I love that. Was that gazelle intense? I knew phrase. So today I want to talk with you together with a phrase.
I'm going to call it audacious and I want to talk more fully about audacious trust. But you guys will just fit in that gazelle intense in there because it works the same way audacious. What does it mean? Web through defines it simply as this, intrepidly daring.
Like when we just heard that story with $150,000 of debt, they started out intrepidly daring to believe for a difference in their life. So when we think about audacious, we think about audaciously trusting, I want us to think about what it means to be intrepidly daring. Another definition is simply this, marked by originality and verb. What would it be like if we entered this new decade?
How did we get here so fast? 2020. A lot of things are happening in the first week of 2020. Number one, a brand new decade.
Number two, kind of a milestone for me. As John just kind of mentioned, I'm not going to give you the official number there, but I'm not putting too much focus on it, but that's number two. Number three, this is a great time to be sitting back and thinking about making those in-flight changes to our lives as we head on to where we want to go. Think about going from 150,000 in debt to positive numbers and then giving back to somebody, a piece of that, that took some daring.
That took some intrepid daring. And I guess I want to talk today with you, with myself, about what are some of the things as we enter this new decade we could be daring intrepidly. As I look back, I kind of wonder in my life and John kind of mentioned this at Christmas Eve, when you get a few years when you become kind of a higher mileage vehicle, which I'm becoming, you start to look back with a perspective that's different than maybe what you had even in your 20s or 30s. That's probably happening around my life and I kind of ask myself simply this, how did I get here?
We know John's story about a guy who was involved with private equity, didn't really want to be a pastor, but wound up being a pastor. And I look at my own life, I say, how did I get here? And when I look back, I see a few things that were involved. I look back to some key decisions and I want to talk about a verse in a little bit that really helped me understand what it meant, what that challenge was, what that adventure was in intrepid trusting of God.
You know, we used to live in Malaysia back in 1988, before some of you were born, 1988 to 1990. We worked at a school called Delat School, I taught speech, I taught Bible, Janine taught her own list of things, about 200 students, 300 students right on the streets of Malacca, it was a great place. But it got a little boring at night. And my friend next door, a guy named Mike, we're always kind of knocking the door after the wires went to bed and he had this game called a choir.
It's just some kind of a board game. Now we have video games back then as a board game. We probably played three or four games a night, but Mike could always do this, whether he won or whether he lost, he would always end by saying this, David, this was your key move. This move is what won it for you or this move is what lost it for you.
Now I couldn't even remember the move until he talked about it, but Mike had a keen awareness of the strategic move that changed the trajectory of the whole game. I think of what we just heard a few minutes ago, without a question, I'd be saying going to the financial piece university was a strategic move for that great couple that literally launched a change of trajectory of their life. And so Mike would do that and I kind of step back and I ask myself now, what was the key move? What was the decision?
Life was a funny thing, isn't it? It seems when we're so young, we have these amazing decisions to make. We were going to follow what we think we're going to do, who we're going to marry. I made some good decisions in life, I made some great decisions in life, I made some lousy decisions in life.
Great decision was to follow him. My second one was to marry the greatest, Janine, having kids and all those things, but I'm aware of those. But I want to roll back even earlier to I believe a decision that I made that started to roll things away that literally changed everything within my life. And I have to go back early to do it.
I was in Penn State, I come to faith in summers you know in the asbury park boardwalk once been one when takes choice cigarettes for your bets. I stopped smoking when I worked at that place. But I come to faith, I knew God existed. The furthest thing I ever thought would ever happen to my life, the person I literally wasn't seeking came blowing into my life and changed everything.
I got back to Penn State about two and a half months later, I'm at a retreat with a bunch of believers and we're out there in the mountains just north of State College and just a very simple night. I can see it like yesterday, I can see the stone stairs at night, I can see the stars in the sky and I was just simply praying under my breath. And I just heard God just kind of whispered to me in that way that only he can kind of a change of plans, change of trajectory for me. I was at Penn State, I had two years in, I was going to go into advertising and also with advertising I took speech communication and I took visual arts because I just wanted to design stuff.
Fun things for people. My next door neighbor in Philly on City Line Avenue at that time, he had a big ad agency and it was a cool one and I thought that's what I really want to do. But that night in a very still small voice, a change of trajectory seemed to be happening. I didn't like that change of trajectory.
