Darkness to Dawn: Journeying from Despair to Redemption - Mike Kai
[00:00:00] Matt Potter: Welcome back to Relentless Hope, the podcast 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 took him from the depths of despair to the heights of faith and purpose.
[00:00:29] 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 and nights filled with prayers, he found solace and 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.
[00:01:03] Join us on this episode of Relentless Hope, as we hear Mike Kai's powerful testimony, how he faced heartbreak and loss, but through unwavering faith, he found the strength to rebuild his life.
[00:01:15] 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.
[00:01:34] Amidst unchanging circumstances, Mike Kai discovers the true power of growth, prayer, and God's profound impact. Leading his life from darkness to an inspiring upward trajectory.
[00:01:48] Mike Kai: I hung in there. Um, 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.
[00:02:02] I was changing. I was growing. I was reading the Bible. I was learning how to pray. I was hearing God's voice in my heart of hearts, and, and, and, and I was, my anger was going away, um, 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.
[00:02:24] 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.
[00:02:45] Matt Potter: On part one of this three parts 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.
[00:03:06] Mike Kai: I come from a small town of 2000 people on the big island of Hawaii. It's called the island of Hawaii, in the state of Hawaii. Uh, grew up, um, being the second child of four siblings, have an older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. Um, grew up in, uh, the early eighties, so to speak, is when my formative years of my childhood, um, coming from a small town, of course, I went to a small school.
[00:03:34] And, um, when I graduated from high school, um, 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.
[00:03:51] Growing up in rural Hawaii was a blessing. Um, I had great parents who took us to church every Sunday. Um, I was an altar boy, uh, in the Catholic church and I loved serving the priests and I really enjoyed the opportunity for that to serve the congregation as a young child.
[00:04:11] Um, 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, um, I got confirmed. But, um, when I left and moved to the big city of Honolulu to go to the University of Hawaii, um, I would say, looking back that I had a lot of great religious training, but I really did not have a relationship, um, with Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
[00:04:39] Um, graduated at the age of 17, moved to the big city of Honolulu, um, starstruck, all in awe of the size of the city. Um, could not believe that my university class had so many people in it more than my own high school graduating class. I got lost in the crowd. Not only was I lost in the crowd, but also I got lost in many ways.
[00:05:03] Um, looking for acceptance, being a younger underclassman, uh, from all the athletes wanting to walk on the basketball team or the football team had my choice, wasn't sure which one I wanted to do. I ended up, um, doing things that, of course, when you're far away from God that you, 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. Um, I was in the ROTC program, um, my freshman year. By my sophomore year, I was really just letting loose and, um, quickly began to see that if I didn't make a change, um, I was going be out of college pretty soon out of the university.
[00:05:47] Uh, in the meantime, I met this girl and I absolutely could say that I fell head over heels for her. I never really had a girlfriend growing up. You know, in the growing up I was a little bit shorter, I was smaller, uh, little, uh, immature in my growth process, but I definitely loved girls, no doubt about it.
[00:06:06] So when I had my first girlfriend, I hit and I hit it hard, man, and, um, I, just contributed more to a downward spiral of my life, even though, um, I wouldn't listen to anybody, um, was doing what I thought was right and what I wanted to do. My parents tried to speak into it from long distance, telephone calls, long distance, letters. There was no email back then when dinosaurs roamed the earth and, uh, I basically ran my life the way I wanted to.
[00:06:37] Before I knew it, as time had gone by, I became the person that I didn't really wanna become, and then to add even greater pressure to what I was going through, I found out that at the age of 19 that I was gonna be a father.
[00:06:51] I was not ready. I don't, I was not prepared. Um, but her mother and I decided that we definitely were keeping this child and we were bringing this child into the world. So I did what I believe was the right thing to do, and I, we got married. I'm 19 years old. I'm married. I'm young, my whole life was ahead of me.
[00:07:17] Um, 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 end up working at a Pizza Hut.
[00:07:30] Um, my life as I saw it, I couldn't believe that this is what was going on. I didn't realize that this is how far I'd fallen, but I was bringing a child into the world and I had to, I had to, um, really grow up very, very quickly.
[00:07:49] Uh, marriage was tough. Um, two people who don't know God, who are not going to church, and now all of a sudden you thrust into this, um, a trying to make a marriage work, um, it didn't last very long. Within a year and a half, we were already separated. Um, um, I was absolutely lost and devastated. I wanted to stay married, um, but it takes two to make things work and it was not working.
[00:08:21] 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, um, my heart was broken. Uh, realized that I wanted to remain married. Uh, realized that things, uh, needed to change, but they were not changing, um, in that by the time I'm 21 years old now, I am so rock bottom that, I'm thinking about ending my life, but I can't because I have this girl that's keeping me alive. She needs me. Uh, her mother's not in the picture. I didn't wanna live anymore, but I had to because I have a mother and a father who loved 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.
[00:09:18] So, I, I knew that I needed to live, uh, my, 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 wanna go to church. They said, no, you gotta come to church. I said, I, I don't wanna go to church. And they keep on bugging me about coming to their church.
[00:09:38] So one day after bugging me, and I'm trying to avoid the question, my friend Brandon says, come on, Mike, you gotta come to church. I said, I don't wanna go to church. He says, you gotta come to my church. I said, I don't wanna go to your church. He goes, you would love my church. I said, well, tell me about it then. 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, my church has a pastor.
[00:10:05] I said, you have a pastor? You mean you don't have a priest? He says, yeah, I have a pastor. And I said, well, what does your pastor look like? Well, he wears jeans, 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. That sounds like a cult.
[00:10:22] And he goes, no, no, no. It's a church man, you would love it, you would love it. It's called Hope Chapel. And his pastor's name is Ralph Moore. You, you gotta come. And I, uh, I said, well, one day I'll, one day I'll come.
[00:10:34] 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. I mean, breakfast, right? I'm not making a lot of money. Someone wants to buy me breakfast, of course I'm gonna go to church. And so finally I said yes. I said, Hey. And I wanna say to everybody out there, do not underestimate the power of bacon, okay? Because bacon is powerful. And I said yes.
[00:10:56] 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 pounding like a drum.
[00:11:17] And we get closer and people are hugging me. They take my daughter Courtney, to the Children's church, and I'm going in the other direction. And I see they, 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, but in the same time, I'm just feeling love.
[00:11:45] 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 songs to God. That's the way that I would call them. They were ballads to God. And I, 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. Uh, I used to go to karaoke or karaoke 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, or I'd sing this other song, Unchained Melody.
[00:12:35] But this was, this was love songs to God. And it grabbed me, 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 that I could raise my hand and respond that I would, and at the end of the service, he gave what we call an alter call, that if you want Jesus in your life, if you wanna be freed, if, if you want forgiveness of your sins, if you want the assurance of heaven, he said, if you want a new life, and I gave my, I've raised my hand and I, I gave my life to the Lord that Sunday, a long time ago. It was 1989 and, uh, over 30 years ago.
[00:13:25] My life has never been the same since. Um, I hung in there, um, 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. I was changing. I was growing, I was reading the Bible, I was learning how to pray. I was hearing God's voice in my heart of hearts and, and, and, and I was, my anger was going away. Um, 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. 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.
