A Desire Deep Within. . .Now Put It To Practice

My New Year's resolution: to make a resolution whenever I feel like it. 


Here's the question: What is keeping us from making drastic life-changing, habit-changing, positively influenced choices and commitments more often than once a year??

Only one real answer comes to my mind - fear.

The fear of uncertainty. The fear of newness. The fear of failure. The fear of not being able to follow thru to completion. The fear of change. The fear of responsibility.

I often wrestle with these fears because there's something deep within that tells me the desire for change will actually be beneficial. The strangle hold comes down to this: do we allow the fear to control our desire for positive change in our life?

Or do we act out of faith - knowing that God would not lead us into anything too big to handle in our own life...alone...without Him?

I'm trying to learn how to act out of faith, rather than cower, or back down in fear. Let's chew on that together for a while. . .

My February 1st resolution: to remember that faith in God is greater than any scheme of fear from the devil. Amen. 

Back Pocket Thoughts

Some people hate it; others, like me, cannot help it. While reading I dog-ear pages all the time. The issue is, the habitual practice is more useless than beneficial..until now.

Often times I read something out of a book or hear something profound and think, "Dang, I sure hope I can remember to write about that later!" This post, and many more like it, will be dedicated to the "worth-a-second-look" collection of meaningful thoughts, ideas or quotes that pop up throughout my daily life. You know, the ones we find ourselves reading again, repeating, or even memorizing. I like to call them "back pocket thoughts."

• "Some men want to sit within the sound of a church or chapel bell; not I, I want to set up a rescue shop within a yard of Hell."  - missionary C.T. Studd (Feb. 2011)
• "As I see it, the evidence is incontestable: Christians risk becoming utterly irrelevant in their own culture if they continue to separate people into 'We, the Saved' and 'They, the Damned.'" - Carlton Pearson (Feb. 2011)
• While reading Making All Things New by Henri J.M. Nouwen - (Dec. 2010)
•    "What would happen if we stopped worrying? If the urge to be entertained so much, to travel so much, to buy so much, and to arm ourselves so much no longer motivated our behavior, could our society as it is today still function? The tragedy is that we are indeed caught in a web of false expectations and contrived needs. Our occupations and preoccupations fill our external and internal lives to the brim. They prevent the Spirit of God from breathing freely in us and thus renewing our lives."
•    "Worrying causes us to be 'all over the place,' but seldom at home. One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there."

The Blind Journey

The Journey - Trusting in What's Ahead

After struggling to understand my long-term vision of being in the Bay Area of California, I began to ask God if my time there was done. The origin of this internal debate dates back to January of 2010. I began questioning the idea of stepping back from Young Life staff - only to continue serving as a volunteer. My notion was to serve wholeheartedly out of my own ambition, not to fulfill an external pressure of meeting organizational goals as a paid staff member. This unsettling quandary continued to grow. Eventually, the conclusion finally gained clarity: if my time and energy should be maximized - if you want me to serve and get your biggest bang for your buck - then I need only to serve out of the bottom of my heart. . .for free. In other words, I simply want to be a leader amongst volunteer leaders. I wanted to relinquish the pressures of meeting a status quo. I no longer wanted to concentrate on counting numbers as a success rate. I wanted to go back to the basics of outreach ministry. Let someone else do my job, I just want to be a volunteer. 


In the short of it, I was struggling a lot with being paid by the ministry. I considered donating my income back to our campership fund, just to help support kids going to Young Life camp. I realized I wanted to be that guy - the one that writes a check to the ministry - all while still volunteering to walk along side kids in life. We spend so much time and energy fundraising, I figured I could simply be that guy that takes the stress off the staff folks. No need to fundraise as much any more if someone is donating without all the "showiness", lights and banquet invitations. 