Maybe it was kind of a course that John was talking about. So I didn't even know what it really meant. So I got back to school that next day and I didn't want to see a whole lot of people. I went to a place that I had probably a hundred believers in it, it was kind of a meeting and I sat down, not with my close friends because I didn't want to talk about what I heard in my heart that's nights before and whoever it was a guy named Blair Cook, he launched into a literally two hour talk on how to hear the voice of God and respond, especially to go places in the world.
I wanted to crawl out an open window I saw but I didn't. Instead I realized that there was a change of trajectory happening within my life and I decided to follow whatever I believed in my heart kind of audaciously. The following week I changed my major. It's kind of a big thing.
I changed my major into speech communications and left the whole advertising the visual arts piece behind and I asked myself now why didn't I hedge my bets? Why didn't I have a firescape? Why didn't I have a rope ladder out the window? Why didn't I have the boat still at the shore like William the Conqueror is he invaded England?
No he burned all the chips, there was no way back. But for some reason I realized that this was the path for my life. It was a path into finding what I'm doing now. You know I don't think it really matters whether it was advertising.
I think it could be anything. I think it could be private equity. It could be an awesome carpenter. It could be an individual doing weddings and filming.
It could be running with numbers. It could be anything because whatever we're doing as we do it to him we're involved with ministry. Imagine if all of us just decided to leave our jobs and kind of conclave together and just talk amongst ourselves in ministry but who would be at the shop? Who would be talking to people?
No everything we do and every decision we make and every place that we work and it's sense we pastor, we pastor those people whether they know it or they don't. But for me my change of trajectory meant that I would move in a direction of changing my major and I did it. I didn't hedge my bets. I think for me the reason I did that is because I'd become convinced that God existed and if He existed He is spoken and if He is spoken He can be believed and if He can be believed I could step back in place whatever life I have completely in His hands audaciously because I believe that His adventure for your life and for my life is a lot better than any adventure that we can have for ourselves.
Yeah I could be in Philly right now. I don't know if I would have met Jenny in my own little world but I miss that, miss some kids, miss getting to know you, probably winding down and advertising, did the corporate thing. That would have been great. I could serve God in wonderful ways but I think He had something different from my life.
Audaciously trusting. I didn't always do it. I still wonder what does it completely mean? I looked today at our lives at this brink of 2020 and I realized that changes of trajectory can happen.
You know it's not hard to look around now as we move into 2020 at all of the thought leaders that kind of talk about what's important in life and I guess a lot of them just don't make sense to me. I mean you can either trust God you can hedge your bets but really what else is out there? Well this is what I kind of heard so I would say to you there isn't a lot out there that is enough to captivate a life and worth the adventure of a lifetime for me except for doing what God sort of wants us to do. One person said this, reach a fabled level of success that makes you untouchable.
Like windows I never happened. Anybody untouchable here? Can you imagine spending your whole life trying to be untouchable? The town I grew up a little place called Rumset down at the shore.
She was buried in the place of that success. He wasn't untouchable. I thought leaders says this, be the life of the party at least once. It's not really a great idea.
Jump on a table, put a lampshade on your head and just go for it. Is that really something that doesn't entrench, entice my life. Spend New Year's Eve in New York City. I tried that once and those little kennels they have that they park you out.
It was freezing. I don't want to try that again. Be more productive with each minute of the day. 348, more productive than 347.
I go insane with that. Write a screenplay that gets picked up as a movie. How many times does that happen in our life? This is a thought leader.
Find a way to enjoy exercise. Other things you can find out. Pick up a crying baby. Someone says, well it's not my baby.
Pick up anyway. You're going to get in trouble for that. Only buy things that change your life in a substantial way. Well imagine that as a directive in your life.
Air is alive. Breathe deeply. Food is everything. What else is there?
Have you noticed how seemingly shallow in comparison to investing our lives, whether in a public school, whether doing marriage filming, compared to these other things. More in Buffett said this. I like it. He said at the end of his life, this is what it means.
Have you made enough of a difference in people that at the end of their life they kind of love you. They don't love you for the money. They love you because you changed their life. I like that.