[00:14:19] I had waited. I had been a faithful husband and I waited, but when it became absolutely apparent and undoubtedly evident that we would not be together again, um, 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 to you. And you know, at that moment, it's real easy for people to get discouraged and for me to go, well, God, you never answered my prayer that this doesn't work. And God, you never mended my marriage, and even though I was a contributor to why it wasn't working, uh, God, you must not be real or you disappoint me and I'm not gonna follow you. This Christianity doesn't work. I'm, 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.
[00:15:12] So when it was finally over and when the ink was dry, I finally said, okay, Lord, well, I'm gonna be married to you. I knew I wasn't ready, I wasn't ready for anybody else. I, I, I, I'm, I'm older now. It's been three years since the separation, and I'm like 24 and I'm moving on with my life and I'm tr I'm working for American Airlines now. I got a job and I got involved in multi-level marketing and it changed a lot of the way that I thought the wa 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, um, I've was faithful to my vows and I got one more year. I'm making a vow to you that I I'm married to you. And when that one year had gone by and that one year had passed, um, that's when I said, okay, Lord, if I can ever get married again,
[00:16:04] if you find that I'm worthy of having a wife, then God, Courtney needs a mom and I need a wife, and, and I began to pray specifically, you know, this is Pray.com, 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.
[00:16:25] Uh, I heard him on the radio cuz I was discipled on Christian radio, and I heard him on the radio and he said, that if you're gonna pray, pray specifically, do not be afraid to ask God. And I asked God and I said, God, okay, I'm gonna 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, number one, number one, you're gonna laugh at this, but I said, number one, can she be gorgeous? Drop dead, gorgeous Chinese, beautiful Chinese. And, um, because I, I thought Chinese women, I thought if I got married to Chinese woman, uh, we make beautiful kids together. I said, number one, she's gotta be Chinese. Okay, drop dead gorgeous Chinese.
[00:17:07] 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.
[00:17:15] And then number three, she's gotta be five foot seven, gotta be five foot seven. Cuz 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, cuz I felt that if she loves Jesus more than she loves me, uh, we'll make it through anything, cuz Jesus will be our bond. And um, 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. I just waited patiently on the Lord, I've already waited three and a half years, four years.
[00:17:50] You know what I'm saying?
[00:17:51] And I just said, Lord, you know, and I'm, I'm patient, I'm waiting on you. And, and I saw her and I, and her name was Lisa Lum. Saw her at a Christmas party and, um, this was a long process. This was 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 every aspect and area of my life.
[00:18:28] And that's what I did.
[00:18:30] 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 than anything else, and after about six months, nine months, gone by and finally I realized, I said, Lord, this is who I prayed for. This is what I asked for. And I think you've brought her. I don't know why I'm waiting. 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. I wasn't, there was no eHarmony, there was no online dating sites. 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.
[00:19:12] And so I proposed and Lisa and I had a short engagement, we got married in two and a half months to proposed to her, and we were married in two and a half months, and, you know, and, um, here we are. Two more daughters, Rebecca, she's now 22 Caris, she's now 13.
[00:19:34] We've got three girls, Courtney, Rebecca and Caris, and we've got two grandchildren, believe it or not. She, Bowie is four, four years old and Otis is, is almost gonna make two years old. And they live in Portland, Oregon and, um, with mom and dad, Courtney and Jason. And Courtney's a beautiful, beautiful mother and hard worker, and my life is blessed, and here, here Lisa and I are, here we are, married 25 years. 25 years, and it's been the best 25 years of my life. And, 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, um, God answered my prayers and I'm telling you, pray.
[00:20:29] Just got to 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 ever could deserve. Jesus is amazing.
[00:20:46] When he said, I want you to pray about it, I, 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 mountains where it overlooked that whole part of the island that I pastored today, and back then, I remember sitting up there every morning before the kids would wake up, I'd drink a cup of coffee and I said, God, I, I don't know if you want me to be a pastor of a church.
[00:21:10] I don't wanna be a pastor of a church and already had five pastors before and they won another one. And it's a young church and they got 40 people, and I'm gonna leave this youth ministry. It's booming. It's at its best it's ever been. And um, 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 Oahu, up in the mountains and looking over and praying.
[00:21:35] Said, God, I, I, I don't want to be a senior pastor. I don't want to leave my church in Kaneohe, 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. Psalm 37:4 says delight yourself from the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
[00:21:57] Interesting how I delighted myself in God and he gave me the desires of my heart, but my desires began to change. My desires became His desires. I wanted what God wanted, not what I wanted. And I sat on that rock and I said, Lord. If you want me to go, I'll go, but I don't want to go, but not my will, but your will be done.
[00:22:22] Matt Potter: On part two of this three part series, Pastor Mike Kai 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.
[00:22:50] Mike Kai: Growing up, I never saw myself as a leader. Um, I always seemed to be the follower who wanted to be the leader, uh, but because of my, probably my height at the time, to be honest with you. And, uh, there were guys that I grew up with were bigger, stronger, faster, um, and they just had this natural ability to lead.
[00:23:14] Um, so I never saw myself as a leader as I was growing up.
[00:23:18] But I think when I got into college and even beyond college, I started to see that there was a leader within me. Um, I aspired to be a great leader. Uh, there were people like, um, John Maxwell that I admired and his writings, there were people that shaped a lot of my thinking on leadership, people like Dr. Norman Vincent Peel, Clement Stone.
[00:23:40] There are different people in different parts of my life that have authors who mentored me, um, through their books. 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 then working in, just trying to make it work, and doing a multi-level marketing business and this multi-level marketing business, believe it or not, actually helped me become the leader who I am today. It was groundbreaking, it 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, back then it was tapes, then it evolved to CDs and DVDs, and today we listened to podcasts, and, um, 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, the, the series was called The Greatest Salesman in the World. And that book just grabbed and touched my heart. When it came to finances as a young man at the age of 21, 22, I read this really good book, it's very old, 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.
[00:25:10] Um, 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, um, pilot named Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier, um, back in the 1950s, the late 1950s, and there was something about that book that really spoke to my heart as a young man.
[00:25:33] You see, when I left college, I hardly read, and when I was in college, college I hardly read anyway, but while I was there, I was reading more texts. I was reading theory, but when I got outta college, I read more about real life and um, books like How To Win Friends and Influence People. So there were books that began to speak to me, one of them was those books that I talked about, uh, by Chuck Yeager and how he broke the sound barrier in the late 1950s. I started reading books like The Greatest Salesman in the World, but also, um, how to Win Friends and Influence People, such a pivotal book for a young person to realize how to talk to people and how to get to know people.
[00:26:11] Those are books that began to shape me.
[00:26:13] 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 the seats that I was sitting in, but as I outgrew that business and I began, God began to call me into the ministry, which is what I'll talk about is I began to, um, my definition of leadership began to be shaped and changed, uh, according to more of the Bible and God's word and the great leadership that we saw in the Bible.
[00:26:46] I always wanted to be a good leader and possibly even a great leader, of course, I didn't wanna be average, I want to be great, and I began to, um, define leadership according to the word of God. Of course, over the years, leadership is defined by, um, character, competency, um, capacity and chemistry. But I think actually character is probably the number one quality that you need as a leader.
[00:27:15] 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, um, the pastors on staff that helped shape me, like Rob McWilliams, uh, different people on the journey of my life of becoming the person who I was. When I was a younger leader, I was brash, I was loud, I was opinionated.
