it
was so long ago, and I remember watching Pastor Ralph
preach and as it was like the Holy Spirit spoke
to my heart in the still quiet, small way that
he does, and he said to me and gave me
the impression you're going to do that one day. But
(30:20):
when I heard that, I said, there's a way. I
tucked myself out of it. There's no way that this
could happen. This is too great to imagine, too exceedingly
abundantly more than ever I could ask for or even
imagine for myself.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
And I put it in the back shelf because if
you know, at that time, I said, God, you know
where my life is that? Do you know what's going on?
Speaker 4 (30:40):
You know I'm fighting for to survive and you're fighting
you know, I'm fighting through this.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
And that's where I was back then. And the crisis
that I came to and the fork in the road
was Lord, is this year called for my life?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Because I didn't want to do what I wanted to do,
because what I wanted to do was fulfill my mind,
my own plans and purposes for my own life. But
I do realize now that God had a different plan,
a greater plan for my life, and that was for
me to be in the ministry, becoming a pastor.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
We had a.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
Situation go on in the business that made it very
apparent that it was time for me to move on,
and they offered me a position as an assistant to
the assistant pastor at the church. You know, I was
grateful just to get my foot in the door. I
was still working in an American airlines, still running as
(31:40):
a valet.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
By now running for dollars is what I called it.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
But at this point of my life as a Christian,
at this moment, here I was facing the crisis of Lord,
I'm going to follow you and I'm going to trust
you that you're calling me into this. Part time eventually
became full time, and before I knew it, I was
running a young adults and a young married couple's ministry
(32:05):
called the Honeymooners. And if you were married five years
or less, you were part of this group. And if
you were married over five years you couldn't be in
the group.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
And in some sense, the honeymoon was over, so to speak.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
And I grew that from just a handful of people
to events of over one hundred hundred and fifty for
a church of twelve hundred at the time. I also
remember that we had connect groups and small groups, and
the multiplication of those groups were a big formation of
who I am today as a pastor, because we value
that in our church and that our DNA the multiplication
(32:39):
of connect groups and small groups. And then one day
my pastor asked me to go on a walk with
him between Sunday services. And beware when your pastor asks
you to go for a walk, because you never know
what he's going to say. And he said, he said, Mike,
I want you, and I need you to be the
high school pastor.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I need you to be the youth pastor.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
To oversee all all of high school and all of
junior high. I was not surprised because I had heard
some things that were going on, but of course I
was nervous at that moment and at that time, and
I talked about it with my wife. I prayed about
it for a couple of days, and I said, yeah,
I'll do it. I didn't realize that it would be
actually the best five years of my life and ministry.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
At the time.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
I loved it so much I couldn't get enough of it.
And I document this in my book the pound for
pound principle about doing the best you can with what
God gave you, and it's based on the parable of
the talents in Matthew chapter twenty five. But I remember
taking that youth ministry, baking it the best that I could,
reaching as many students for Christ, developing student leadership, doing
(33:46):
everything that I could and possibly can to grow the
group and to pour my life into it and to
see it prosper, just to see it again blessed. And
then just when I thought that man, I.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Could be a youth pastor forever, something happened.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
I was on my way home from Eugene, Oregon, where
I spoke at a camp and the first time anybody
asked me to speak at a camp outside of Hawaii.
They flew me up to Eugene, Oregon. I spoke five
or six times. I was the keynote speaker at this
beautiful camp in the summer. Several hundred students were there.
It was just incredible. And I remember getting back home
(34:24):
on the plane and flying home, and while I was
flying home, I opened up the envelope of the honorarium
check that they gave me and I ripped it open
and I saw the amount that they gave me. At
the time, it was a fortune, a fortune because back
when I was growing up in Hawaiian youth ministry, you know,
we did it for each other. As favors get a
high five handshake, we do it unto the Lord, you
(34:44):
get a T shirt. But somebody actually paid me, and
I could not believe it. I felt so honored, I
felt so grateful, and I said to myself on that
plane coming home, I'm gonna be a youth pastor forever.
Needless to say, I've failed to mention that a couple
of weeks before I went on that trip to speak
(35:06):
in that family vacation that I had before it, that
the Holy Spirit spoke to me while I was driving
up the driveway to my youth service and I heard
these words, You're not going to be here long.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
I panicked as I got out.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Of my old Vovo two forty d l like a tank,
built like a tank, and it was, it was powerful,
it was great. It is the only car that I
could afford and pay cash for it, because that's what
my pastor taught me, It's to pay cash for everything.
And I saved up seven thousand dollars by that car.
I got out of that vovo and I went straight
(35:41):
on that Sunday afternoon, surprised to see Pastor off on
campus where he's never on campus on Sunday afternoon, and
I said, Pastor Roff, I got to talk to you,
and he goes, what what I said? You're not going
to believe this. I don't want you to do anything.
I don't want you to make any moves. But I
really think I heard the Lord's voice and he said
to me that I'm not going to be here long. Now.
Imagine the risk that I took to say that, The
(36:04):
risk that I took to trust a leader with plans
and dreams and goals. I always had that relationship with
my pastor. I would always show him my cards. I
would always show them to him, and he wouldn't have
to guess about my loyalty.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
He knew where I stood, he.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Knew I had his back, he knew that he could
call upon me if he ever needed me. And I said,
I don't know if I'm going to be here forever.
And he settled me down and he says, don't worry, Mike,
We're not.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Going to make any moves. Let's just wait and see
what the Lord does. And that spoke volumes to me.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
If you're listening to this podcast and you're a young leader,
I want you to be understand that you can trust
those who are above you. I think sometimes in this
next generation that is coming up that there's less of
a trust level for some reason. Maybe we've seen failure
go before us, but maybe not.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
But whatever it is, you need to.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Give trust because if you give trust, trust will give
him back to you.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
People long for that kind.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Of relationship in leadership and.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I had that.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Whether it's with employee to boss, whether it's parishioner to pastor,
or leader, staff member to pastor, or whether it's in
the military. People love that trust relationship and I was
so grateful that I had it, and I want that
with my guys and my staff, and that's what we had.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So he said, we're not going to do anything with this.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
And that's when I went to Oreon and that's when
I'm flying home and I said, I'm going to be
a youth pastor forever because I loved the youth ministry.
And the second day I got back to work and
I saw him, and somebody said to me and said, hey.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
How was your trip. I said it was great.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
They said, hey, Pastor Ralph wants to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
I said why.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
He says, because there's a church out in waikel in
Waipahu on the west side of the island and where
you live on the east side, and they want they
need a pastor. And they asked me. I said no,
So now they're going to ask you. I said, okay,
all right, right on, right on. Nice to see that
I'm the second choice. And he and we laughed it off,
and I said, I'm not going to that side of
the island. They didn't even know we had a church.
(38:06):
Pastor Ralph said to me later, he said, Mike, I
want you to take it. I said, I don't want
to go there. He goes, no, He goes, Mike, please
pray about it. I said, okay, I'll pray about it.
And I gave it a pause and I says, okay,
I prayed, and the answer is no, he goes, Come on,
don't get smart with me. Honestly, please pray about it.
I thought about going and leaving you this church, and I.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Said, are you serious?
Speaker 4 (38:24):
He says, yeah, Please pray about it. It's interesting because
I had camp the next day. We were running our camp.
We were getting ready, we're ready for our high school
camp to go up into the mountains of Hawaii, and
I didn't have time to pray about another church.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
I had camp had. I needed to see kids get saved.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
I needed to see the Holy Spirit touch kids and
change their destinies and something different to happen in their lives.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
But when he said I want you to.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
Pray about it, I had to pray about it. I
drove to that side of the island, it's not my
favorite side at the time. It was hot, it's dry,
it doesn't rain very much, and got up into the
mountain where it overlooked that whole part of the island
that I passed her today and back then, I remember
sitting up there every morning before the kids would wake up,
I drinking a cup of coffee and I said, God,
(39:10):
I don't know if you want me to be a
pastor of a church. I don't want to be a
pastor of a church. And already had five pastors before,
and they want another one. And it's a young church
and they got forty people, and I'm going to leave
this youth ministry. It's booming, it said, it's best that's
ever been. And I'd wake up the next day after camp,
next morning, grab a cup of coffee, sit on the
(39:31):
same rock, overlooking the same west side of a wall
who up in the mountains and looking over and praying
to God.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I don't want to be a senior pastor.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
I don't want to leave my church, and conny, oh hey,
but Lord, if not my will, but your will be done.
The next day, I wake up after running camp again,
and I sit down on the rock, and my prayers
begin to change. So I'm thirty seven Verse forces, delight
yourself from the Lord, and he will give you the
desires of your heart. Interesting how I delighted myself in God,
(40:03):
and he gave me the desires of my heart. But
my desires began to change. My desires became his desires.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
I wanted what God wanted, not what I wanted.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
And I sat on that rock and I said, Lord,
if you want me to go, i'll go.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
But I don't want to go. But not my will,
but your will be done. But Lord, i'll go. I'll
do whatever you want me to do. I'll say whatever
you want me to say, I'll be whatever you want
me to be.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
And the next day my wife calls me up and says, Babe,
guess what.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
I said, what's up, babe?
