Our Love Story_ Written by God. (I Just Had to Get Out of the Way)

All right, let's go. I'm here on the farm and hopefully the lighting's good. The sound's going to be interesting with different farm noises, but that's okay. We're taking imperfect action and I really need to tell this story. There's no better time than now, so we're going for it. This is the story of how I met my wife. The story was a journey of learning God's love and guidance and learning to hear His voice. Before I met my wife, I had a very limited idea of what healthy relationships were. Before I met God, my understanding of love was even worse, but thankfully God knows how to grow that love in each of us if we let Him. So I was on a journey of learning to live in that love, but I had a long way to go. For many years of my spiritual journey as a young adult, I didn't do any dating or major pursuits of lady friends. There was a few hiccups or questions along the way, but I didn't get into dating. It really wasn't a direct decision though, I have to be completely honest. I was mostly preoccupied with other things that I was passionate about, like being a mentor to youth on Kauai, being outdoors like surfing, and traveling to other nations to both help and learn from those cultures which was vitally important to me. So dating didn't happen, but maybe it was that girls didn't have an interest in me or my lifestyle, which is probably it. About the sixth year of my walk with God, I made a trip to a nation that would not allow people to have a copy of their own Bible with freedom. I felt strongly that people should be given a chance to at least read the Bible and make an honest decision for themselves rather than being controlled and kept from it. I was given an opportunity to go and the door was open. I had the heart to do so, and so I went. During that trip, I met a young lady who was also taking Bibles across the border to that nation on a regular basis and leading others across the border as well. For the three weeks that I was there, I couldn't quite think of much else other than getting to know this young lady more. We were able to talk sometimes, but it wasn't nearly enough. There was something completely different happening in my heart. I was absolutely captivated and the days were passing by much too quickly. A couple days before I had to go back to Hawaii, I told her how I felt. I was a stuttering mess of words. I asked her to go on a walk with me that evening and she was happy to do so, but that was the extent of our time together. She didn't feel ready for a relationship beyond friends or fellow Bible smugglers. Before I left, she did mention that she'd like to stay in touch and when she handed me her contact information, I felt a great wave of responsibility flood over me in an instant. By that time in my faith journey, I knew it to be God, the source of love speaking to me in that moment. I felt the call to selfless love and I really wanted to treat this young lady with a type of love that didn't need or require anything in return. If I truly cared for her, then I would encourage her, pray for her, and be available as a friend regardless of what I get in return. This was the maker's type of love and the type of love that I knew very little of apart from him. So I left. I went back home to Hawaii. I wrote to Ellie quite often at first and tried my best to simply encourage her like a brother would. She would write back, but the delay time between her responses began to increase and I felt a deep longing for more responses, not less. God placed upon my heart to not pray to be with her, but to instead pray for her and to even pray for her future husband as well, which is kind of funny now, but whomever that would be. But in the time, it was really humbling to pray in that way, to pray for some other guy to take care of this young lady that you love. It was really good for me though. It was also very evident that I was to never tell her of those prayers in that time. Yeshua taught that when you pray, pray in secret. I'd like to think now that praying in secret is more likely to be a prayer of a pure heart. So I'd like to say that I stayed faithful in that state of my heart, but selfish ambitions crept up in sneaky ways. There was a particular day that I'd written to Ellie and shortly after had an awakening to the selfishness of my motives. And I realized I had mentioned a story to Ellie of a recent involvement in coming to aid in an accident to help a traumatic situation of a stranger. And I knew that I had told her that story to make myself look like a hero. I was trying to benefit from prior good deeds. I could feel that in my heart after I wrote to her. I knew that was my motive. Yeshua said that when we give, to give in secret. And love doesn't give with the desire to be seen by others. So I was pretty convicted by that. I realized that I wanted to be seen, and I wanted to be seen by Ellie. And I felt a deep sorrow for the words that I had sent to her. And so I cried out to God for help. And in that time of remorse and humility, I was given a very clear and focused vision. Beautifully given from the Creator who knew exactly what I needed to see and understand. But the result of the vision was that I realized how broken, hurt, filthy, and needy I truly was in my own selfish ambitions. I became captivated by how loving He truly is, and how only He can make me internally pure and full of love. He wasn't condemning or accusing me in my vision, but offering to help make me new. So in that moment, in an intense flurry of brokenness and captivation, and in a desperate heart to simply know God more and be done with my selfish ambitions, I spoke with God and committed myself to being single the rest of my life unless He would guide me into a marriage. I didn't know what else to do in that moment. I just wanted to be free of this internal struggle of my heart to be seen and accepted. In my vision, I realized that His acceptance was all I really needed. So in my sloppy and snotty pitiful mess, what I was really committing to and really praying for was simply to have a pure heart. And so I don't recommend that others pray this prayer necessarily. It's not a formula anyway. What I do recommend is learning the state of your own heart and ambitions, and pray in a way that allows God to untwist the selfish desires from true selfless love. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. So if you find yourself not able to see God in your life, start learning to see Him by first learning to have a pure heart. The rest of this story testifies to this simple and profound truth. The very next day, literally the very next day, Ellie wrote to me in an email and said that she had just felt an overwhelming peace about me and wanted to pray together about a relationship beyond more than fellow Bible smugglers. At this moment, I could see what God was doing. It was the Father's wonderful and caring heart for her that He was protecting her, and she was in tune with her Heavenly Father enough to know that she didn't have peace about a relationship with me until I was the one to further understand His kind of love and lean into it. So this was an amazing moment, but also a terrifying one. I knew it would be a terribly selfish thing to now take advantage of this young lady's feelings of peace and try to jump into some sort of relationship. I knew He wanted me to learn His love and guidance, and I also learned that He, the Creator of heaven and earth, was protecting her. And that was much more terrifying than a protective dad with a shotgun. So at this point, this was now a journey with God and no other way. I was a little reluctant to tell Ellie of my commitment to be single and rely on God to lead me into marriage. What if she didn't understand or was not willing to wait around for who knows how long until God decided to do something? I told her what I had prayed and committed to just the day before, and she recognized what God was doing, and she was willing to wait on her Creator to make things known. I was very thankful that she would be patient and wait with me. Pretty soon after this, the devastating earthquake in Haiti took place, and it was pretty heartbreaking to hear about people still trapped under rubble. My mind couldn't be swayed from those people and that devastation, and I started to realize that it was the Father's heart in me, because it's His deep love for His children. So I realized that He was speaking to me in this time, in this way, that I was to go to Haiti. Commercial flights were down though, so I reached out to several people and notified them of some skill sets that I was able to help in if I could get down there. I told Ellie as well, but not to make myself look good anymore, but because she seemed to have a lot of connections to people all over the world, and through a friend of Ellie's father, I got connected to someone with a private jet leaving from Florida to Haiti the very next day, and they had one seat left. So I dropped everything, got a flight that left Hawaii right away in order to get to Florida in time, and then to Haiti. Haiti was a heartache disaster. I arrived to an area where some loving people were already able to obtain enough wood and metal to make a bit of a secured base for medical supplies to be held around a house still standing. The base was needed so that all the medical supplies wouldn't be plundered in one day by the thousands of desperate people amidst the rubble. I got to work right away helping in the community and quickly got overrun with endless tasks and needs. Along with that came a pretty severe stomach sickness, almost passing out, often throwing up, and losing almost all bowel control was leaving me pretty overrun and hopeless in a very hurting world around me. And it was at this time that I met an older man named Wesley. He was full of hope, love, and true passionate care for others around him. Wesley was an absolute encouragement to say the least. I really came to admire this man who was free yet exemplified God's love in a powerful and unselfish way. I tried to hang out with Wesley as much as time would allow and glean from his joy, wisdom, and passion for life. On a very hot day, Wesley became sluggish from heat exhaustion, but his love for people wouldn't stop. So he kept going, but he kept removing pieces of clothing to cool down and keep working. And he eventually was down to his underwear, his tighty whities, and continued to help others. So here was an older man who could have been living a comfortable retired life just watching the news about Haiti, but instead was so filled with love, passion, and freedom from God that he was found walking around a devastated nation of rubble in his undies while helping and praying for and encouraging his beautiful brothers and sisters of God's creation. It's funny, but it's amazing. He was so free and loving. Wesley became a hero to me, not just because of his strong freedom, but because he lived in a selfless love that I wanted more of. I guess some heroes like to be in their underwear, but Wesley was a true hero in his underwear. So to cut down the story, my time in Haiti was coming to an end. And I heard of a volunteer plane flying from Pennsylvania and thought, hmm, Ellie's currently in Ohio at her parents' place. Maybe this is a provision by God to go see her. So I was able to contact her and let her know my thoughts to come visit after leaving Haiti. She liked the idea and got her parents' blessing, and they even found a place for me to stay at a friend's farm nearby. So that was a wow. That seemed like an open door. But that night, as I lay still in my hammock above the dusty ground, I felt a strong conviction of selfish ambition in my heart. And I soon realized why. I remembered that I had been committed to documenting a radical story about a girl from Africa named Mercy. She had been severely burned to the point of severe alterations in her face and was then neglected and ignored by her family and community. It was a heartbreaking scenario, but Mercy was found by a couple who loved her greatly and eventually took Mercy to the west coast of the USA to get reconstructive surgery, a process that took almost two years. I had already started and been committed to telling this story. So laying there in my hammock in the stillness, I was hearing from the Almighty who presented these two options. I could be driven by love and honor the testimony that I was or be driven by selfish ambition as an opportunist of the moment. I knew that if I took that flight to Pennsylvania, that I would be cultivating and watering the selfish seed of desire within me. And it was just a matter of time before that would blow up in my own face. So I eventually got a flight from Haiti to California. Soon after arriving, I met with a the process of gathering material for the story about Mercy. They