[00:27:37] I had foot and mouth syndrome. In other words, I'd 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 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 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 to fight back through depression and having to fight back through that scenario to become who I was today.
[00:28:21] Uh, I don't know what it was, but it was something about me that was hungry and wanted to push through and fight, and so when I was beginning to question the call 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 gonna be a millionaire, I thought that's the direction that I wanted to go.
[00:28:39] 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 Christian and going to church at Hope Chapel, I remember that it was the 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 gonna do that one day. But when I heard that, I said, there's no way, I talked myself out of it, there's no way that this could happen. This is too great to imagine, too exceedingly, abundantly, more than ever could ask for or even imagine for myself. And I put it in the back shelf because if, you know, at that time I said, God, you know where my life is at, you know what's going on, you know, I'm fighting for, for, to survive and you're fighting, you know, I'm fighting through this and, and um, that's where I was back then and the crisis that I came to and the fork in the road was, Lord, is this your call for my life? Because I didn't want to do what I wanted to do because what I wanted to do was fulfill my own plans and purposes for my own life.
[00:29:57] 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.
[00:30:12] We had a 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 a 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 American Airlines, still running, uh, as a valet by now, running for dollars is what I called it. But at this point of my life as a Christian at this moment here I was um, 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, um, I was running a young adults, um, and a young married couple's ministry called the Honeymooners.
[00:30:59] 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. And in some sense, the honeymoon was over, so to speak, and I grew that from just a handful of people to events of over a hundred, 150 for a church of 1200 at the time.
[00:31:18] Um, 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 valued that in our church and that our DNA, the multiplication 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 gonna say.
[00:31:45] And he said he's, he said, Mike, I, I want you and I need you to be the high school pastor. I need you to be the youth pastor to oversee all of high school and all of junior high. I was, not surprised because I had heard some things that were going on, um, but of course I was nervous at that moment and at that time.
[00:32:03] And, uh, 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 in ministry at the time. 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, um, doing the best you can with what God gave you, and it's based on the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. But I remember taking that youth ministry, making it the best that I could, reaching as many students for Christ, developing student leadership, doing everything that I could and possibly can to grow the group and to pour my life into it and to see it prosper and just to see it get blessed and, and then just when I thought that, man, I could be a youth pastor forever, um, something happened.
[00:32:55] 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 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, uh, a fortune because back when I was growing up in Hawaii and youth ministry, you know, we did it for each other as favors. You get a high five, handshake, we do it unto the Lord, you get a T-shirt.
[00:33:38] 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. Uh, needless to say, I failed to mention that a couple of weeks before I went on that trip to speak 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.
[00:34:08] And I heard these words: you're not going to be here long.
[00:34:12] I panicked as I got out of my old Volvo, 240 dl, like a tank, built, like a tank. And it was uh, it was powerful, it was great, it is the only card that I could afford and pay cash for it cuz that's what my pastor taught me, to pay cash for everything.
[00:34:29] I saved up $7,000 to buy that car, I got out of that Volvo and I went straight on that Sunday afternoon, surprised to see Pastor Ralph on campus where he's never on campus on Sunday afternoon, and I said, pastor Ralph, I gotta talk to you. And he goes, what? What? I said, I, you're not gonna 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 gonna be here long.
[00:34:52] Now imagine the risk that I took to say that. The, the, the 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, uh, he wouldn't have to guess about my loyalty. He knew where I stood. Uh, he knew I had his back. He knew that, that I, he could call upon me if he ever needed me, and I said, I don't know if I'm gonna be here forever, and he settled me down and he says, don't worry, Mike, we're not gonna make any moves. Let's just wait and see what the Lord does.
[00:35:29] And that spoke volumes to me. If you, if you're listening to this podcast and you're a young leader, I want you to be u, 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. But whatever it is, you need to give trust because if you give trust, trust will give them back to you. People long for that kind of relationship, um, in leadership and I had that, 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.
[00:36:16] So he said, we're not gonna do anything with this. And that's when I went to Oregon and that's when I'm flying home, and I said, I'm gonna be a youth pastor forever because I loved youth ministry.
[00:36:27] And the second day I got back to work and I saw him and somebody said to me and said, hey, how was your trip? I said, it was great. They said, hey, uh, pastor Ralph wants to talk to you. I said, why? He says, because there's a church, out in Waikele 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 gonna ask you. I said, oh, okay. All right, right on, right on, nice to see that I'm the second choice. And he laughed 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.
[00:36:59] Pastor Ralph said to me later, he said, Mike, I want you to take it, I said, I, I don't wanna 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. 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 said, are you serious? He says, yeah, please pray about it.
[00:37:19] It's interesting because I had camp the next day, we were running our camp, we were getting ready, ready for our high school camp to go up into the mountains of Hawaii. And um, I didn't have time to pray about another church, I had camp. I, I needed to see kids get saved. I needed to see the Holy Spirit touch kids and change their destinies and something different to happen in their lives.
[00:37:40] But when he said, I want you to pray about it, I, 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 mountains where it overlooked that whole part of the island that I pastored today and back then, I remember sitting up there every morning before the kids would wake up, I'd drink a cup of coffee and I said, God, I, I don't know if you want me to be a pastor of a church. I don't wanna 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 40 people, and I'm gonna leave this youth ministry. It's booming. It's at its best it's ever been.
[00:38:18] And um, 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 Oahu, up in the mountains and looking over and praying, said, God, I, I, I don't want to be a senior pastor. I don't want to leave my church in Koniohe, but Lord, if not my will, but your will be done.
[00:38:40] The next day, I wake up after running camp again, and I sit down on the rock and my prayers begin to change.
[00:38:47] Psalm 37:4 says, delight yourself from the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Interesting how I delighted myself in God, and He gave me the desires of my heart, but my desires began to change. My desires became His desires. I wanted what God wanted, not what I wanted. And I sat on that rock and I said, Lord, if you want me to go, I'll go, but I don't wanna 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, and the next day my wife calls me up and says, babe, guess what? I said, what's up, babe? I can't wait to come home and see you, these kids are driving me nuts, but I'm having a great time.
[00:39:28] And she says, man, we honey, we got a gift certificate for three nights in Waikiki. I said, awesome, I can't wait to be alone with you getting a babysitter. She goes, yeah, we get to pray about this church. I said, what are you talking about? We're gonna pray. He goes, yeah, we need to pray about this church. I said, babe, three nights in Waikiki, me and you who, who fasts and prays in Waikiki.
[00:39:51] She said, Mike, we gotta take this serious. I said, oh babe, babe, if it's me and you alone in Waikiki, whether we eat or not, I, I'll take it. And so we did. We went away to Waikiki, and let me tell you, we fast, and then 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 the Double Tree Hotel in Waikiki, not on the water, 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. And I said, yep. And she goes, you weren't ready. You had the 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 no, and you accepted that. And you know what? I knew you weren't ready, but now I look at you and I see you glowing. I see you like Moses coming down the mountain. And I said, oh my gosh. I said, babe, you think, you think this is it? She said, I think this is it. You know what'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 turn out.
[00:41:11] 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 wanna do what you want me to do. I wanna be what you want me to be. I wanna 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, sent him a text and a phone call and I said, I need to talk to you. He goes, okay. And it had been a week since that encounter with me and him asking me to pray about this church. And I sat down with him. I said, I said, I, I gotta ask you some questions, I need some clarification before we move further, I said, why did you ask me?