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I can't wait to come home and see you. These
kids are driving me nuts, but I'm having a great time.
And she says, man, Honey, we got a gift certificate
for three nights in Wiki Key. I said, awesome, I
can't wait to be alone with you. Get a babysitter.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
She goes, yeah, we get to pray about this church.
I said, what are you talking about? We're going to
pray or He goes, yeah, we need to pray about
this church. I said, Babe, three nights in Waikiki, me
and you who who fasts and praise in Wiki Key?
She said, Mike, we got to take this serious.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
I said, oh, baby, if it's me and you alone
in Waikiki, whether we eat or not, I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
And so we did.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
We went away to Waiki Ki and let me tell you.
We fasted, and let me tell you we did pray
about this church. And we prayed, and when we got done,
we packed up our bags. We stood in that hotel room.
It was a double tree hotel in Waikiki, not.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
On the water.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
It's far from the water, but it was paradise to us.
And I held her hands and I said, Babe, what
do you think? And she says, honey, years ago, you
thought you were called to Portland, Oregon to go plant
a church.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
And I said, yup.
Speaker 4 (41:35):
And she goes, you weren't ready. You had to desire,
but you weren't ready. And she said, Babe, years ago,
you thought you were called and we were called to Portland, Oregon,
and you wanted to go so bad and pastor told
you no. District supervisor told you know, and you accepted that.
And you know what, I knew you weren't ready. But
(41:56):
now I look at you and I see you going.
I see you like Moses coming down the mountain. I said,
oh my gosh, I said, baby, you think you think
this is it? She said, I think this is it.
You know, it's amazing when you put your hands in
God's hands and you put your plans in his hands
that align with His plans, and how amazing things can
(42:17):
turn out. I'm so glad that I let go of
control over my life at that time and I put
it in the Lord's hands. And I said, Lord, you
take this. I want to do what you want me
to do. I want to be what you want me
to be. I want to serve you the way you
want me to serve you. And we said yes, and
I went and met with Pastor Ralph and I said,
(42:38):
send him a text and a phone call and I said,
I need to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
He goes okay. And it had been a.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Week since that encounter with me and him asking me
to pray.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
About this church. And I sat down with him. I said,
I said, I got to ask.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
You some questions. I need some clarification before we move further.
I said, why did you ask me? He said, like
I asked you because I knew if there was anybody
that could take something that's struggling and turn it around,
I knew it could be you. I said, I got
another question. I said, why me out on the West
Side and not into the City.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Of Wonderlou Tell me why?
Speaker 4 (43:15):
He said, because all those young families are going to
grow out there, and they're going to grow and some
of those kids that you were with in your youth ministry,
they're going to be adults one day, and you are
going to serve them, and they're going to be in
your church one day. And I had a big, critical,
pivotal question and I said, okay, here's the question. I
took a deep breath, and I was afraid to ask,
but I needed to ask because I needed to know.
(43:36):
And I said this, and I said, are you trying
to make room for your son? Is that why you're
sending me out?
Speaker 3 (43:44):
And he goes.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
He took a deep breath, and he paused, and he
looked at me and he said, Mike, you are my son.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
You are one of my sons. Moment, you know, God
sealed it. It sealed the deal. I tell you right now.
I was going to go no matter what. And he said, look,
if it doesn't work out, you can always come back
after a year.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
And I said no, no, I had to.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
I had to turn down the golden parachute because if
I knew that, if there was a plan B, that
I wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Be afraid enough to fail. And so I said yes.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
And that weekend they prayed over me, laid hands on me,
and forty people came with me. That pastor I said,
you can take as many people as you want. I
got forty people on the West side that lived on
that side. It was driving over the church every weekend.
Said yes, I'll go with you, and they came with me,
and they came with me to this day here we are.
(44:44):
I'm so glad that God impressed upon me that I'm
so glad that I was hungry when I was younger,
and still am. I'm so glad that God trusted me
with the plans, and I'm so glad that.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
I trusted him with my life.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
If you're listening to this Leader podcast on pray dot com,
can I tell you that His plans are better than
your plans, that his way is higher than your way,
and the thoughts that he has of you, and the
plans that he has for you, and the destiny that
he's calling to you. If you let him man, he
will take.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
You on the right of your life.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
My favorite verse today is First Corinthians, chapter two, verse nine.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
That no eye has seen, no ear has.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
Heard, no mind can comprehend the things that God has,
things that God has for those who love him. I
always say it like this, let God blow your mind,
Let him blow your mind and take his plan, because
his plan is better than my plan any day, any day.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
I also think that.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
This is a short span, but my time ain't even
close to being done. And if there's anything that I
want to be known for, is in my daughter's lives
known as the Goat, you know. I want to be
the greatest of all time when it came to a father.
He may not have been the perfect father, he may
not have been this or that, but he was the greatest,
(46:14):
the greatest of all time. And I don't want them
saying that about me when I die. I mean, I
want them to say it about me, like right now.
I want my daughters to say that my dad is
the greatest of all time. I want my wife Lisa
to think that, man, he is the greatest of all time,
definitely when she says that. To this day, I'm living
(46:35):
out the legacy that I believe I'm inheriting. It's something
that I am prophesying. It is something that I am
living up to being the greatest of all time. That's
the legacy I want to leave behind.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
On part three of this three part series, we joined
Mike on his journey of self reflection and ask for
for the legacy he wishes to leave behind. As he
contemplates his purpose and impact, he sets out to be
the greatest of all time in the eyes of his
daughters and those he loves, aiming to be a beacon
of love, laughter, life, and leadership in every encounter. Join
(47:18):
us as we delve into the heartfelt pursuit of lasting legacy.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
It's really interesting because now I am in my early
fifties and you start to think about your mortality. You know,
when you're in your twenties, you think you're going to
live forever. When you're in your thirties and you start
pondering and contemplating a few things, thirty five is like
sometimes you think that's the midlife. People live to seventy
(47:48):
that's the old midlife. I don't think thirty five is
the midlife anymore. I think more like forty five is
the midlife. You hit your forties, you start to change.
You hit your fifties, and definitely things start to shift.
I've just entered into the decade of the fifties, and
I think that what's important is when we talk about
(48:12):
life and we talk about leadership. And in my previous podcast,
I talked about life and how I came to Jesus
and how Jesus changed my life, and we talked about
in the next podcast about leadership and how my life
is changed into how God has brought me into a
(48:34):
position of leadership. That life and leadership that they definitely
blended into one another.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
But the inevitable.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Place where we journey to is a place called legacy.
We are life, leadership and legacy. Life turns to leadership,
and leadership determines your legacy. Your life and your leadership
determines your legacy. Definitely, being in the fifties and starting
to think about that and what am I leaving behind
(49:04):
life insurance policies, you're thinking about what are you leaving
back for the living, You're thinking about banking, You're thinking
about being able to set up your children and your
children's children for success in all kinds of areas. I've
heard it said many times before, and you've probably heard it,
(49:25):
that my ceiling should be your basement, that my ceiling
should be your basement.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
I think it's really.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
Interesting and often that sometimes we think that our kids
have got to pay the same price that we paid
in order to earn and.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Have what we have.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
I agree that there's got to be a definite level
of sweat, equity of struggle and wrestling and having to
do things on your own. And while it's hard for
us to stand by and watch, I know we get
so tempted that we want to come in and see
if we can rescue or if we can assist. But
I also believe that if I've already blazed the trail
(50:04):
that you want to walk on, why would you have
to blaze a parallel trail when I've already blazed it
for you. And so what I want to do is
make a pathway that is easier and simpler for my
daughters and my sons in law, and my spiritual sons
and daughters and people who've come behind this, rather than saying, well,
(50:27):
I had it rough, you got to have it rough too.
And I think that we're doing the next generation a
disservice if we don't allow them to follow in our
footsteps because we've made it easier now they can travel
ahead of us, or go after us, and go even
further than we've ever gone before, to be able to
do what we've never done before because they've had this
(50:50):
ramp and this ability to go ahead and do so.
But I also believe that part of our legacy is
making it difficult enough to the point where they have
to rely on God.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Leaving a legacy.
Speaker 4 (51:05):
I want to leave a legacy that my daughters and
my family, and my friends and people who served with me,
would say that he loved Jesus. That that's what he did,
was he pointed to Jesus. His life was all about Jesus.
He worshiped Jesus. That everything that he tried to do,
he only did because what Jesus did in him and
through him. That's the kind of legacy that I want
(51:26):
to leave behind. I don't want anybody to say that
he was a self made man, because I'd be the
first to say that I'm not a self made man.
If I'm a self made man, I'm a self made
and tear apart my own life because it's built upon
some faulty foundation.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
Rather than on the rock of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4 (51:44):
The Bible tells us in First Corinthians that the apostle
Paul says, I am a master builder. And the materials
that he built upon, he said, would not would not perish,
that would last forever. And I'm praying that at the
end of the day, when this is all said and done,
and this earth is just a thought in the history
(52:08):
of this of journey throughout this galaxy sounded a little
deep and a little disconnected at the same time. But
I also do know that what's going to last forever.