had asked what my plans were after being on the west coast. And so I told them that I had hoped to go to Ohio, but not sure it was what I was supposed to do. Plus I was almost entirely out of funds to even get there. My friends got excited and mentioned that their friend Ryan was planning to move to Ohio to be with his girlfriend and now wife. He'd be leaving in about three weeks. So maybe I could catch a ride with him. It sounded nice, almost too good to be true. It was good timing for me to finish up in California, but I still wasn't sure. They eventually decided to just call Ryan and see what could happen. With just a short explanation, Ryan was more than happy to let me catch a ride with him to Ohio if I was willing to go. He also happened to be in Ohio at that very moment when we called. He was securing a job at a restaurant before he made the big move. Then Ryan did something really out of the ordinary. He asked me the name of the young lady I had hoped to visit. And when I told him, he immediately yelled her name in the restaurant that he was getting a job at and asked if anyone knew her. I was like, yeah, right. There's over 11 million people, I think, in Ohio. And, you know, I loved Ryan's freedom to do this, but also scoffed at the reality of it. I was like, no way. Then I heard through the phone, that's Lee's sister. And my heart nearly leaped through my chest. I didn't know what was going on. So Ryan, also excited at what just happened, told me that he had just got a job at the same restaurant as Ellie's older brother. It seemed no way. How is this even real? But it was clearly God again. God who had waited with perfect timing for my humility before he would speak to Ellie, had now just brought me to the only person who was already planning to move to the exact location on the other side of the United States at the exact time that I should go. That's what Yahweh does. I could have faith that it was him because I wasn't even, or couldn't even be orchestrating this in any way. It was impossible. I remembered my time in Haiti and feeling a deep conviction to not take that private jet. And I now realized that he had much greater plans. So three weeks later, I got into a little cab pickup with an authentic and full-hearted man named Ryan and drove across the United States. And then without my request, Ryan took me to the doorstep of the one I had prayed for. Not prayed to be with, but prayed for more than anyone else. And if that one story doesn't convince you that it was God who orchestrated all of this, so back up to Haiti, that free and loving older man named Leslie, who I was inspired by and drawn to. In our conversations while in Haiti, we shared a common experience of smuggling Bibles into closed nations. And I found out that he knew Ellie's parents. And not only did he know them, but Wesley was a good friend and a mentor to Ellie's father, Wendell. It was already beyond a privilege to meet the man who mentored the father of the girl that I deeply loved. And I told Wesley of my thoughts and heart for Ellie. But what I didn't know until much later in time is that some point between leaving Haiti and that road trip to Ohio, Wesley had told Wendell of our time together in Haiti and had spoken well of my character and heart for Ellie. So not only did I not have to prove anything to Ellie, but just align my heart with God's love. But then God literally went before me in ways I could never have imagined or conjured up to help bring peace to a father who deeply loves his daughter about some guy showing up at their doorstep. So he was given assurance of my heart to love his daughter before I even had a chance to meet him. Again, I did nothing except commit myself to learning to hear God's voice and aligning my heart to his love. Yahweh had gone before me because I had given him the space to first work on my heart and then guide my walk in life. When I answered the call to Haiti, I could never have fathomed the plan my heavenly father had beyond helping a hurting and needing people. And it's in these moments right here that I can't forget. I have to remember that following God is not complicated. It's simple faith and selfless love that are the basic right and left footsteps that we take along the pathway to the depths and the riches of Yahweh's kingdom. In a few days after my arrival to Ohio, Ellie and I were both encouraged by the To not waste our time focusing on compatibility or fulfilling a checklist, but to instead trust that he will bring us into a compatible love. So after about three weeks of being together, Ellie and I were engaged and set a wedding date in a couple months. The wedding date may have been sooner, but we both already had previous commitments to go travel to separate nations in that season. By that time we knew better than to set aside our commitments to go help others for the sake of selfish ambitions. And that's how we were married. And really that's when a new adventure began. I wish I could say my character was perfect by the time of marriage, but we all know that's not the case for each of us. But marriage is a beautiful way to draw out the character flaws in us. If we meet them with humility, it ends up being beautiful. But all that is talk for another time. My hope is that you don't end this video without taking action. If there was any part of this story that ignited something in your heart, I encourage you to take the time to lean into that right away. I'm going to make an extended pause after this video so you can spend some time with our Creator, our Father, who is not a God that's just looking from above like people say, but He's in you, giving life to your body right now in this moment. If you believe that He's in you, then you can also believe that it's very easy for Him to speak to you if you don't suppress His voice, His inspiration, His love. Also, if the story was encouraging, another way to take action is by sharing the story with others. But before any sharing, take the time. Ask Him to search your heart and see if there's any fear or selfish ambitions or any unforgiveness that may be in you. He will speak to you and reveal those things, not to make you feel guilty, but so that you can give those things up and replace them with His love. He will show you the truth and it's His truth that sets you free. God is not the accuser of our mistakes. He is the forgiver. So I encourage you to take the time. He will speak to you.