[00:41:52] He said, Mike, 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, and I got, I got another question. I said, why me? Out in the west side and not into the city of Honolulu. Tell me why. He said, because all those young families are gonna go out there and they're gonna grow. And some of those kids that you were with in your youth ministry, they're gonna be adults one day and you are going to serve them and they're gonna 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 cuz I needed to know, and I said this and I said, are you trying to make room for your son? Is that why you're sending me out? And he goes, he, he took a deep breath and he paused and he looked at me and he said, Mike, you are my son. You are one of my sons.
[00:42:52] And at that moment, you know, God sealed it, it sealed the deal, I tell you right now, I was gonna go no matter what. And he said, look, if it doesn't work out, you can always come back after a year. And I said, no, no, I had to, I had to turn down the golden parachute because if I knew that, if there was a plan B, that I wouldn't be afraid enough to fail. And so I said yes, and that weekend they prayed over me, laid hands on me, and 40 people came with me.
[00:43:22] The pastor off- said, you can take as many people as you want. I got 40 people on the west side that lived on that side that was driving over to church every weekend, said, yes, I'll go with you, and they came with me. And they came with me. And to this day, here we are. 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 was so glad that God trusted me with the plans, and I'm so glad that I trusted Him with my life. If you're listening to this leadership podcast on Pray.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 you on the ride of your life. My favorite verse today is 1 Corinthians 2:9, that no eye has seen, no ear has hurt, no mind can comprehend the things that God has, things that God has for those who love Him.
[00:44:28] 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.
[00:44:40] I also think that my, 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 G.O.A.T. you know? I wanna 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, um, this or that, 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 the greatest of all time, definitely, i, when she says that to this day, it, I'm living out the legacy that I believe I'm, 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.
[00:45:47] Matt Potter: On part three of this three-part series, we joined Mike on his journey of self-reflection and aspiration 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 us as we delve into the heartfelt pursuit of lasting legacy.
[00:46:19] Mike Kai: It's really interesting because now I am, um, in my early fifties, and you start to think about your mortality. Uh, you know, when you're in your twenties, you think you're gonna live forever when you're in your thirties. Uh, you start pondering and contemplating a few things. Um, 35 is like, sometimes you think that's the midlife people live to 70.
[00:46:41] Uh, that's the old midlife. I, I don't think 35 is the midlife anymore, I think more like 45 is the midlife. Um, 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 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 has changed into how God has brought me into a, a position of leadership. That life and leadership that they definitely blended into one another. But the inevitable place where we journey to is a place called Legacy. We are life, leadership, and legacy.
[00:47:42] Life turns to leadership, and leadership determines your legacy. Your life and your leadership determines your legacy. Definitely. Being in the fifties, I'm starting to think about that and what am I leaving behind? Um, life insurance policies. You thinking about, what are you leaving back for the living, um, you thinking about banking, you thinking about, um, being able to set up your children and your children's children for success, um, in all kinds of areas. I've heard it said many times before, and you've probably heard it, that my ceiling should be your basement. That my ceiling should be your basement.
[00:48:24] I think it's really 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 have what we have.
[00:48:36] I, I agree that there's gotta 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. Um, but I also believe that if I ever already blazed the trail that you wanna walk on, why would you have to blaze a parallel, parallel trail when I've already blazed it for you. Um, and so what I wanna 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, I had it rough. You gotta have it rough too.
[00:49:23] 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. 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 ramp and this ability to go ahead and do so.
[00:49:47] But I also believe that part of our legacy is making it difficult enough to the point where they have to rely on God. Um, being a, leaving a legacy, I wanna 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, um, that's the kind of legacy that I wanna 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.
[00:50:26] I can, 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 rather than on the rock of Jesus Christ. Um, 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, will not, uh, would not perish.
[00:50:49] That would last forever. And I'm praying that at the end of the day when this is all said and done, and, and, um, and this earth is just a thought in the history of this, of journey throughout this galaxy, I know it sounded a little deep and a little disconnected at the same time, but I also do know that what's gonna last forever, what's going to last forever, is the legacy we leave behind of people.
[00:51:16] The kind of people that we impacted, who did we impact by the lives that we lived in, 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 course corrections are made as a result of timely words in, um, in, in the right season. Um, 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.
[00:51:50] 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 sons-in-law, um, what is God doing through that? That's part of my legacy.
[00:52:06] I think also part of legacy is, the professional side of things and the calling of God of my life is how many churches did I plant? What did I do? Did I do what God said that he wanted me to do? And did I spend my time in the right places honoring God in everything that I did?
[00:52:24] Um, 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, but not all of it was good. It's really interesting that when they ask you what is the legacy that you wanna 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, what you wanna be known for. Uh, what do you want people to say about you? Um, it, it's actually counterproductive or counteractive or counter-cultural to, excuse me. It's actually counter-cultural to what we see in ourselves as servants of God, right?
[00:53:15] 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 are 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 wanna be known for.
[00:53:36] So it's, it's, it is difficult to talk about your own legacy.
[00:53:39] It, it's really interesting when I watch sports and I watch different athletes talk about being the G.O.A.T. you know what I'm talking about? The greatest of all time, who's the G.O.A.T. and Tom Brady right now is being considered the G.O.A.T. when it comes to quarterbacks.
[00:53:55] Right now, there's an incredible debate going on right now about NBA basketball about who is the greatest of all time, who is the G.O.A.T.? And I definitely will go down and say that it is Michael Jordan. But then there are other people gonna say, no, it's Kobe Bryant. Somebody else is gonna say, no, it's LeBron James and whatever it is. But we all know that it's Michael.
[00:54:16] But Michael is the G.O.A.T. standard. Michael is what everybody compares himself to, always have, always will. How many rings did Michael have and all of that. 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 wanna 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? And I think it's because not not after you die, I think it's because we understand that athletes, uh, shelf life of a professional career is very, very short. And so we're already talking about what does an athlete wanna be known for.
[00:54:55] I also think that my, this is a short span, but my time ain't even close to being done. And if there's anything that I wanna be known for is. In my daughter's lives, I wanna be known as the G.O.A.T. you know, I wanna 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, um, this or that, 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, the greatest of all time.
[00:55:38] Definitely I, when she says that to this day, it, I'm living out the legacy that I believe I'm, 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 Kai, and, um, to my church and to my congregation and the the people of Hawaii I just want to be known as, uh, 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, there was love, there was laughter, there was life and there's leadership. There was love and there was laughter, and there was life, and there was leadership.
[00:56:31] That's what I think I would love to be known for. That whenever anybody came into contact with me, um, even on my worst day, they encountered life, love, leadership, and laughter. Either one, or all four. That would be incredible, to be known for that. Life, leadership, love, and laughter. That would be the legacy that I would love to leave behind.
[00:57:10] Matt Potter: 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.
[00:57:31] Through the highs and lows, 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.
[00:57:51] Today, he stands as a testament to the power of resilience, to the beauty of second chances, and to the miracles that come when we trust in God's timing and wisdom.
[00:58:02] 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 in the darkness that stars shine the brightest, it is during our toughest moments that God's light guides us forward.
[00:58:23] So as we close this chapter, let us hold onto 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 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.
[00:58:47] So let us rise above our circumstances, trusting that God's hand is always guiding us toward a future of hope, purpose and joy, thank you for joining us on this journey of relentless hope. I'm your host, Matthew Potter, and I would like to remind you to give hope a voice.