What's going to last forever is the legacy we leave
behind of people, the kind of people that we impacted.
Who did we impact by the lives that we lived
(52:29):
in a very positive way? Said the things that we
said to people? What am I saying to people that
pushes them to become their best or coarse corrections are
made as a result of timely words in.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
The right season.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
What am I leaving behind in terms of my life
and who I am as a man and who I
was as a son and as a brother. And then
the other part is the relationship aspect in people. Is
what am I leaving back and behind to my wife,
to my daughters, to my grandchildren, to my sons, my
(53:08):
sons in law.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
What is God doing through that? That's part of my legacy.
I think.
Speaker 4 (53:14):
Also part of legacy is the professional side of things
and the calling of God on my life is how
many churches did I plan?
Speaker 3 (53:21):
What did I do? Did I do what God said
that he wanted me to do?
Speaker 4 (53:25):
And did I spend my time in the right places,
honoring God in everything that I did. Is there fruit
in my life as a result of me living the
life that God called me to live. When I look
in the Bible and I think about people who left
the legacy, I definitely have to think about David. How
David had a legacy, and the legacy was a good legacy,
(53:48):
but not all of it was good. It's really interesting
that when they ask you, what is the legacy that
you want to leave behind, It's almost difficult to be
able to say that, because, number one, you don't want
to come off as being prideful of what you want
to be known for. What do you want people to
(54:08):
say about you? It's actually counter productive or counteractive or countercultural,
to excuse me, it's actually countercultural to what we see
in ourselves as servants of God. Right, we don't get
in to ministry or to becoming a pastor and say
I'm gonna be the best in the world, or people
(54:29):
gonna remember my name and man, they're gonna they're gonna
build statues over me, somebody's gonna write a biography about me.
I'm gonna write my own autobiography. I don't think anybody
gets into the ministry thinking about what they want to
be known for, so it's difficult to talk about your
own legacy.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
It's really interesting when.
Speaker 4 (54:47):
I watch sports and I watch different athletes talk about
being the goat, you know what, I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
The greatest of all time? Who's the goat?
Speaker 4 (54:57):
And Tom Brady right now is being considered or the
goat when it comes to quarterbacks. Right now, there's an
incredible debate going on right now about NBA basketball about
who is the greatest of all time?
Speaker 3 (55:10):
Who is the goat?
Speaker 4 (55:11):
And I definitely will go down and say that it
is Michael Jordan. But then there are other people who
going to say, no, it's Kobe Bryant. Somebody else is
gonna say, well, no it's Lebron James and whatever it is.
But we all know that it's Michael. But Michael is
the goat standard. Michael is what everybody compares himself to,
always have, always will, How.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
Many rings did Michael have and all of that.
Speaker 4 (55:31):
I mean, it's interesting because even those athletes will sit
down and someone will interview them and they'll be asked
about what do they want to be known for. It's
interesting that when you're in your twenties and your thirties,
people are asking you what do you want to be
known for?
Speaker 3 (55:45):
And I think it's because not after you die.
Speaker 4 (55:48):
I think it's because we understand that an athlete's shelf
life of a professional career is very very short, and
so we're already talking about what is an want to
be known for.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
I also think that.
Speaker 4 (56:05):
This is a short span, but my time ain't even
close to being done. And if there's anything that I
want to be known for is in my daughter's lives.
I want to be known as the goat, you know.
I want to be the greatest of all time when
it came to a father. He may not have been
the perfect father, he may not have been this or that,
(56:27):
but he was the greatest, the greatest of all time.
And I don't want them saying that about me when
I die. I mean, I want them to say it
about me, like right now. I want my daughters to
say that my dad is the greatest of all time.
I want my wife Lisa to think that, man, he
is the greatest of all time, definitely when she says that.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
To this day, I'm living out the legacy that I believe.
Speaker 4 (56:52):
I'm inheriting. It's something that I am prophesying. It is
something that I am living up to being the greatest
of all time. That's the legacy I want to leave
behind when it comes to being the husband of Lisa
Kaii and to my church and to my congregation and
(57:13):
the people of Hawaii. I just want to be known
as I want to leave a legacy of love that
wherever went man, there was love, there was laughter, there
was life, There was love, there was laughter, there was life,
there was leadership.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
There was love, there was laughter, there was life, and
there's leadership.
Speaker 4 (57:30):
There was love, and there was laughter, and there was
life and there was leadership.
Speaker 3 (57:38):
That's what I think I would love to be known for.
Speaker 4 (57:42):
That whenever anybody came into contact with me, even on
my worst day, they encountered life, love, leadership, and laughter,
either one or all four.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
That would be incredible.
Speaker 4 (58:03):
To be known for that life, leadership, love, and laughter.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
That would be the legacy that I would love to
leave behind.
Speaker 2 (58:17):
As we wrap up this episode, we are reminded of
the incredible journey of faith, perseverance, and transformation. Mike's life
took unexpected turns, leading him through moments of despair heartbreak
and the depths of uncertainty. But through it all he
found solace in the arms of God, in prayer, and
in the power of unwavering faith. Through the highs and lows,
(58:39):
he discovered the transformative power of God's love, a love
that brings healing to wounds and joy to broken hearts.
He learned to surrender to God's plan even when it
seemed like his life was falling apart, and in the
process he found hope, purpose, and reason for living. Today,
he stands as a test to the power of resilience,
(59:01):
to the beauty of second chances, and to the miracles
that come when we trust in God's timing and wisdom.
His life's trajectory changed, not overnight, but step by step
as he embraced the path of faith and service. We
all face trials in life, and at times it may
feel like we're walking in darkness. But remember it is
(59:23):
in the darkness that stars shine the brightest. It is
during our toughest moments that God's light guides us forward.
So as we close this chapter, let us hold on
to the lessons learned today. Let us embrace the power
of prayer, of specific and unwavering faith and of patiently
waiting on God's perfect timing. And like our guest, may
(59:43):
we find the courage to serve others and to be
vessels of God's love and light. Remember, each of us
has the potential to transform lives, beginning with our own.
So let us rise above our circumstances, trusting that God's
hand is always guiding us towards future of hope, purpose
and joy. Thank you for joining us on this journey
(01:00:06):
of relentless hope. I'm your host, Matthew Potter, and I
would like to remind you to give hope a voice.
Let us pray. God is our refuge and strength of
very present help in trouble Psalm forty six one. My
Father and my God, thank you for always offering protection
and shelter in your loving arms. Stand by me to
day as I go about the day, and keep me
(00:21):
safe from harm, misfortune, and sadness. I trust in you
to keep watch over me and guide me along the
best path for my life. Let your light shine upon
me and provide me the strength needed to fight my battles.
Remind me that you are always by my side. Father,
(00:41):
Allow me to always trust in your power and protection. Amen,
thank you for joining us in prayer. Now for the
Relentless Hope Podcast, where we bring you true stories and
personal testimonies that will help you love your life, lead
with purpose, and leave a legacy of helping others.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Welcome back to Relentless Hope, the podcaster where we explore
inspiring stories of faith, transformation and the unwavering power of
God's love. I'm your host, Matthew Potter, and today we
have a truly remarkable tale of redemption and hope that
will touch your heart and uplift your spirit. In this episode,
we'll dive into the life of a man whose journey
(01:32):
took him from the depths of despair to the heights
of faith and purpose. Born and raised on the enchanting
island of Hawaii, he experienced the struggles and temptations of youth,
strained far from his spiritual roots. But in his darkest moments,
a glimmer of hope appeared, a chance encounter that led
him to a life changing decision. Through tears of brokenness
(01:56):
and nights filled with prayers, he found solace in guidance
in the arms of God. The power of grace transformed
his life, setting him on a path of growth, enlightenment,
and an unyielding devotion to Jesus Christ. Join us on
this episode of Relentless Hope as we hear Mike Kai's
powerful testimony how he faced heartbreak and loss, but through
(02:18):
unwavering faith, he found the strength to rebuild his life.
This captivating story will remind us that even in our
lowest moments, God's love is always there, ready to embrace
us and lead us towards a brighter future. Let's begin
today's episode of Relentless Hope with Mike Kai. Amidst unchanging circumstances,
(02:43):
Mike Kai discovers the true power of growth, prayer, and
God's profound impact, leading his life from darkness to an
inspiring upward trajectory.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I hung in there.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
I thought my marriage would get fixed. I thought she'd
come back, and like the changes, I thought things would
be different. But even though my circumstances never changed.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I was changing.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
I was changing, I was growing, I was reading the
Bible of his learning how to pray. I was hearing
God's voice in my heart of hearts, and.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
My anger was going away. My depression was gone.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I found purpose and reason for living, and things started
to work out in small ways in my favor and
in big ways as well. And God began to turn
my life around and changed me in an instant. But
my life began to change, and the trajectory of my
life began to go from the left side to the
upper right, and things were beginning to change.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
On part one of this three part series, we hear
the powerful story of Mike's journey from despair to redemption.