There's another thought leader who makes a huge, huge promise. And this is the one that got a hold of my heart. Because if this is true, as my friend Dangor Dupe once said, if you're out on a limb with God, you're not really out on a limb. This is what that scripture says.
Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. I know you know it audaciously. I want to look at it for a few moments in our talk today. It simply says this.
Trust, trust, trust, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean on on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him. He'll make your path straight.
That's a serious promise. I don't get a promise that tells me that it's going to work and food is everything. Or if I pick up every crying baby, I'm not going to get in trouble. You know, Walmart, how are you going to do that?
Striving for that place where I'm untouchable that literally is a quest that never happens. But this is kind of a promise and a huge promise that God makes to you and to me if he exists. And he has spoken. This may be the key.
And for me, it was the key decision that allowed me to step away from hedging my bets on God. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean on on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him.
He'll make your path straight. Kind of four things there I see. Some key words in there. The word trust.
Let me go through that just very simply with you. The word trust in the Lord trust. What is trust? John mentioned on Christmas Eve, what does it mean to believe?
It's not like believing in George Washington. And trust, interestingly enough, where a bit means the cling in Hebrew. To cling like a melon or a grape to a vine. Trust.
The cling. Like a melon or a grape to a vine. Do you remember Jesus kind of saying something about being the vine or the branches? Father's the gardener.
So it's in this world of trust. It's a decision but a process. The decision being, I've made a decision. I'm not going to hedge my bets.
I'm either going with God and it means I fail. It means I don't do this correctly. It means I don't always go with him as I think I'm going with him. But it means somewhere in this part of mine.
God, I know you're there and I wasn't even seeking you but you found me and I go back to that decision. So trust is to cling like a melon or a grape to a vine. It says here with all of your heart. Lebeschka, your soul, your mind, your being and Hebrew thought, your heart.
You have these hearts. It's really the center of our soul. The mind, faculties, emotions. Two we are as a man or as a woman.
It's our guts. It's audaciously daring, intrepidly daring, gazelle quick. All of that in that taking our heart and trusting in him. And then this next phrase, you see that up there?
It says lean not on your own understanding. It's a fascinating word in Hebrew and it's got these little points that change things along the way and it really says this. If I could paraphrase it loosely, it's don't rely on your understanding because you're really leaning on air. Is this a call?
Not to think? Is it a call not to use our brain? No. In fact, we know from the New Testament that the great word says don't be transformed in this world but be transformed out.
Whether we knew it in your mind, I've got to think differently about who I am. So it's not about removing your mind. It's using your mind. But it's realizing we could in our thinking be kind of living on air.
In other words, inside that is this. Hey, David, you just don't understand everything. Peter didn't understand everything. He saw that figure out on the water.
He turns to Jesus and says, if it's really you let me come out. Jesus says, okay, you're incredibly daring. Come on out. And he's still, he didn't understand all that.
But I wonder how often in my life in our lives we miss some of the wonderful opportunities that God has for us because in our understanding we don't think it's possible. We don't think he's watching. We don't think it'll work out. It's not happening the way we think it should happen.
Our understanding, I remember pointing my time saying to a friend of mine, it was agnostic. I was like, just because you're agnostic doesn't mean God doesn't exist. He does exist. Just because we don't believe in A, B or C doesn't negate A, B or C.
It just means you thought to negate A, B and C. And so that's why we don't want to lean on air. So it's not a call to lose our mind. God uses our mind in thinking and how to do these things.
And so this word moves to trust and glory with all your heart and not on your own understanding in all your ways. And some of your ways and a few of your ways. And actually that word, I think you brought that up on Christmas too. Yada, yada, yada.
It's this word. Yada, we come back to that again. It's to know. In all your ways, know.
And in the Hebrew, it's really to know all of him. In other words, count God into this. Don't count half of God into this or a little God into this or a God of our imagination into this. He kind of made the whole world with a word.
Poe, the word went forth. He knows how to do stuff. He really loves being God. That's another thing.
This isn't hard for him. He's not like, oh man, I gotta do that again. I gotta rest of the day. From look what he got to do this time.
No, he loves being God. That's why he did all this. So in all your ways, acknowledge him. And he will make your paths straight.