Darkness to Dawn: Journeying from Despair to Redemption - Mike Kai
[00:00:00] Matt Potter: Welcome back to Relentless Hope, the podcast 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 took him from the depths of despair to the heights of faith and purpose.
[00:00:29] 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 and nights filled with prayers, he found solace and 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.
[00:01:03] Join us on this episode of Relentless Hope, as we hear Mike Kai's powerful testimony, how he faced heartbreak and loss, but through unwavering faith, he found the strength to rebuild his life.
[00:01:15] 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.
[00:01:34] Amidst unchanging circumstances, Mike Kai discovers the true power of growth, prayer, and God's profound impact. Leading his life from darkness to an inspiring upward trajectory.
[00:01:48] Mike Kai: I hung in there. Um, 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.
[00:02:02] I was changing. I was growing. I was reading the Bible. I was learning how to pray. I was hearing God's voice in my heart of hearts, and, and, and, and I was, my anger was going away, um, 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.
[00:02:24] 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.
[00:02:45] Matt Potter: On part one of this three parts 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.
[00:03:06] Mike Kai: I come from a small town of 2000 people on the big island of Hawaii. It's called the island of Hawaii, in the state of Hawaii. Uh, grew up, um, being the second child of four siblings, have an older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. Um, grew up in, uh, the early eighties, so to speak, is when my formative years of my childhood, um, coming from a small town, of course, I went to a small school.
[00:03:34] And, um, when I graduated from high school, um, 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.
[00:03:51] Growing up in rural Hawaii was a blessing. Um, I had great parents who took us to church every Sunday. Um, I was an altar boy, uh, in the Catholic church and I loved serving the priests and I really enjoyed the opportunity for that to serve the congregation as a young child.
[00:04:11] Um, 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, um, I got confirmed. But, um, when I left and moved to the big city of Honolulu to go to the University of Hawaii, um, I would say, looking back that I had a lot of great religious training, but I really did not have a relationship, um, with Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
[00:04:39] Um, graduated at the age of 17, moved to the big city of Honolulu, um, starstruck, all in awe of the size of the city. Um, could not believe that my university class had so many people in it more than my own high school graduating class. I got lost in the crowd. Not only was I lost in the crowd, but also I got lost in many ways.
[00:05:03] Um, looking for acceptance, being a younger underclassman, uh, from all the athletes wanting to walk on the basketball team or the football team had my choice, wasn't sure which one I wanted to do. I ended up, um, doing things that, of course, when you're far away from God that you, 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. Um, I was in the ROTC program, um, my freshman year. By my sophomore year, I was really just letting loose and, um, quickly began to see that if I didn't make a change, um, I was going be out of college pretty soon out of the university.
[00:05:47] Uh, in the meantime, I met this girl and I absolutely could say that I fell head over heels for her. I never really had a girlfriend growing up. You know, in the growing up I was a little bit shorter, I was smaller, uh, little, uh, immature in my growth process, but I definitely loved girls, no doubt about it.
[00:06:06] So when I had my first girlfriend, I hit and I hit it hard, man, and, um, I, just contributed more to a downward spiral of my life, even though, um, I wouldn't listen to anybody, um, was doing what I thought was right and what I wanted to do. My parents tried to speak into it from long distance, telephone calls, long distance, letters. There was no email back then when dinosaurs roamed the earth and, uh, I basically ran my life the way I wanted to.
[00:06:37] Before I knew it, as time had gone by, I became the person that I didn't really wanna become, and then to add even greater pressure to what I was going through, I found out that at the age of 19 that I was gonna be a father.
[00:06:51] I was not ready. I don't, I was not prepared. Um, but her mother and I decided that we definitely were keeping this child and we were bringing this child into the world. So I did what I believe was the right thing to do, and I, we got married. I'm 19 years old. I'm married. I'm young, my whole life was ahead of me.
[00:07:17] Um, 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 end up working at a Pizza Hut.
[00:07:30] Um, my life as I saw it, I couldn't believe that this is what was going on. I didn't realize that this is how far I'd fallen, but I was bringing a child into the world and I had to, I had to, um, really grow up very, very quickly.
[00:07:49] Uh, marriage was tough. Um, two people who don't know God, who are not going to church, and now all of a sudden you thrust into this, um, a trying to make a marriage work, um, it didn't last very long. Within a year and a half, we were already separated. Um, um, I was absolutely lost and devastated. I wanted to stay married, um, but it takes two to make things work and it was not working.
[00:08:21] 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, um, my heart was broken. Uh, realized that I wanted to remain married. Uh, realized that things, uh, needed to change, but they were not changing, um, in that by the time I'm 21 years old now, I am so rock bottom that, I'm thinking about ending my life, but I can't because I have this girl that's keeping me alive. She needs me. Uh, her mother's not in the picture. I didn't wanna live anymore, but I had to because I have a mother and a father who loved 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.
[00:09:18] So, I, I knew that I needed to live, uh, my, 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 wanna go to church. They said, no, you gotta come to church. I said, I, I don't wanna go to church. And they keep on bugging me about coming to their church.
[00:09:38] So one day after bugging me, and I'm trying to avoid the question, my friend Brandon says, come on, Mike, you gotta come to church. I said, I don't wanna go to church. He says, you gotta come to my church. I said, I don't wanna go to your church. He goes, you would love my church. I said, well, tell me about it then. 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, my church has a pastor.
[00:10:05] I said, you have a pastor? You mean you don't have a priest? He says, yeah, I have a pastor. And I said, well, what does your pastor look like? Well, he wears jeans, 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. That sounds like a cult.
[00:10:22] And he goes, no, no, no. It's a church man, you would love it, you would love it. It's called Hope Chapel. And his pastor's name is Ralph Moore. You, you gotta come. And I, uh, I said, well, one day I'll, one day I'll come.
[00:10:34] 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. I mean, breakfast, right? I'm not making a lot of money. Someone wants to buy me breakfast, of course I'm gonna go to church. And so finally I said yes. I said, Hey. And I wanna say to everybody out there, do not underestimate the power of bacon, okay? Because bacon is powerful. And I said yes.
[00:10:56] 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 pounding like a drum.
[00:11:17] And we get closer and people are hugging me. They take my daughter Courtney, to the Children's church, and I'm going in the other direction. And I see they, 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, but in the same time, I'm just feeling love.
[00:11:45] 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 songs to God. That's the way that I would call them. They were ballads to God. And I, 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. Uh, I used to go to karaoke or karaoke 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, or I'd sing this other song, Unchained Melody.
[00:12:35] But this was, this was love songs to God. And it grabbed me, 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 that I could raise my hand and respond that I would, and at the end of the service, he gave what we call an alter call, that if you want Jesus in your life, if you wanna be freed, if, if you want forgiveness of your sins, if you want the assurance of heaven, he said, if you want a new life, and I gave my, I've raised my hand and I, I gave my life to the Lord that Sunday, a long time ago. It was 1989 and, uh, over 30 years ago.
[00:13:25] My life has never been the same since. Um, I hung in there, um, 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. I was changing. I was growing, I was reading the Bible, I was learning how to pray. I was hearing God's voice in my heart of hearts and, and, and, and I was, my anger was going away. Um, 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. 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.