Through faith and prayer, he discovers the transformative power of
God's love, leading him to find hope and a remarkable companion.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
I come from a small town of two thousand people
on the big island of Hawaii. It's called the Island
of Hawaii in the state of Hawaii.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Grew up.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Being the second child of four siblings, have an older brother,
a younger brother, and a younger sister. Grew up in
the early eighties, so to speak, is when my formative
years of my childhood.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Coming from a small town. Of course, I went to
a small.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
School, and when I graduated from high school, I would
say that I embarked on an incredible journey for my life.
That I had no idea whatsoever that I would end
up becoming a pastor one day.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Growing up in rural Hawaii was a blessing.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I had great parents who took us to church every Sunday.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I was an altar boy in the.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Catholic Church, and I loved serving the priests, and I
really enjoyed the opportunity for that to serve the congregation
as a young child. I thank God. All my priests
were godly men, and they taught me the ways of
the Lord. I learned how to pray, and when I
got older, I got confirmed. But when I left and
(05:30):
moved to the big city of Honolulu to go to
the university of Hawaii. I would say looking back that
I had a lot of great religious training, but I
really did not have a relationship with Jesus Christ as
my Lord and savior. Graduated at the age of seventeen,
moved to the big city of Honolulu. Starstruck in awe
(05:55):
of the size of the city. I could not believe
that my university class had so many people in it,
more than my own high school graduating class.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I got lost in the crowd.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Not only was I lost in the crowd, but also
I got lost in many ways looking for acceptance being
a younger underclassman from all the athletes wanting to walk
on the basketball team or the football team had my choice.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Wasn't sure which one I wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
I ended up doing things that, of course, when you're
far away from God, that you do. I got caught
up in a lot of drinking, got caught up in
the party scene, hardly went to class. Eventually, even though
I wanted to be in the Air Force, I was
in an ROTC program my freshman year.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
By my sophomore year, I was.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Really just letting loose and quickly began to see that
if I didn't make a change, I was going to
be out of college pretty soon, out of the university.
In the meantime, I met this girl, and I absolutely
could say that I head over heels for her. I
never really had a girlfriend growing up, you know. On
(07:04):
the growing up, I was a little bit shorter, I
was smaller, little immature in my growth process. But I
definitely loved girls, no doubt about it. So when I
had my first girlfriend, I hit and I hit it
hard man, and I just contributed more to a downward
spiral of my life. Even though I wouldn't listen to anybody,
(07:28):
was doing what I.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Thought was right and what I wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
My parents try to speak into it from long distance
telephone calls, long distance letters. There was no email back
then when dinosaurs roam the earth, and I basically ran
my life the way I wanted to before I knew it.
As time gone by, I became the person that I
didn't really want to become. And then, to add even
(07:52):
greater pressure to what I was going through, I found
out that at the age of nineteen that I was
going to be a father.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I was not ready, I.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Was not prepared, but her mother and I decided that
we definitely were keeping this child, and we were bringing
this child into the world.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So I did what I believe was the right.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Thing to do, and we got married. I'm nineteen years old,
I'm married.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
I'm young.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
My whole life was ahead of me. So in order
to pick up the responsibility that I have to take,
I quit school and I pick up a job at
a shell service station and I ended up working at
a pizza hut.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
My life as I saw it.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I couldn't believe that this is what was going on.
I didn't realize that this is how far I'd fallen.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
But I was bringing a child.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Into the world, and I.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Had to really grow up very very quickly. Marriage was tough.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Two people who don't know God, who are not going
to church, and now all of a sudden you thrust
into this a trying to make a marriage work. It
didn't last very long. Within a year and a half
we were already separated. I was absolutely lost and devastated.
(09:21):
I wanted to stay married, but it takes two to
make things work, and it was not working. I ended
up having custody of my daughter, and that was the
blessing that I had. And while I was raising her
by myself and working my jobs and trying to make
things work. My heart was broken. I realized that I
(09:43):
wanted to remain married. I realized that things needed to change,
but they were not changing in that by the time
I'm twenty one years old. Now I am so rock
bottom that I'm thinking about ending my life. But because
I have this girl that's keeping me alive.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
She needs me. Her mother's not in the picture.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
I didn't want to live anymore, but I had to
because I have a mother and a father who love
me and don't know the whole story. And I have
two brothers and a sister who I could just envision
my funeral and realize that they would be blaming themselves
for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So I knew that I needed to live.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
In the meantime, I'm switching jobs and my new friends
are telling me that I need to come to church
because now we're becoming very close, and they're telling me
I need to come to church, and I tell them
I don't want to go to church. They said, no,
you got to come to church. I don't want to
go to church, and they keep on bugging me about
coming to their church. So one day after bugging me
and I'm trying to avoid the question. My friend Brandon says,
(10:51):
come on, Mike, you got to come to church. I said,
I don't want to go to church. Says you got
to come to my church. I said, I don't want
to go to your church.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
He goes, you would love my church.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
I said, well, tell me about it, and just to
get him off my back, and he says, you know, well,
my church has got drums. I said, your church has drums.
You got drums in your church? He said yeah, and
what else? I said, what else about your church? He says, well,
my church has a pastor. I said, you have a pastor.
You mean you don't have a priest. Say, I have
a pastor. And he said, well, what does your pastor
look like?
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Well, he wears jeans.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
And I said what does he teach from? He teaches
from a Bible. Your pastor wears jeans. You teach from
a Bible. You've got drums at your church. I said
that does not sound like a church, bro it sounds
like a cult. And he goes, no, no, no, it's
a church, man.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
You would love it. You would love it.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
It's called Hope Chapel. And his pastor's name is Ralph Moore,
and you gotta come. And I said, well, one day,
one day.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I'll come.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Well the next day he says, you know, if you
come to my church, he says, Mike, I'll buy you breakfast.
And I said, okay, sold uh, I mean breakfast, right,
I'm not making a lot of money. Someone wants to
buy me breakfast. Of course I'm going to go to church.
And so finally I said yes. I said hey, And
I want to say to everybody out there, do not
underestimate the power of Baker, okay, because Bacon is powerful.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
And I said yes.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
And I remember getting Courtney, my two year old daughter,
dressed up for church, got her all ready, and here
we are going off to church, and I'm so excited
but also nervous. At the same time. I'm wearing my
Sunday best. She's wearing her Sunday best. And the closer
we get to church, I can hear those drums, and
those drums are pounding, and those drums are my heart's
(12:23):
pounding like a drum.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
And we get closer and people are hugging me.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
They take my daughter Courtney to the children's church, and
I'm going into the other direction. And I they seat
me in the second row. I mean, who sits a
brand new person in the second row. And I'm in
the second row, and I'm thinking, oh, great man, the
pastor can read my mind. He knows what I'm thinking,
he knows what I've done. And I'm feeling so convicted there.
(12:49):
But in the same time, I'm just feeling love. I'm
feeling love, I'm feeling lighter, I'm feeling something I cannot describe.
And I'm reading the worship words on the old overhead
projector and they look like love songs to God, love
(13:09):
songs to God. That's the way that I would call them.
They were ballads to God. And I could almost take
her name and put it in the place of God.
It was as if God was They had written songs
that were love songs to God, and they were praise
and worship songs, but I didn't know the words to that.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I used to go to kuta oka or karaoke.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Bars, and that's how I would spend some time, and
I would sing and people would give me money, please
sing this song, and I'd sing that Elton John song.
I'd sing this other song, unchained melody, but this was this.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Was love songs to God, and he grabbed me.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
And I don't know what the pastor preached, and I
don't know all the things that he said, but I
do know at the end that if there was any
way that I could sign up, if there was any
way and I could.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Raise my hand and respond, that I would.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
And at the end of the service, he gave what
we call an altar call that if you want Jesus
in your life, if you want to be freed, if
you want forgiveness of your sins, if you want the
assurance of heaven.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
He said, if you want a new life, and I
my life.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
I've raised my hand and I gave my life to
the Lord that Sunday A long time ago.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
It was nineteen eighty.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Nine and over thirty years ago. My life has never
been the same since I hung in there. I thought
my marriage would get fixed. I thought she'd come back,
and like the changes, I thought things would be different.
But even though my circumstances never changed, I was changing.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I was changing.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
I was growing, I was reading the Bible of His
learning how to pray. I was hearing God's voice in
my heart of hearts, and I was My anger was
going away. My depression was gone. I found purpose and
reason for living, and things started to work out in
small ways in my favor and in big ways as well,
(15:11):
and God began to turn my life around. He changed
me in an instant, but my life began to change,
and the trajectory of my life began to go from
the left side to the upper right, and things were
beginning to change. I had waited. I'd been a faithful husband,
and I waited.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
But when it.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Became absolutely apparent and undoubtedly evident that we would not
be together again, that's when I reality hit and I
realized that God, I've been faithful, I've righted some wrongs,
and I've done the right things, and I've been faithful
(15:52):
to you.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And you know, at that moment, it's real.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Easy for people to get discouraged and for me to go, well, God,
you never answered my prayer and this doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
And God, you never mended my marriage.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And even though I was a contributor to why it
wasn't working, God, you must not be real or you
disappoint me, and I'm not going to follow you. This
Christianity does at work. I'm so glad you know that
I didn't do that. I'm so glad that I hung
in there, that I trusted God through it all, because
I wouldn't be where I'm at today. So when it
was finally over, and when the ink was dry, I
(16:24):
finally said, okay, Lord, I'm going to be married to you.