In light of the internal struggles and questioning, I was able to undergo some serious spiritual transformation. My outlook had a fresh perspective. I reexamined everything I was doing in the ministry. I was rediscovering the unfailing love of God. I rediscovered the passion of Jesus and his desire to reach the lost sheep. I was loving kids more passionately than I ever had. Suddenly, I felt the ground beneath me moving as if my time in the Tri-Valley were coming to a close. And all I wanted to do is make sure I allowed God's love to pour out of me, while never forgetting nor forsaking the relationships I was blessed to find myself in. Without a doubt, I was right where I was supposed to be all along. I needed to learn those things in order to become more in touch with who God wants me to be.

The Boys at Woodleaf

But without going on, I must say, I miss the boys of Foothill High School. I miss the leaders I served with. I miss my boss Jeannette, our conversations over food and her family. I miss hanging with Kim in the office, having Mandarin Chicken and being around her boys. I miss driving by Amador Valley High School, Hart, PMS and Harvest Park to pray. I miss the Mahoney family I stayed with for almost two years. I miss Monday nights at the Young Life club house. I miss walking thru life with those I learned to love so dearly. 


So this is the underbelly of the whole transition. Little would I know God would pluck me from the situation and lead me to an island. This is only the beginning of the on-going series of posts pertaining to The Blind Journey - my story of God's plan for me reaching His lost sheep. More to come soon. . .

One Month In

Well, believe it or not, my time here on island has gone by rather quickly. It has been quite an adventure thus far. One thing I have promised myself: to take full advantage of the location I find myself in, never forgetting to gaze at God's beauty. When thinking about the past month living on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I decided to take note of some of the gnarly experiences and other events worth mentioning. Here are a few things that have been worth noting in the adventure:


- On Sept. 13 I surrendered my California license and attained a new one - it has a rainbow on it 
- Bought a car, a 1992 Subaru wagon that I named Elanor
- Flew into Honolulu and visited the island of Oahu for four days partaking in Young Life Mission Community Weekend
- Caught a ferry boat and spent two nights on the island of Molokai to train leaders in Young Life
- Moved from Lahaina to the town of Kihei, now living with 3 other Godly guys in a nice bachelor pad
- Have watched nearly every sunset fall to the horizon :)


With many more adventures to come, I couldn't help but look back at the blessings I have already experienced. Yet the biggest portion of my time here so far has been left unspoken, the ministry movement. This is mainly because it is discussed in length in the continued blog post titled: The Blind Journey

Heartbeat of Young Life

I was floating thru the great world of facebook tonight and I stumbled across a very well done video out of Nashville. The clip highlights the heartbeat of the ministry of Young Life. Though many informational type videos have been made about the ministry, I feel this one is very current and applicable to most audiences. So before I go any further, I will let the rest of the story be told by the narrator of the short film. I encourage you to rest for the next 10 minutes and let God move in your heart.

“Dear Lord,

Give us the teenagers that we may lead them to Thee. Our hearts ache for the millions of young people who remain untouched by the Gospel and for the tragically large proportion of those who have dropped by the wayside and find themselves without spiritual guidance. Help us to give them a chance, oh Father, a chance to become aware of thy Son’s beauty and healing power in the might of the Holy Spirit. Oh, Lord Jesus, give us the teenagers, each one at least long enough for a meaningful confrontation with Thee. We are at best unprofitable servants, but thy grace is sufficient. Oh, thou Holy Spirit, give us the teenagers. For we love them and know them to be awfully lonely. Dear Lord, give us the teenagers.” - Jim Rayburn

Learning the Lingo

I'm always tempted to buy Rosetta Stone - but the stupid program is $200 - and some change. Can't afford that. Luckily that route is not even an option with the Hawaiian language. Though learning a new language can be intimidating, native Hawaiian lingo is a fun change of pace. At first, it can be confusing and frustrating (especially getting around with the street names). But once you get used to it, it kinda flows smoothly off the tongue. Just the sounds of the words remind me of trees gently swaying in the breeze and the sound of the crashing waves. I found out that today, Hawaiian is spoken as an every day language only on the privately owned island of Ni'ihau, 17 miles off the coast of Kaua'i (which I have no clue as to where that is). Otherwise, English is mixed into daily conversation with Hawaiian scattered in use. But I have figured out that pronunciation is not as tough as it seems.