[00:14:19] I had waited. I had been a faithful husband and I waited, but when it became absolutely apparent and undoubtedly evident that we would not be together again, um, 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 to you. And you know, at that moment, it's real easy for people to get discouraged and for me to go, well, God, you never answered my prayer that this doesn't work. And God, you never mended my marriage, and even though I was a contributor to why it wasn't working, uh, God, you must not be real or you disappoint me and I'm not gonna follow you. This Christianity doesn't work. I'm, 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.
[00:15:12] So when it was finally over and when the ink was dry, I finally said, okay, Lord, well, I'm gonna be married to you. I knew I wasn't ready, I wasn't ready for anybody else. I, I, I, I'm, I'm older now. It's been three years since the separation, and I'm like 24 and I'm moving on with my life and I'm tr I'm working for American Airlines now. I got a job and I got involved in multi-level marketing and it changed a lot of the way that I thought the wa 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, um, I've was faithful to my vows and I got one more year. I'm making a vow to you that I I'm married to you. And when that one year had gone by and that one year had passed, um, that's when I said, okay, Lord, if I can ever get married again,
[00:16:04] if you find that I'm worthy of having a wife, then God, Courtney needs a mom and I need a wife, and, and I began to pray specifically, you know, this is Pray.com, 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.
[00:16:25] Uh, I heard him on the radio cuz I was discipled on Christian radio, and I heard him on the radio and he said, that if you're gonna pray, pray specifically, do not be afraid to ask God. And I asked God and I said, God, okay, I'm gonna 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, number one, number one, you're gonna laugh at this, but I said, number one, can she be gorgeous? Drop dead, gorgeous Chinese, beautiful Chinese. And, um, because I, I thought Chinese women, I thought if I got married to Chinese woman, uh, we make beautiful kids together. I said, number one, she's gotta be Chinese. Okay, drop dead gorgeous Chinese.
[00:17:07] 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.
[00:17:15] And then number three, she's gotta be five foot seven, gotta be five foot seven. Cuz 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, cuz I felt that if she loves Jesus more than she loves me, uh, we'll make it through anything, cuz Jesus will be our bond. And um, 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. I just waited patiently on the Lord, I've already waited three and a half years, four years.
[00:17:50] You know what I'm saying?
[00:17:51] And I just said, Lord, you know, and I'm, I'm patient, I'm waiting on you. And, and I saw her and I, and her name was Lisa Lum. Saw her at a Christmas party and, um, this was a long process. This was 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 every aspect and area of my life.
[00:18:28] And that's what I did.
[00:18:30] 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 than anything else, and after about six months, nine months, gone by and finally I realized, I said, Lord, this is who I prayed for. This is what I asked for. And I think you've brought her. I don't know why I'm waiting. 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. I wasn't, there was no eHarmony, there was no online dating sites. 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.
[00:19:12] And so I proposed and Lisa and I had a short engagement, we got married in two and a half months to proposed to her, and we were married in two and a half months, and, you know, and, um, here we are. Two more daughters, Rebecca, she's now 22 Caris, she's now 13.
[00:19:34] We've got three girls, Courtney, Rebecca and Caris, and we've got two grandchildren, believe it or not. She, Bowie is four, four years old and Otis is, is almost gonna make two years old. And they live in Portland, Oregon and, um, with mom and dad, Courtney and Jason. And Courtney's a beautiful, beautiful mother and hard worker, and my life is blessed, and here, here Lisa and I are, here we are, married 25 years. 25 years, and it's been the best 25 years of my life. And, 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, um, God answered my prayers and I'm telling you, pray.
[00:20:29] Just got to 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 ever could deserve. Jesus is amazing.
[00:20:46] When he said, I want you to pray about it, I, 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 mountains where it overlooked that whole part of the island that I pastored today, and back then, I remember sitting up there every morning before the kids would wake up, I'd drink a cup of coffee and I said, God, I, I don't know if you want me to be a pastor of a church.
[00:21:10] I don't wanna be a pastor of a church and already had five pastors before and they won another one. And it's a young church and they got 40 people, and I'm gonna leave this youth ministry. It's booming. It's at its best it's ever been. And um, 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 Oahu, up in the mountains and looking over and praying.
[00:21:35] Said, God, I, I, I don't want to be a senior pastor. I don't want to leave my church in Kaneohe, 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. Psalm 37:4 says delight yourself from the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
[00:21:57] Interesting how I delighted myself in God and he gave me the desires of my heart, but my desires began to change. My desires became His desires. I wanted what God wanted, not what I wanted. And I sat on that rock and I said, Lord. If you want me to go, I'll go, but I don't want to go, but not my will, but your will be done.
[00:22:22] Matt Potter: On part two of this three part series, Pastor Mike Kai 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.
[00:22:50] Mike Kai: Growing up, I never saw myself as a leader. Um, I always seemed to be the follower who wanted to be the leader, uh, but because of my, probably my height at the time, to be honest with you. And, uh, there were guys that I grew up with were bigger, stronger, faster, um, and they just had this natural ability to lead.
[00:23:14] Um, so I never saw myself as a leader as I was growing up.
[00:23:18] But I think when I got into college and even beyond college, I started to see that there was a leader within me. Um, I aspired to be a great leader. Uh, there were people like, um, John Maxwell that I admired and his writings, there were people that shaped a lot of my thinking on leadership, people like Dr. Norman Vincent Peel, Clement Stone.
[00:23:40] There are different people in different parts of my life that have authors who mentored me, um, through their books. 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 then working in, just trying to make it work, and doing a multi-level marketing business and this multi-level marketing business, believe it or not, actually helped me become the leader who I am today. It was groundbreaking, it 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, back then it was tapes, then it evolved to CDs and DVDs, and today we listened to podcasts, and, um, 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, the, the series was called The Greatest Salesman in the World. And that book just grabbed and touched my heart. When it came to finances as a young man at the age of 21, 22, I read this really good book, it's very old, 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.
[00:25:10] Um, 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, um, pilot named Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier, um, back in the 1950s, the late 1950s, and there was something about that book that really spoke to my heart as a young man.
[00:25:33] You see, when I left college, I hardly read, and when I was in college, college I hardly read anyway, but while I was there, I was reading more texts. I was reading theory, but when I got outta college, I read more about real life and um, books like How To Win Friends and Influence People. So there were books that began to speak to me, one of them was those books that I talked about, uh, by Chuck Yeager and how he broke the sound barrier in the late 1950s. I started reading books like The Greatest Salesman in the World, but also, um, how to Win Friends and Influence People, such a pivotal book for a young person to realize how to talk to people and how to get to know people.
[00:26:11] Those are books that began to shape me.
[00:26:13] 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 the seats that I was sitting in, but as I outgrew that business and I began, God began to call me into the ministry, which is what I'll talk about is I began to, um, my definition of leadership began to be shaped and changed, uh, according to more of the Bible and God's word and the great leadership that we saw in the Bible.
[00:26:46] I always wanted to be a good leader and possibly even a great leader, of course, I didn't wanna be average, I want to be great, and I began to, um, define leadership according to the word of God. Of course, over the years, leadership is defined by, um, character, competency, um, capacity and chemistry. But I think actually character is probably the number one quality that you need as a leader.
[00:27:15] 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, um, the pastors on staff that helped shape me, like Rob McWilliams, uh, different people on the journey of my life of becoming the person who I was. When I was a younger leader, I was brash, I was loud, I was opinionated.