I knew I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for anybody else.
I'm older. Now it's been three years since the separation,
and I'm like twenty four, and I'm moving on with
my life and I'm working for American Airlines.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Now.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
I got a job and I got involved in multi
level marketing, and it changed a lot of the way
that I thought and a lot of the way that
I did things, and I began to see a lot
of great things happen. But for the next year, I said, Lord,
I'm just married to you. I'm just married to Jesus.
I'm not dating anybody. I never did before that was
faithful to my vows.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And got one more year. I'm making a vow to you,
and I'm married to you.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
And when that one year had gone by, and that
one year had passed, that's when I said, okay, Lord,
if I can ever get married again, if you find
that I'm worthy of having a wife. Then God, Courtney
needs a mom and I need a wife. And I
began to pray specifically. You know this is pray dot com.
(17:24):
Can I tell you to pray specifically? Because I began
to pray specifically, I heard a pastor named Jack Hayford,
one of the most respected men in Christianity. I heard
him on the radio because I was discipled on Christian
radio and I heard him on the radio and he
said that if you're going to pray, pray specifically, do
not be afraid to ask God. And I asked God,
(17:44):
and I said God, Okay, I'm going to pray specifically.
And I said, Lord, if I can ever get married again,
and if you would ever bring me a wife, I said, Lord.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Number one. Number one. You're gonna laugh at this, but
I said number one.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Can she be gorgeous, drop dead gorgeous Chinese?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Beautiful Chinese?
Speaker 4 (18:02):
And because I thought Chinese women, I thought, if I
got married to Chinese woman, we make beautiful kids together.
I said, Number one, she's got to be Chinese. Okay,
drop that gorgeous Chinese. Number two, she's gotta love Jesus
more than she loves me. Okay, that's number two, she's
gotta love Jesus more than she loves me. And then
(18:23):
number three, she's got to be five foot seven. Gotta
be five foot seven because I didn't want I didn't
want short kids, you know, So five foot seven gorgeous
Chinese loves Jesus more than she loves me.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Because I felt that if she loves.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Jesus more than she loves me, we'll make it through anything, because.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Jesus will be our bond.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
And I wasn't looking in the church for every five
foot seven Chinese woman. I didn't take my tape measure
out with me and try to measure ladies and stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I just waited patiently on the Lord.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I've already waited three and a half years, four years,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And I just said, Lord, you know, and I'm patient.
I'm waiting on you.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
And I saw her and her name was Lisa Lum
saw her at a Christmas party.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And this was a long process.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
This is a long process of no dating, long process
of staying faithful, long process of lonely nights, long process
of doing work and becoming the person, and not about
so much anything else but raising my daughter and being
the best person that I could be, and growing in
(19:33):
every aspected area of my life.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
And that's what I did.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
And so when I met Lisa, we just were immediately
attracted to one another, but we needed to pump the
brakes and we decided that a friendship was what we
needed more.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Than anything else.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
And after about six months, nine months gone by, and
finally I realized that, I said, Lord, this is who
I prayed for, this is what I asked for, and
I think you've brought her.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I don't know. I'm waiting.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
I'm not getting any younger, and I'm not playing the field.
I'm not going to the club anymore. I hadn't gone
in a long time. There was no e harmony, there
was no online dating sites.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
It was the old fashioned way. And I found her
at church and I said, Lord, there's nobody else. This
is it, This is the best. And so I proposed,
and Lisa and I had.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
A short engagement. We got married in two and a
half months. Proposed to her and we were married in
two and a half months. And you know, and here
we are two more daughters. Rebecca she's now twenty two.
Carus she's now thirteen, We've got three girls, Courtney, Rebecca,
(20:45):
and Carus, and we've got two grandchildren. Believe it or not,
Bowie is four four years old and Otis.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Is almost going to make two years old.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
And they live in Portland, Oregon, and with the mom
and dad, Courtney and Jason. Courtney's a beautiful, beautiful mother
and hard worker.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
And my life is blessed.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
And here Lisa and I are here, we are married.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Twenty five years, twenty five years. Sin It's been the
best twenty five years.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Of my life. And I would say that God heard
my prayers. And even those nights where I was up
late at night, or moments where I would cry at
work when nobody would see, or just my heart was
broken for things that I've heard and I just longed for.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
God answered my prayers. And I'm telling you.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Pray, God, pray. Not all my prayers were answered the
way that I wanted them answered. I didn't get everything
I asked for, but I got more than I ever
expected or more than I.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Ever could deserve. Jesus is amazing.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
When he said I want you to pray about it,
I had to pray about it. I drove to that
side of the island. It's not my favorite side of
the time. It was hot, it's dry, it doesn't rain
very much. And got up into the mountains where it
overlooked that whole part of the island that I passed
her today and back then, I remember sitting up there
every morning before the kids would wake up, I drinking
(22:13):
a cup of coffee, and I said, God, I don't
know if you want me to be a pastor of
a church. I don't want to be a pastor of
a church already had five pastors before it, and they
want another one.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
And it's a young church, and they got.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Forty people, and I'm gonna leave this youth ministry. It's booming,
and said it's best it's ever been. And I'd wake
up the next day after camp, next morning, grab a
cup of coffee, sit in the same rock, overlooking the
same west side of a wall who up in the
mountains and looking over and praying, say God, I don't
want to be a senior pastor. I don't want to
(22:46):
leave my church. And Connie, oh, hey, but Lord, not
my will, but your will be done. The next day,
I wake up after running camp again and I sit
down on the rock and my prayers begin to change.
So I'm thirty seven Verse forces, delight yourself from the Lord,
and he will give you the desires.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Of your heart.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Interesting how I delighted myself in God, and he gave
me the desires of my heart. But my desires began
to change.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
My desires became his desires.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
I wanted what God wanted, not what I wanted. And
I sat on that rock and I said.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Lord, if you want me to go, I'll go. But
I don't want to go.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
But not my will, but your will be done.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
On part two of this three part series, Pastor Mike
Kei shares his journey from uncertainty to fulfillment, highlighting the
power of trust and surrender to God's plans. With a
hunger for greatness and a willingness to follow God's lead,
he finds himself on a transformative path to becoming a pastor,
demonstrating that God's plan always surpasses our own.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Growing up, but never saw myself as a leader.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
I always seemed to be the follower who wanted to
be the leader. But because of my probably my height
at the time. To be honest with you, and there
were guys that I grew up with were bigger, stronger, faster,
and they just had this natural ability to lead. So
(24:22):
I never saw myself as a leader as I was
growing up, but I think when I got into college
and even beyond college, you started to see that there
was a leader within me. I aspired to be a
great leader. There are people like John Maxwell that I
admired in his writings.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
There are people that shaped a lot of my thinking.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
On leadership, people like doctor Norman, Vincent Peel, Clement Stone.
There are different people in different parts of my life
that have an authors.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Who mentored me through their books.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Because when I had to leave college, I didn't have
an opportunity for me to go myself to go back
because I was raising my daughter and working and just
trying to make it work and doing a multi level
marketing business. And this multi level of marketing business, believe
it or not, actually helped me become the leader who
I am today.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
It was groundbreaking, it.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Was foundation setting, It was what God knew that I
needed at that time. So because I couldn't go to
college anymore and because I got into this multi level
marketing business, they taught me about the importance of books
and listening to teachings.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Back then it was tapes.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Then it evolved to CDs and DVDs, and today we
listened to podcasts. But back then my version of podcasts
was a tape, so I'd listen to a motivational tape.
I would read books that were motivational. One of the
most impacting books that I ever read was by an
author named og Mandino, and the series was called The
(25:54):
Greatest Salesman in the World.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
And that book just grabbed.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
And touched my heart when it came to FI Finances
as a young man at the age of twenty one
twenty two, I read this really good book.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
It's very old.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
I don't even know who the author is, but it
was called The Greatest Salesman in the World, and it
was situated in the time of Babylon, pre Jesus days,
and it really resonated with me. There were people that
I read books about on my own leisurely, I would
read about them, and one of the books that I
read was on the Great pilot named Chuck Yeager, who
(26:28):
broke the sound barrier back in the nineteen fifties and
late nineteen fifties, And there was something about that book
that really spoke to my heart as a young man.
You see, when I left college, I hardly read, and
when I was in college, I hardly read anyway. But
while I was there, I was reading more text. I
(26:48):
was reading theory. But when I got out of college,
I read more about real life and books like how to.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Win friends and influence people.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
So there were books that began to speak to me.
