My Haleakala Moment

For Spring Break this year, I took 10 College students To Maui, Hawaii for a mission trip. We partnered with the University of Hawaii (Maui) BCM and Valley Isle Fellowship Church. We painted, landscaped, cleaned mattresses, proclaimed the gospel through Drama, message, and song to over 90 local Hawaiian teenagers in Wailuku, and helped the Pacific Whale Foundation remove invasive species on a volcano known as Haleakala.

I have been asked time and time again what my favorite moment was from the trip. I really enjoyed preaching to over 100 locals and serving the YMCA and the Pacific Whale Foundation. There were many defining moments on the trip for me, but one stands out more than any. For those of you who know me, I am not an emotional person at all. In fact, I wish I were more emotional. Last thursday, our students had the bright idea of waking up to watch the sunrise 10,000 feet above sea level on the tip of Haleakala; I was indifferent about the decision, but what the heck, we were in Maui. As a “Mission Trip” leader, I tried to be intentional about looking for opportunities to have “group times with God” so I remembered a quote from Andrew Murray’s "The Deeper Christian Life" “An Aid To Its Attainment”

So at 5:00 am on top of Haleakala I read this insert from this remarkable book:

“Dear reader, we have such wrong thoughts of God. What is God Like? I know no image more beautiful and instructive than that of the sun. the sun is never weary of shining; of pouring out his beneficent rays on the good and the evil. you might close up the windows with blinds or bricks, the sun would shine upon them all the same; though we might sit in darkness, in utter darkness, the shining would still be the same. God’s sun shines on every blade of grass, on everything that springs out of the ground. All recieve this wealth of sunshine until they bear fruit. Would he who made the sun be less willing to pour out His love and life into me?”

The sun, what beauty it creates! Would God not delight more in creating beauty and fruitfulness in me?

As I am reading this insert from my i-phone and watching sunrise on top of Haleakala, I am literally weeping in front of 10 ASU college students, 4 HU students, and over 30 random strangers hearing me read this quote. As prideful and self conscious as I often am; in that single glorious moment, I had no regard to anyone's perception of me because I was completely Awestruck at the Majesty and Glory of God’s creation...The Sun! What an Illustration of God's Faithfulness!!!