[00:27:37] I had foot and mouth syndrome. In other words, I'd 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 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 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 to fight back through depression and having to fight back through that scenario to become who I was today.
[00:28:21] Uh, I don't know what it was, but it was something about me that was hungry and wanted to push through and fight, and so when I was beginning to question the call 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 gonna be a millionaire, I thought that's the direction that I wanted to go.
[00:28:39] 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 Christian and going to church at Hope Chapel, I remember that it was the 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 gonna do that one day. But when I heard that, I said, there's no way, I talked myself out of it, there's no way that this could happen. This is too great to imagine, too exceedingly, abundantly, more than ever could ask for or even imagine for myself. And I put it in the back shelf because if, you know, at that time I said, God, you know where my life is at, you know what's going on, you know, I'm fighting for, for, to survive and you're fighting, you know, I'm fighting through this and, and um, that's where I was back then and the crisis that I came to and the fork in the road was, Lord, is this your call for my life? Because I didn't want to do what I wanted to do because what I wanted to do was fulfill my own plans and purposes for my own life.
[00:29:57] 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.
[00:30:12] We had a 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 a 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 American Airlines, still running, uh, as a valet by now, running for dollars is what I called it. But at this point of my life as a Christian at this moment here I was um, 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, um, I was running a young adults, um, and a young married couple's ministry called the Honeymooners.
[00:30:59] 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. And in some sense, the honeymoon was over, so to speak, and I grew that from just a handful of people to events of over a hundred, 150 for a church of 1200 at the time.
[00:31:18] Um, 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 valued that in our church and that our DNA, the multiplication 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 gonna say.
[00:31:45] And he said he's, he said, Mike, I, I want you and I need you to be the high school pastor. I need you to be the youth pastor to oversee all of high school and all of junior high. I was, not surprised because I had heard some things that were going on, um, but of course I was nervous at that moment and at that time.
[00:32:03] And, uh, 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 in ministry at the time. 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, um, doing the best you can with what God gave you, and it's based on the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. But I remember taking that youth ministry, making it the best that I could, reaching as many students for Christ, developing student leadership, doing everything that I could and possibly can to grow the group and to pour my life into it and to see it prosper and just to see it get blessed and, and then just when I thought that, man, I could be a youth pastor forever, um, something happened.
[00:32:55] 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 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, uh, a fortune because back when I was growing up in Hawaii and youth ministry, you know, we did it for each other as favors. You get a high five, handshake, we do it unto the Lord, you get a T-shirt.
[00:33:38] 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. Uh, needless to say, I failed to mention that a couple of weeks before I went on that trip to speak 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.
[00:34:08] And I heard these words: you're not going to be here long.
[00:34:12] I panicked as I got out of my old Volvo, 240 dl, like a tank, built, like a tank. And it was uh, it was powerful, it was great, it is the only card that I could afford and pay cash for it cuz that's what my pastor taught me, to pay cash for everything.
[00:34:29] I saved up $7,000 to buy that car, I got out of that Volvo and I went straight on that Sunday afternoon, surprised to see Pastor Ralph on campus where he's never on campus on Sunday afternoon, and I said, pastor Ralph, I gotta talk to you. And he goes, what? What? I said, I, you're not gonna 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 gonna be here long.
[00:34:52] Now imagine the risk that I took to say that. The, the, the 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, uh, he wouldn't have to guess about my loyalty. He knew where I stood. Uh, he knew I had his back. He knew that, that I, he could call upon me if he ever needed me, and I said, I don't know if I'm gonna be here forever, and he settled me down and he says, don't worry, Mike, we're not gonna make any moves. Let's just wait and see what the Lord does.
[00:35:29] And that spoke volumes to me. If you, if you're listening to this podcast and you're a young leader, I want you to be u, 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. But whatever it is, you need to give trust because if you give trust, trust will give them back to you. People long for that kind of relationship, um, in leadership and I had that, 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.
[00:36:16] So he said, we're not gonna do anything with this. And that's when I went to Oregon and that's when I'm flying home, and I said, I'm gonna be a youth pastor forever because I loved youth ministry.
[00:36:27] And the second day I got back to work and I saw him and somebody said to me and said, hey, how was your trip? I said, it was great. They said, hey, uh, pastor Ralph wants to talk to you. I said, why? He says, because there's a church, out in Waikele 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 gonna ask you. I said, oh, okay. All right, right on, right on, nice to see that I'm the second choice. And he laughed 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.
[00:36:59] Pastor Ralph said to me later, he said, Mike, I want you to take it, I said, I, I don't wanna 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. 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 said, are you serious? He says, yeah, please pray about it.
[00:37:19] It's interesting because I had camp the next day, we were running our camp, we were getting ready, ready for our high school camp to go up into the mountains of Hawaii. And um, I didn't have time to pray about another church, I had camp. I, I needed to see kids get saved. I needed to see the Holy Spirit touch kids and change their destinies and something different to happen in their lives.
[00:37:40] But when he said, I want you to pray about it, I, 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 mountains where it overlooked that whole part of the island that I pastored today and back then, I remember sitting up there every morning before the kids would wake up, I'd drink a cup of coffee and I said, God, I, I don't know if you want me to be a pastor of a church. I don't wanna 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 40 people, and I'm gonna leave this youth ministry. It's booming. It's at its best it's ever been.
[00:38:18] And um, 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 Oahu, up in the mountains and looking over and praying, said, God, I, I, I don't want to be a senior pastor. I don't want to leave my church in Koniohe, but Lord, if not my will, but your will be done.
[00:38:40] The next day, I wake up after running camp again, and I sit down on the rock and my prayers begin to change.
[00:38:47] Psalm 37:4 says, delight yourself from the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Interesting how I delighted myself in God, and He gave me the desires of my heart, but my desires began to change. My desires became His desires. I wanted what God wanted, not what I wanted. And I sat on that rock and I said, Lord, if you want me to go, I'll go, but I don't wanna 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, and the next day my wife calls me up and says, babe, guess what? I said, what's up, babe? I can't wait to come home and see you, these kids are driving me nuts, but I'm having a great time.
[00:39:28] And she says, man, we honey, we got a gift certificate for three nights in Waikiki. I said, awesome, I can't wait to be alone with you getting a babysitter. She goes, yeah, we get to pray about this church. I said, what are you talking about? We're gonna pray. He goes, yeah, we need to pray about this church. I said, babe, three nights in Waikiki, me and you who, who fasts and prays in Waikiki.
[00:39:51] She said, Mike, we gotta take this serious. I said, oh babe, babe, if it's me and you alone in Waikiki, whether we eat or not, I, I'll take it. And so we did. We went away to Waikiki, and let me tell you, we fast, and then 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 the Double Tree Hotel in Waikiki, not on the water, 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. And I said, yep. And she goes, you weren't ready. You had the 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 no, and you accepted that. And you know what? I knew you weren't ready, but now I look at you and I see you glowing. I see you like Moses coming down the mountain. And I said, oh my gosh. I said, babe, you think, you think this is it? She said, I think this is it. You know what'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 turn out.
[00:41:11] 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 wanna do what you want me to do. I wanna be what you want me to be. I wanna 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, sent him a text and a phone call and I said, I need to talk to you. He goes, okay. And it had been a week since that encounter with me and him asking me to pray about this church. And I sat down with him. I said, I said, I, I gotta ask you some questions, I need some clarification before we move further, I said, why did you ask me?