One of them those books that I talked about by
Chuck Yeager and how he broke the sound barrier. In
the late nineteen fifties, I started reading books like the
Greatest Salesman in the World, but also how to Win
Friends and Influence People, such a pivotal book for young
person to realize how to talk to people and how
to get to know people.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Those are books that began to shape me.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Of course, when I was in the business, I did
aspire to be like certain people in the business, and
I admired the qualities and from what I could see
from the stage and from.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
The seats that I was sitting in.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
But as I outgrew that business and I began, God
began to call me into the ministry. Which is what
I will talk about, is I began to my definition
of leadership began to be shaped and changed according to
more of the Bible and God's word and the great.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Leadership that we saw in the Bible.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I always wanted to be a good leader, and possibly
even a great leader. Of course, I didn't want to
be average. I want to be great, and I began
to define leadership according to the word of God. Of course,
over the years, leadership is defined by character, competency, capacity,
(28:14):
and chemistry. But I think actually character is probably the
number one quality that you need as a leader. And
then I started to read about leaders who had quality.
I started to be led by leaders who had that
quality of character. My pastor who I got saved at
his church, Ralph Moore, the pastor's unstaffed that helped shape me.
(28:34):
Like Rob McWilliams, different people on the journey of my
life of becoming the person who I was. When I
was a younger leader, I was rash, I was loud,
I was opinionated. I had foot mouth syndrome. In other words,
on open mouth insert foot. I would say things I
shouldn't say at the wrong times. A lot of mistakes
that young leaders make. But there was something different. I
(28:55):
was hungry and sometimes in some sense, I kind of
felt like I was hungrier than most were. Maybe I
couldn't measure their hunger for the Lord, but I could
measure my own hunger for God and my own hunger
to become better at what I was. I don't know
if it's the underdog syndrome that I had growing up
(29:15):
of being the shorter kid. Now I'm not that short anymore,
but back then, I don't know. It's because of going
through a failed marriage and having a fight back through
depression and having to fight back through that scenario to
become who I was today. I don't know what it was,
but it was something about me that was hungry and
wanted to push through and fight.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
And so when I was beginning to question the call.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Of God in my life and all along for the
last three to four years, I thought it was in business.
I thought I was going to be a millionaire. I
thought that's the direction that I wanted to go. I
really began to have a crisis and wondered, maybe I'm
doing the wrong thing, and maybe it was ministry and
pastoring all along. In my second week of becoming a
(29:59):
Christian and going to church at Hope Chapel, I remember
that it was a second or third week, but it
was so long ago, and I remember watching Pastor Ralph
preach and as it was like the Holy Spirit spoke
to my heart in the still quiet, small way that
he does, and he said to me and gave me
the impression you're going to do that one day. But
(30:20):
when I heard that, I said, there's a way. I
tucked myself out of it. There's no way that this
could happen. This is too great to imagine, too exceedingly
abundantly more than ever I could ask for or even
imagine for myself.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
And I put it in the back shelf because if
you know, at that time, I said, God, you know
where my life is that? Do you know what's going on?
Speaker 4 (30:40):
You know I'm fighting for to survive and you're fighting
you know, I'm fighting through this.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
And that's where I was back then. And the crisis
that I came to and the fork in the road
was Lord, is this year called for my life?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Because I didn't want to do what I wanted to do,
because what I wanted to do was fulfill my mind,
my own plans and purposes for my own life. But
I do realize now that God had a different plan,
a greater plan for my life, and that was for
me to be in the ministry, becoming a pastor.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
We had a.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
Situation go on in the business that made it very
apparent that it was time for me to move on,
and they offered me a position as an assistant to
the assistant pastor at the church. You know, I was
grateful just to get my foot in the door. I
was still working in an American airlines, still running as
(31:40):
a valet.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
By now running for dollars is what I called it.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
But at this point of my life as a Christian,
at this moment, here I was facing the crisis of Lord,
I'm going to follow you and I'm going to trust
you that you're calling me into this. Part time eventually
became full time, and before I knew it, I was
running a young adults and a young married couple's ministry
(32:05):
called the Honeymooners. And if you were married five years
or less, you were part of this group. And if
you were married over five years you couldn't be in
the group.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
And in some sense, the honeymoon was over, so to speak.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
And I grew that from just a handful of people
to events of over one hundred hundred and fifty for
a church of twelve hundred at the time. I also
remember that we had connect groups and small groups, and
the multiplication of those groups were a big formation of
who I am today as a pastor, because we value
that in our church and that our DNA the multiplication
(32:39):
of connect groups and small groups. And then one day
my pastor asked me to go on a walk with
him between Sunday services. And beware when your pastor asks
you to go for a walk, because you never know
what he's going to say. And he said, he said, Mike,
I want you, and I need you to be the
high school pastor.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I need you to be the youth pastor.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
To oversee all all of high school and all of
junior high. I was not surprised because I had heard
some things that were going on, but of course I
was nervous at that moment and at that time, and
I talked about it with my wife. I prayed about
it for a couple of days, and I said, yeah,
I'll do it. I didn't realize that it would be
actually the best five years of my life and ministry.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
At the time.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
I loved it so much I couldn't get enough of it.
And I document this in my book the pound for
pound principle about doing the best you can with what
God gave you, and it's based on the parable of
the talents in Matthew chapter twenty five. But I remember
taking that youth ministry, baking it the best that I could,
reaching as many students for Christ, developing student leadership, doing
(33:46):
everything that I could and possibly can to grow the
group and to pour my life into it and to
see it prosper, just to see it again blessed. And
then just when I thought that man, I.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Could be a youth pastor forever, something happened.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
I was on my way home from Eugene, Oregon, where
I spoke at a camp and the first time anybody
asked me to speak at a camp outside of Hawaii.
They flew me up to Eugene, Oregon. I spoke five
or six times. I was the keynote speaker at this
beautiful camp in the summer. Several hundred students were there.
It was just incredible. And I remember getting back home
(34:24):
on the plane and flying home, and while I was
flying home, I opened up the envelope of the honorarium
check that they gave me and I ripped it open
and I saw the amount that they gave me. At
the time, it was a fortune, a fortune because back
when I was growing up in Hawaiian youth ministry, you know,
we did it for each other. As favors get a
high five handshake, we do it unto the Lord, you
(34:44):
get a T shirt. But somebody actually paid me, and
I could not believe it. I felt so honored, I
felt so grateful, and I said to myself on that
plane coming home, I'm gonna be a youth pastor forever.
Needless to say, I've failed to mention that a couple
of weeks before I went on that trip to speak
(35:06):
in that family vacation that I had before it, that
the Holy Spirit spoke to me while I was driving
up the driveway to my youth service and I heard
these words, You're not going to be here long.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
I panicked as I got out.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Of my old Vovo two forty d l like a tank,
built like a tank, and it was, it was powerful,
it was great. It is the only car that I
could afford and pay cash for it, because that's what
my pastor taught me, It's to pay cash for everything.
And I saved up seven thousand dollars by that car.
I got out of that vovo and I went straight
(35:41):
on that Sunday afternoon, surprised to see Pastor off on
campus where he's never on campus on Sunday afternoon, and
I said, Pastor Roff, I got to talk to you,
and he goes, what what I said? You're not going
to believe this. I don't want you to do anything.
I don't want you to make any moves. But I
really think I heard the Lord's voice and he said
to me that I'm not going to be here long. Now.
Imagine the risk that I took to say that, The
(36:04):
risk that I took to trust a leader with plans
and dreams and goals. I always had that relationship with
my pastor. I would always show him my cards. I
would always show them to him, and he wouldn't have
to guess about my loyalty.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
He knew where I stood, he.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Knew I had his back, he knew that he could
call upon me if he ever needed me. And I said,
I don't know if I'm going to be here forever.
And he settled me down and he says, don't worry, Mike,
We're not.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Going to make any moves. Let's just wait and see
what the Lord does. And that spoke volumes to me.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
If you're listening to this podcast and you're a young leader,
I want you to be understand that you can trust
those who are above you. I think sometimes in this
next generation that is coming up that there's less of
a trust level for some reason. Maybe we've seen failure
go before us, but maybe not.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
But whatever it is, you need to.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Give trust because if you give trust, trust will give
him back to you.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
People long for that kind.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Of relationship in leadership and.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I had that.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Whether it's with employee to boss, whether it's parishioner to pastor,
or leader, staff member to pastor, or whether it's in
the military. People love that trust relationship and I was
so grateful that I had it, and I want that
with my guys and my staff, and that's what we had.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So he said, we're not going to do anything with this.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
And that's when I went to Oreon and that's when
I'm flying home and I said, I'm going to be
a youth pastor forever because I loved the youth ministry.
And the second day I got back to work and
I saw him, and somebody said to me and said, hey.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
How was your trip. I said it was great.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
They said, hey, Pastor Ralph wants to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
I said why.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
He says, because there's a church out in waikel in
Waipahu on the west side of the island and where
you live on the east side, and they want they
need a pastor. And they asked me. I said no,
So now they're going to ask you. I said, okay,
all right, right on, right on. Nice to see that
I'm the second choice. And he and we laughed it off,
and I said, I'm not going to that side of
the island. They didn't even know we had a church.