When missionaries discovered that the Hawaiians had no written language, they sat down and created an alphabet. This Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters - less than half than English. Five vowels: A, E, I, O and U, as well as seven consonants, H, K, L, M, N, P and W. The consonants are pronounced just as they are in English, with the exception of W. It is often pronounced as a V when in the middle of a word and comes after an E or I. Vowels are pronounced as follows:

A - pronounced as in Ah if stressed, or above if not stressed.

E - pronounced as in say if stressed, or dent if not stressed.

I - pronounced as in bee.

O - pronounced as in no.

U - pronounced as in boo.

Then, I learned something rather different to me. The upside down apostrophe, known as a glottal stop, is meant to provide a hard stop in the pronunciation. It usually falls between a double letter. Just think about it...you and I have probably been pronouncing "Honolulu" wrong all our lives!

Give this one a go... it's the name of the Hawaiian state fish: Humuhumunukunukapua'a. It is often said that the fish's name is longer than the fish. Nonetheless, it sure is a beautiful creature, yeah?

The Calling of a Lifetime

The question lately: what is the significance of "matthewninenine"? Superb inquiry. I would love to elaborate.

Cousin Jacob and I showed up for 6:30 mass at St. Mary's Church of the Assumption in West, TX. The night was June 7 of 2008. That's a lot of detail, huh? Well, it's the day, time and place that has shaped my life ever since. You see, two days prior I had just returned from a visit in the Bay Area of NorCal, interviewing for a position with YoungLife. After my return back to Texas, I was left with a choice to make: take the leap of faith and move to Pleasanton, CA, or stay close to home and take the job offer in the field I studied at university. Big decision to make. So that night in the pew listening to Father Ed, it became as clear as grandma's plastic wrap on a piece of leftover pecan pie. It was as if God had whispered into my ear: choose yourself, or choose Me. 

Sitting there glued to the sermon, Father Ed had shared the passage from the gospel of Matthew, in the ninth chapter, starting at the ninth verse.

9As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

Throughout the ministry of Jesus, we are constantly invited to "just come and see." So in the come-and-see fashion, Jesus reaches out to a tax collector named Matthew (also referred to as Levi in other gospels), who is known as the crook of society, the dishonorable in character, the least popular in profession, by simply saying "follow me." According to scripture, we are not quite sure where Jesus and Matthew went or what they did as they left the tax booth. But the story picks up around food time.

10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 

Hello! Am I missing something here? "Follow me" turns into... please pass the gravy. "Collecting taxes" becomes, for Matthew...witnessing unconditional compassion. Apparently the relationship was established quickly enough to influence Matthew to open his home to a bunch of riff-raff. Ever realized how Jesus was not necessarily invited into the home, yet he invited himself? The point of observation I come to is this: Jesus put himself in that situation. He went to the people who needed him most - the crooks, the prostitutes, the lowly and disreputable characters. Something about the quality, strength and passion of Jesus shook these people in a very non-threatening manner. He offers a peaceful and inviting relationship to Matthew, which is ultimately the exact character that drew me nearer to him. 

As I sat in the pew that evening of June 7, God's voice echoed in my mind: "Follow me." Indeed, the calling was clear. God was calling me - the least of many. "Choose yourself, or choose me," he said. Herein lies the vocation of my life. My heart was convicted. Just weeks later I drove across the Arizona/California border and started an adventurous journey of "following" Jesus. Just to add to it, my given name happens to be Matthew. Well, at least that made it easier for me to follow along in the sermon. 

Nowadays, I get to share the wonderful journey with my loved ones via blog style. Appropriately named, matthewninenine will always have a special spot in my life, as the story and account of Jesus continue to affect those I now encourage to "just come and see."