[00:41:52] He said, Mike, 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, and I got, I got another question. I said, why me? Out in the west side and not into the city of Honolulu. Tell me why. He said, because all those young families are gonna go out there and they're gonna grow. And some of those kids that you were with in your youth ministry, they're gonna be adults one day and you are going to serve them and they're gonna 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 cuz I needed to know, and I said this and I said, are you trying to make room for your son? Is that why you're sending me out? And he goes, he, he took a deep breath and he paused and he looked at me and he said, Mike, you are my son. You are one of my sons.
[00:42:52] And at that moment, you know, God sealed it, it sealed the deal, I tell you right now, I was gonna go no matter what. And he said, look, if it doesn't work out, you can always come back after a year. And I said, no, no, I had to, I had to turn down the golden parachute because if I knew that, if there was a plan B, that I wouldn't be afraid enough to fail. And so I said yes, and that weekend they prayed over me, laid hands on me, and 40 people came with me.
[00:43:22] The pastor off- said, you can take as many people as you want. I got 40 people on the west side that lived on that side that was driving over to church every weekend, said, yes, I'll go with you, and they came with me. And they came with me. And to this day, here we are. 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 was so glad that God trusted me with the plans, and I'm so glad that I trusted Him with my life. If you're listening to this leadership podcast on Pray.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 you on the ride of your life. My favorite verse today is 1 Corinthians 2:9, that no eye has seen, no ear has hurt, no mind can comprehend the things that God has, things that God has for those who love Him.
[00:44:28] 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.
[00:44:40] I also think that my, 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 G.O.A.T. you know? I wanna 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, um, this or that, 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 the greatest of all time, definitely, i, when she says that to this day, it, I'm living out the legacy that I believe I'm, 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.
[00:45:47] Matt Potter: On part three of this three-part series, we joined Mike on his journey of self-reflection and aspiration 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 us as we delve into the heartfelt pursuit of lasting legacy.
[00:46:19] Mike Kai: It's really interesting because now I am, um, in my early fifties, and you start to think about your mortality. Uh, you know, when you're in your twenties, you think you're gonna live forever when you're in your thirties. Uh, you start pondering and contemplating a few things. Um, 35 is like, sometimes you think that's the midlife people live to 70.
[00:46:41] Uh, that's the old midlife. I, I don't think 35 is the midlife anymore, I think more like 45 is the midlife. Um, 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 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 has changed into how God has brought me into a, a position of leadership. That life and leadership that they definitely blended into one another. But the inevitable place where we journey to is a place called Legacy. We are life, leadership, and legacy.
[00:47:42] Life turns to leadership, and leadership determines your legacy. Your life and your leadership determines your legacy. Definitely. Being in the fifties, I'm starting to think about that and what am I leaving behind? Um, life insurance policies. You thinking about, what are you leaving back for the living, um, you thinking about banking, you thinking about, um, being able to set up your children and your children's children for success, um, in all kinds of areas. I've heard it said many times before, and you've probably heard it, that my ceiling should be your basement. That my ceiling should be your basement.
[00:48:24] I think it's really 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 have what we have.
[00:48:36] I, I agree that there's gotta 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. Um, but I also believe that if I ever already blazed the trail that you wanna walk on, why would you have to blaze a parallel, parallel trail when I've already blazed it for you. Um, and so what I wanna 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, I had it rough. You gotta have it rough too.
[00:49:23] 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. 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 ramp and this ability to go ahead and do so.
[00:49:47] But I also believe that part of our legacy is making it difficult enough to the point where they have to rely on God. Um, being a, leaving a legacy, I wanna 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, um, that's the kind of legacy that I wanna 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.
[00:50:26] I can, 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 rather than on the rock of Jesus Christ. Um, 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, will not, uh, would not perish.
[00:50:49] That would last forever. And I'm praying that at the end of the day when this is all said and done, and, and, um, and this earth is just a thought in the history of this, of journey throughout this galaxy, I know it sounded a little deep and a little disconnected at the same time, but I also do know that what's gonna last forever, what's going to last forever, is the legacy we leave behind of people.
[00:51:16] The kind of people that we impacted, who did we impact by the lives that we lived in, 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 course corrections are made as a result of timely words in, um, in, in the right season. Um, 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.
[00:51:50] 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 sons-in-law, um, what is God doing through that? That's part of my legacy.
[00:52:06] I think also part of legacy is, the professional side of things and the calling of God of my life is how many churches did I plant? What did I do? Did I do what God said that he wanted me to do? And did I spend my time in the right places honoring God in everything that I did?
[00:52:24] Um, 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, but not all of it was good. It's really interesting that when they ask you what is the legacy that you wanna 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, what you wanna be known for. Uh, what do you want people to say about you? Um, it, it's actually counterproductive or counteractive or counter-cultural to, excuse me. It's actually counter-cultural to what we see in ourselves as servants of God, right?
[00:53:15] 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 are 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 wanna be known for.
[00:53:36] So it's, it's, it is difficult to talk about your own legacy.
[00:53:39] It, it's really interesting when I watch sports and I watch different athletes talk about being the G.O.A.T. you know what I'm talking about? The greatest of all time, who's the G.O.A.T. and Tom Brady right now is being considered the G.O.A.T. when it comes to quarterbacks.
[00:53:55] Right now, there's an incredible debate going on right now about NBA basketball about who is the greatest of all time, who is the G.O.A.T.? And I definitely will go down and say that it is Michael Jordan. But then there are other people gonna say, no, it's Kobe Bryant. Somebody else is gonna say, no, it's LeBron James and whatever it is. But we all know that it's Michael.
[00:54:16] But Michael is the G.O.A.T. standard. Michael is what everybody compares himself to, always have, always will. How many rings did Michael have and all of that. 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 wanna 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? And I think it's because not not after you die, I think it's because we understand that athletes, uh, shelf life of a professional career is very, very short. And so we're already talking about what does an athlete wanna be known for.
[00:54:55] I also think that my, this is a short span, but my time ain't even close to being done. And if there's anything that I wanna be known for is. In my daughter's lives, I wanna be known as the G.O.A.T. you know, I wanna 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, um, this or that, 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, the greatest of all time.
[00:55:38] Definitely I, when she says that to this day, it, I'm living out the legacy that I believe I'm, 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 Kai, and, um, to my church and to my congregation and the the people of Hawaii I just want to be known as, uh, 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, there was love, there was laughter, there was life and there's leadership. There was love and there was laughter, and there was life, and there was leadership.
[00:56:31] That's what I think I would love to be known for. That whenever anybody came into contact with me, um, even on my worst day, they encountered life, love, leadership, and laughter. Either one, or all four. That would be incredible, to be known for that. Life, leadership, love, and laughter. That would be the legacy that I would love to leave behind.
[00:57:10] Matt Potter: 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.
[00:57:31] Through the highs and lows, 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.
[00:57:51] Today, he stands as a testament to the power of resilience, to the beauty of second chances, and to the miracles that come when we trust in God's timing and wisdom.
[00:58:02] 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 in the darkness that stars shine the brightest, it is during our toughest moments that God's light guides us forward.
[00:58:23] So as we close this chapter, let us hold onto 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 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.
[00:58:47] So let us rise above our circumstances, trusting that God's hand is always guiding us toward a future of hope, purpose and joy, thank you for joining us on this journey 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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