(38:06):
Pastor Ralph said to me later, he said, Mike, I
want you to take it. I said, I don't want
to go there. He goes, no, He goes, Mike, please
pray about it. I said, okay, I'll pray about it.
And I gave it a pause and I says, okay,
I prayed, and the answer is no, he goes, Come on,
don't get smart with me. Honestly, please pray about it.
I thought about going and leaving you this church, and I.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Said, are you serious?
Speaker 4 (38:24):
He says, yeah, Please pray about it. It's interesting because
I had camp the next day. We were running our camp.
We were getting ready, we're ready for our high school
camp to go up into the mountains of Hawaii, and
I didn't have time to pray about another church.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
I had camp had. I needed to see kids get saved.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
I needed to see the Holy Spirit touch kids and
change their destinies and something different to happen in their lives.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
But when he said I want you to.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
Pray about it, I had to pray about it. I
drove to that side of the island, it's not my
favorite side at the time. It was hot, it's dry,
it doesn't rain very much, and got up into the
mountain where it overlooked that whole part of the island
that I passed her today and back then, I remember
sitting up there every morning before the kids would wake up,
I drinking a cup of coffee and I said, God,
(39:10):
I don't know if you want me to be a
pastor of a church. I don't want to be a
pastor of a church. And already had five pastors before,
and they want another one. And it's a young church
and they got forty people, and I'm going to leave
this youth ministry. It's booming, it said, it's best that's
ever been. And I'd wake up the next day after camp,
next morning, grab a cup of coffee, sit on the
(39:31):
same rock, overlooking the same west side of a wall
who up in the mountains and looking over and praying
to God.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I don't want to be a senior pastor.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
I don't want to leave my church, and conny, oh hey,
but Lord, if not my will, but your will be done.
The next day, I wake up after running camp again,
and I sit down on the rock, and my prayers
begin to change. So I'm thirty seven Verse forces, delight
yourself from the Lord, and he will give you the
desires of your heart. Interesting how I delighted myself in God,
(40:03):
and he gave me the desires of my heart. But
my desires began to change. My desires became his desires.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
I wanted what God wanted, not what I wanted.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
And I sat on that rock and I said, Lord,
if you want me to go, i'll go.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
But I don't want to go. But not my will,
but your will be done. But Lord, i'll go. I'll
do whatever you want me to do. I'll say whatever
you want me to say, I'll be whatever you want
me to be.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
And the next day my wife calls me up and says, Babe,
guess what.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
I said, what's up, babe?
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I can't wait to come home and see you. These
kids are driving me nuts, but I'm having a great time.
And she says, man, Honey, we got a gift certificate
for three nights in Wiki Key. I said, awesome, I
can't wait to be alone with you. Get a babysitter.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
She goes, yeah, we get to pray about this church.
I said, what are you talking about? We're going to
pray or He goes, yeah, we need to pray about
this church. I said, Babe, three nights in Waikiki, me
and you who who fasts and praise in Wiki Key?
She said, Mike, we got to take this serious.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
I said, oh, baby, if it's me and you alone
in Waikiki, whether we eat or not, I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
And so we did.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
We went away to Waiki Ki and let me tell you.
We fasted, and let me tell you we did pray
about this church. And we prayed, and when we got done,
we packed up our bags. We stood in that hotel room.
It was a double tree hotel in Waikiki, not.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
On the water.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
It's far from the water, but it was paradise to us.
And I held her hands and I said, Babe, what
do you think? And she says, honey, years ago, you
thought you were called to Portland, Oregon to go plant
a church.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
And I said, yup.
Speaker 4 (41:35):
And she goes, you weren't ready. You had to desire,
but you weren't ready. And she said, Babe, years ago,
you thought you were called and we were called to Portland, Oregon,
and you wanted to go so bad and pastor told
you no. District supervisor told you know, and you accepted that.
And you know what, I knew you weren't ready. But
(41:56):
now I look at you and I see you going.
I see you like Moses coming down the mountain. I said,
oh my gosh, I said, baby, you think you think
this is it? She said, I think this is it.
You know, it's amazing when you put your hands in
God's hands and you put your plans in his hands
that align with His plans, and how amazing things can
(42:17):
turn out. I'm so glad that I let go of
control over my life at that time and I put
it in the Lord's hands. And I said, Lord, you
take this. I want to do what you want me
to do. I want to be what you want me
to be. I want to serve you the way you
want me to serve you. And we said yes, and
I went and met with Pastor Ralph and I said,
(42:38):
send him a text and a phone call and I said,
I need to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
He goes okay. And it had been a.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Week since that encounter with me and him asking me
to pray.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
About this church. And I sat down with him. I said,
I said, I got to ask.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
You some questions. I need some clarification before we move further.
I said, why did you ask me? He said, like
I asked you because I knew if there was anybody
that could take something that's struggling and turn it around,
I knew it could be you. I said, I got
another question. I said, why me out on the West
Side and not into the City.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Of Wonderlou Tell me why?
Speaker 4 (43:15):
He said, because all those young families are going to
grow out there, and they're going to grow and some
of those kids that you were with in your youth ministry,
they're going to be adults one day, and you are
going to serve them, and they're going to be in
your church one day. And I had a big, critical,
pivotal question and I said, okay, here's the question. I
took a deep breath, and I was afraid to ask,
but I needed to ask because I needed to know.
(43:36):
And I said this, and I said, are you trying
to make room for your son? Is that why you're
sending me out?
Speaker 3 (43:44):
And he goes.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
He took a deep breath, and he paused, and he
looked at me and he said, Mike, you are my son.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
You are one of my sons. Moment, you know, God
sealed it. It sealed the deal. I tell you right now.
I was going to go no matter what. And he said, look,
if it doesn't work out, you can always come back
after a year.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
And I said no, no, I had to.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
I had to turn down the golden parachute because if
I knew that, if there was a plan B, that
I wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Be afraid enough to fail. And so I said yes.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
And that weekend they prayed over me, laid hands on me,
and forty people came with me. That pastor I said,
you can take as many people as you want. I
got forty people on the West side that lived on
that side. It was driving over the church every weekend.
Said yes, I'll go with you, and they came with me,
and they came with me to this day here we are.
(44:44):
I'm so glad that God impressed upon me that I'm
so glad that I was hungry when I was younger,
and still am. I'm so glad that God trusted me
with the plans, and I'm so glad that.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
I trusted him with my life.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
If you're listening to this Leader podcast on pray dot com,
can I tell you that His plans are better than
your plans, that his way is higher than your way,
and the thoughts that he has of you, and the
plans that he has for you, and the destiny that
he's calling to you. If you let him man, he
will take.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
You on the right of your life.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
My favorite verse today is First Corinthians, chapter two, verse nine.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
That no eye has seen, no ear has.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
Heard, no mind can comprehend the things that God has,
things that God has for those who love him. I
always say it like this, let God blow your mind,
Let him blow your mind and take his plan, because
his plan is better than my plan any day, any day.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
I also think that.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
This is a short span, but my time ain't even
close to being done. And if there's anything that I
want to be known for, is in my daughter's lives
known as the Goat, you know. I want to be
the greatest of all time when it came to a father.
He may not have been the perfect father, he may
not have been this or that, but he was the greatest,
(46:14):
the greatest of all time. And I don't want them
saying that about me when I die. I mean, I
want them to say it about me, like right now.
I want my daughters to say that my dad is
the greatest of all time. I want my wife Lisa
to think that, man, he is the greatest of all time,
definitely when she says that. To this day, I'm living
(46:35):
out the legacy that I believe I'm inheriting. It's something
that I am prophesying. It is something that I am
living up to being the greatest of all time. That's
the legacy I want to leave behind.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
On part three of this three part series, we joined
Mike on his journey of self reflection and ask for
for the legacy he wishes to leave behind. As he
contemplates his purpose and impact, he sets out to be
the greatest of all time in the eyes of his
daughters and those he loves, aiming to be a beacon
of love, laughter, life, and leadership in every encounter. Join
(47:18):
us as we delve into the heartfelt pursuit of lasting legacy.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
It's really interesting because now I am in my early
fifties and you start to think about your mortality. You know,
when you're in your twenties, you think you're going to
live forever. When you're in your thirties and you start
pondering and contemplating a few things, thirty five is like
sometimes you think that's the midlife. People live to seventy
(47:48):
that's the old midlife. I don't think thirty five is
the midlife anymore. I think more like forty five is
the midlife. You hit your forties, you start to change.
You hit your fifties, and definitely things start to shift.
I've just entered into the decade of the fifties, and
I think that what's important is when we talk about
(48:12):
life and we talk about leadership. And in my previous podcast,
I talked about life and how I came to Jesus
and how Jesus changed my life, and we talked about
in the next podcast about leadership and how my life
is changed into how God has brought me into a
(48:34):
position of leadership. That life and leadership that they definitely
blended into one another.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
But the inevitable.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Place where we journey to is a place called legacy.