He will make your paths straight. Making your paths straight. And the word in there is so interesting because it's not really. There are 12 different words for path in Hebrew because they did a lot of paths.
But there's one path is just as much and can't be translated. He will make your caravans go straight. This is a path in caravan. Come from the same roots.
You know life is kind of a caravan, isn't it? Maybe you're married right now. Maybe not. Maybe you got some kids.
Got a job. Got a dog. Got a cat. Got a boat.
Got a fishing rod. Got a TV. Watching the games. It's kind of a caravan.
It's like rolling. It's moving. It's going somewhere. And so the idea here isn't like, oh if you acknowledge him, he's going to make your individual path by yourself like some scout running up some mountain to get a badge.
It's more as he'll make your caravan go straight. You can trust him with his caravan of life. Wow. So how does that go?
It's a pretty powerful set of proverbs. Very powerful promise. We quickly as we move to closing here. I think that a guy that I think I look to is someone who auditiously, auditiously trusted.
Dr. Ku. Ku grew up in Hong Kong. Just like in every nation, there are people who fall through the cracks.
Ku's family fell through the cracks. Dad left. Mom there. A point is a young boy.
Mom said, we have no food. That happens here too. But in Hong Kong, Ku grew up with a mom who said, I have no food for you tonight. Go scavenge out on the streets.
Can you imagine? It's a pretty tough life. Ku never went to high school, but he decided as he came to faith that he was to travel to Spain. Because he could play the record, the Ezra Fits' Gerald, I think that's the name of the guy on his guitar.
That's probably four of most of you were born, of course. He went to one of the greatest conservatories in Spain and said, I'd like to become a student here. I said, well, Ku, you have no transcript. You have no high school.
He goes, it doesn't matter. He goes, why doesn't it matter? He can't accept you. He said, I'm gifted.
And why you gifted? I can play that song. This is a guy who came to faith and somehow God whispered something in his heart. Go to the conservatory and accepted him.
He found his wife. He graduated eventually with a doctorate in Qatar. He should hear and play flamingos, Spanish guitar. They know guitar there.
And God leaned on his heart to go back to Hong Kong where he had no food and build from scratch a music school. Would we hedge our bets? Probably. But he went back to Hong Kong with his wife with no money, no funding, no building.
And he started a music school. And wouldn't you know it? The Hong Kong government decided to give him $5 million. Free to build a school.
$25 million Hong Kong dollars. He was the last that would ever be expected. And so this rose from nowhere to become now the leading school in Hong Kong with a thousand students and a couple hundred music students at night. And if you want to go there, you have to start a kindergarten because that's where it starts as no one accepted in the middle grades.
There may be 30 different seats. I mean, 30 different people applying for every seat because it's the best school in that city, that city state. And I met with him. And he took me one day.
I'll be closing with this. And he took me one day to visit his mentor. You see, mentoring has a big piece in life. To a guy named Dr.
Tang, who lived in a small duplex and only had enough to do miniographs as he gave out sheets on what mentoring is. And I went there and there were four people with me, Chung, my dear friend and a woman. I found out that he only really mentored about five people. One of those mentories created the greatest school audaciously in Hong Kong.
Another woman had about three ballet schools and a bunch of other things. I asked her, how many people are on your mailing list? And she said 35,000. She wasn't prideful.
Tremendous humility. And I'm saying, how did this happen? She said, Dr. Tang mentored us.
That, by the way, is the power of mentoring and why we want to be mentored. And so when we think about what does it mean to be audacious? I think for some of us, it's the courage to stay. For others, the courage to believe.
For still others, the courage to prioritize. Still others, the courage to get out of death. The courage to understand or not understand what God's doing. The courage to face uncertainty or challenge.
The courage to let the past go audaciously. The courage to believe and grasp the future. The courage to change when people say we can't change. The courage to believe that these small decisions really can change their trajectory and the heritage of our lives.
The man would come up. The courage to step out on the water. The courage like Noah to build a big boat. It may mean staying, it may mean suffering, it may mean taking action, it may mean waiting, it may be ascending, it may mean releasing, it may mean filling the blank.
But this is our lives. Right in the middle of it. And the decisions that we make simply with trusting in the Lord with all our heart can change everything. That's good to sell quick or to be audaciously trusting in the God who's right with us.