We are life, leadership and legacy. Life turns to leadership,
and leadership determines your legacy. Your life and your leadership
determines your legacy. Definitely, being in the fifties and starting
to think about that and what am I leaving behind
(49:04):
life insurance policies, you're thinking about what are you leaving
back for the living, You're thinking about banking, You're thinking
about being able to set up your children and your
children's children for success in all kinds of areas. I've
heard it said many times before, and you've probably heard it,
(49:25):
that my ceiling should be your basement, that my ceiling
should be your basement.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
I think it's really.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
Interesting and often that sometimes we think that our kids
have got to pay the same price that we paid
in order to earn and.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Have what we have.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
I agree that there's got to be a definite level
of sweat, equity of struggle and wrestling and having to
do things on your own. And while it's hard for
us to stand by and watch, I know we get
so tempted that we want to come in and see
if we can rescue or if we can assist. But
I also believe that if I've already blazed the trail
(50:04):
that you want to walk on, why would you have
to blaze a parallel trail when I've already blazed it
for you. And so what I want to do is
make a pathway that is easier and simpler for my
daughters and my sons in law, and my spiritual sons
and daughters and people who've come behind this, rather than saying, well,
(50:27):
I had it rough, you got to have it rough too.
And I think that we're doing the next generation a
disservice if we don't allow them to follow in our
footsteps because we've made it easier now they can travel
ahead of us, or go after us, and go even
further than we've ever gone before, to be able to
do what we've never done before because they've had this
(50:50):
ramp and this ability to go ahead and do so.
But I also believe that part of our legacy is
making it difficult enough to the point where they have
to rely on God.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Leaving a legacy.
Speaker 4 (51:05):
I want to leave a legacy that my daughters and
my family, and my friends and people who served with me,
would say that he loved Jesus. That that's what he did,
was he pointed to Jesus. His life was all about Jesus.
He worshiped Jesus. That everything that he tried to do,
he only did because what Jesus did in him and
through him. That's the kind of legacy that I want
(51:26):
to leave behind. I don't want anybody to say that
he was a self made man, because I'd be the
first to say that I'm not a self made man.
If I'm a self made man, I'm a self made
and tear apart my own life because it's built upon
some faulty foundation.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
Rather than on the rock of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4 (51:44):
The Bible tells us in First Corinthians that the apostle
Paul says, I am a master builder. And the materials
that he built upon, he said, would not would not perish,
that would last forever. And I'm praying that at the
end of the day, when this is all said and done,
and this earth is just a thought in the history
(52:08):
of this of journey throughout this galaxy sounded a little
deep and a little disconnected at the same time. But
I also do know that what's going to last forever.
What's going to last forever is the legacy we leave
behind of people, the kind of people that we impacted.
Who did we impact by the lives that we lived
(52:29):
in a very positive way? Said the things that we
said to people? What am I saying to people that
pushes them to become their best or coarse corrections are
made as a result of timely words in.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
The right season.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
What am I leaving behind in terms of my life
and who I am as a man and who I
was as a son and as a brother. And then
the other part is the relationship aspect in people. Is
what am I leaving back and behind to my wife,
to my daughters, to my grandchildren, to my sons, my
(53:08):
sons in law.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
What is God doing through that? That's part of my legacy.
I think.
Speaker 4 (53:14):
Also part of legacy is the professional side of things
and the calling of God on my life is how
many churches did I plan?
Speaker 3 (53:21):
What did I do? Did I do what God said
that he wanted me to do?
Speaker 4 (53:25):
And did I spend my time in the right places,
honoring God in everything that I did. Is there fruit
in my life as a result of me living the
life that God called me to live. When I look
in the Bible and I think about people who left
the legacy, I definitely have to think about David. How
David had a legacy, and the legacy was a good legacy,
(53:48):
but not all of it was good. It's really interesting
that when they ask you, what is the legacy that
you want to leave behind, It's almost difficult to be
able to say that, because, number one, you don't want
to come off as being prideful of what you want
to be known for. What do you want people to
(54:08):
say about you? It's actually counter productive or counteractive or countercultural,
to excuse me, it's actually countercultural to what we see
in ourselves as servants of God. Right, we don't get
in to ministry or to becoming a pastor and say
I'm gonna be the best in the world, or people
(54:29):
gonna remember my name and man, they're gonna they're gonna
build statues over me, somebody's gonna write a biography about me.
I'm gonna write my own autobiography. I don't think anybody
gets into the ministry thinking about what they want to
be known for, so it's difficult to talk about your
own legacy.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
It's really interesting when.
Speaker 4 (54:47):
I watch sports and I watch different athletes talk about
being the goat, you know what, I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
The greatest of all time? Who's the goat?
Speaker 4 (54:57):
And Tom Brady right now is being considered or the
goat when it comes to quarterbacks. Right now, there's an
incredible debate going on right now about NBA basketball about
who is the greatest of all time?
Speaker 3 (55:10):
Who is the goat?
Speaker 4 (55:11):
And I definitely will go down and say that it
is Michael Jordan. But then there are other people who
going to say, no, it's Kobe Bryant. Somebody else is
gonna say, well, no it's Lebron James and whatever it is.
But we all know that it's Michael. But Michael is
the goat standard. Michael is what everybody compares himself to,
always have, always will, How.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
Many rings did Michael have and all of that.
Speaker 4 (55:31):
I mean, it's interesting because even those athletes will sit
down and someone will interview them and they'll be asked
about what do they want to be known for. It's
interesting that when you're in your twenties and your thirties,
people are asking you what do you want to be
known for?
Speaker 3 (55:45):
And I think it's because not after you die.
Speaker 4 (55:48):
I think it's because we understand that an athlete's shelf
life of a professional career is very very short, and
so we're already talking about what is an want to
be known for.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
I also think that.
Speaker 4 (56:05):
This is a short span, but my time ain't even
close to being done. And if there's anything that I
want to be known for is in my daughter's lives.
I want to be known as the goat, you know.
I want to be the greatest of all time when
it came to a father. He may not have been
the perfect father, he may not have been this or that,
(56:27):
but he was the greatest, the greatest of all time.
And I don't want them saying that about me when
I die. I mean, I want them to say it
about me, like right now. I want my daughters to
say that my dad is the greatest of all time.
I want my wife Lisa to think that, man, he
is the greatest of all time, definitely when she says that.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
To this day, I'm living out the legacy that I believe.
Speaker 4 (56:52):
I'm inheriting. It's something that I am prophesying. It is
something that I am living up to being the greatest
of all time. That's the legacy I want to leave
behind when it comes to being the husband of Lisa
Kaii and to my church and to my congregation and
(57:13):
the people of Hawaii. I just want to be known
as I want to leave a legacy of love that
wherever went man, there was love, there was laughter, there
was life, There was love, there was laughter, there was life,
there was leadership.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
There was love, there was laughter, there was life, and
there's leadership.
Speaker 4 (57:30):
There was love, and there was laughter, and there was
life and there was leadership.
Speaker 3 (57:38):
That's what I think I would love to be known for.
Speaker 4 (57:42):
That whenever anybody came into contact with me, even on
my worst day, they encountered life, love, leadership, and laughter,
either one or all four.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
That would be incredible.
Speaker 4 (58:03):
To be known for that life, leadership, love, and laughter.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
That would be the legacy that I would love to
leave behind.
Speaker 2 (58:17):
As we wrap up this episode, we are reminded of
the incredible journey of faith, perseverance, and transformation. Mike's life
took unexpected turns, leading him through moments of despair heartbreak
and the depths of uncertainty. But through it all he
found solace in the arms of God, in prayer, and
in the power of unwavering faith. Through the highs and lows,
(58:39):
he discovered the transformative power of God's love, a love
that brings healing to wounds and joy to broken hearts.
He learned to surrender to God's plan even when it
seemed like his life was falling apart, and in the
process he found hope, purpose, and reason for living. Today,
he stands as a test to the power of resilience,
(59:01):
to the beauty of second chances, and to the miracles
that come when we trust in God's timing and wisdom.
His life's trajectory changed, not overnight, but step by step
as he embraced the path of faith and service. We
all face trials in life, and at times it may
feel like we're walking in darkness. But remember it is
(59:23):
in the darkness that stars shine the brightest. It is
during our toughest moments that God's light guides us forward.
So as we close this chapter, let us hold on
to the lessons learned today. Let us embrace the power
of prayer, of specific and unwavering faith and of patiently
waiting on God's perfect timing. And like our guest, may
(59:43):
we find the courage to serve others and to be
vessels of God's love and light. Remember, each of us
has the potential to transform lives, beginning with our own.
So let us rise above our circumstances, trusting that God's
hand is always guiding us towards future of hope, purpose
and joy. Thank you for joining us on this journey
(01:00:06):
of relentless hope. I'm your host, Matthew Potter, and I
would like to remind you to give hope a voice.
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