Dare to be Different - Mahl Kita

Used by Permission by www.GoodJobNotes.com

The biggest problem with being different is that you, just by being different, fly in the face of what everyone thinks is right and what they expect from you.  Most of the time, being different is considered being wrong, and causes overt and direct attacks as well word of mouth and rumor attacks.  It almost never causes success in the world, unless it answers the question, "What's in it for Me."

In the west, what's in it for me means $$$ most of the time.  Nothing wrong with $$$, but if that is not your goal, your mission, your calling from God, then whatever your calling is, is not going to go over so well with the population at large most of the time.

This is my story about being different.

In the early 80's, which you might know already if you have read Dark Well of Despair - Light of Hope, I fell off a bicycle and sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury.  Up unto that point, I was 3 credit hours from getting my Masters in Physics, though I had temporarily abandoned that path, I was a fairly successful life insurance sales person in a team with my wife, and I had a 2 year old daughter.  Life was good, and I was rolling in money.


That stopped when I hit my head.  I nearly lost my house, with one of those can't get if from anyone else emergency mortgages.  If just so happened that the bank I had originally borrowed from was being bought out, and the loan officer was attending the same church we were attending.  I knew there was a God, and that it was important to be seen going to Church in our community, but I had not idea who God was.  Seems he knew who I was though. The load officer called my wife, and said my credit rating was horrible, since I had not paid any bills since my injury, at least 6 months earlier.  He was going to rewrite the loan anyway, and pay for the second mortgage, the water pump that just blew up, and the unpaid mortgage, because "it was going to be the last good thing the bank would do, before it went under."  At the time, I had no idea that was God.  I was so drugged out on pain pills, and well over 100lbs heavier than I was 6 months earlier, I was only aware of my own pain.  I did not really know we were losing our house.  My wife was dealing with that.  Seems God was helping her.

I was told that I could sue the state, since they mis-aligned the sewer grate that flipped me over, but I was also told that I was possibly partially responsible.  I was on the bike.  So I would only get $200,000.  Never entered our minds after that though.  Why?  Because my wife was different.  If I was responsible, then I would pay for it.  So we did.

We owed over a 1/4 of a million in debt, not counting the house, which a year earlier was not an issue, but now that I was messed up, could not think, was in pain, and was never going to come out the other end, all that debt was oppressive.

My house was falling apart.

My income had fallen apart.

I was going down, and I was not born for failure.  I tried to kill myself. That was a call out to God, though I would have denied that at the time. I was reaching out of my despair and he reached out and grabbed ..... no, not my hand.  That would have been too freaking easy.

My daughter was found by God when she was 8ish, and by the time she was 15ish, God had found me too.  Turns out he had found my wife decades before. Anyway, that changed everything.  Everything.

Now, getting rid of the debt, anyway we could, was not the priority.   Paying the debt was.  I borrowed it, so I was going to pay it back.  Different.  But that is what the spirit told us to do.  So we did it.  It took us until my daughter graduated from college.

Eventually my Disability Insurance agreed to pay.  My doctor told me to learn karate.  I broke every window in my house in anger.  Life was just getting weird.  The neurologist was right though, but for a reason he never would have predicted.  Turns out I am a gifted teacher.  Since we were now following the Spirit when ever we knew what was being asked of us, we discovered I could give back to the community by helping others defeat their issues.  After all, I was never going to work again, but I could teach karate.  We tried to pay me, but every time we even talked about it, I got ill, so the doctor, my wife decided they were right.  I would never work again, yet I could give back.

We were different.  We teach karate not to make money, but to help others.  We always have, since we started.

What was the reward from the world?  My insurance company stole my insurance payments from me, and two years of my life, as they tied to steal much more.

Some students, though a small percentage, can't understand what's in it for me, so they vocally accuse us for all sorts of strange stuff.  Why?  Because we are different.  I have never been paid, and never will be.  I don't do it for the money.  I could not do it for the money if I wanted to.  I do it for the students, because that is what I do for God.  I use his gifts to give to his people.

The worldly reward have not yet arrived.  Only more difficulty, but God's rewards have been outstanding.  Let me list a few.

1)  I am not supposed to be married anymore.  No one with my injury is.  I am.  God 1 Point. (Well, ok, 1,000,000 points, but no one would understand that scoring.)

2) I get to teach karate and at the same time, all the values that God has taught me.  The Bible is a living book, and I get to pass it on, to everyone.  God gets another point.

3) I get to teach Sunday School, when crowds in stores, outside, or anywhere near me make me ill, but he has again surrounded me with people, like at karate, that understand, and help me help others.  God gets another point.

4) I Lost all my physics.  I can't even add 2 digit numbers.  I gained teaching.  God gets another point.

5) I have had financial set back after financial set back, and the people around me and my family for the most part have stepped in and helped us help others.  God gets another point.

6) I got to go on a mission trip with my family and a few close friends.  We taught karate and God in the Philippians.  God gets another point.

7) As dumb as it sounds, I have 5 cats.  They love me.

6) I have the best adult daughter in the world.  Period.  I will fight you over that.

My wife, my daughter and I dare to be different.  Why, because it takes different this day and age to follow the Lord, but Love is Love.  We have it. We share it.

So, I beg you, Be like the apple at the front of this blog.  Be Different for the Lord.

Mahal kita.

Do You Still Love Him Unconditionally?

Used with permission from www.GoodJobNotes.com

In the book of Daniel, 3 Jewish slaves, who have been promoted to positions of power in the Babylon government, have been told to worship the king. It was a trap. They were well known for NOT worshiping anyone by God. So the king gave them one last chance. Do it, he said, or I will burn you alive.

They Loved the Lord our God even then. They had lost their home, they had lost their land, they had lost their families, and they were about to lose their lives, but they love God still. The said

Daniel 3:16-18: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

Whatever you are facing, have you treated God like a Genie - trying to invoke him to solve the problem, or do you love the Lord, no matter what. (God is a Genie)

Unconditional Love

With Permission from: http://www.goodjobnotes.com/whatsnew

The purpose of the article is to deal with a business practice that one of my friends has begun to use, with great results. The reward good behavior by sending students what they call "I Like You Because Cards. It is a practice that works within human psychology and recommends itself to influencing other people to good affect. In other words, it actually works.


It is, however,  just short term and has the ability to cause great harm to those who you use it on, especially when they discover that your love, your feelings, your attitude about them is conditional.  


Let me assure you, before I begin, that God's Love is Unconditional.

Psalm 36:5-7 (ESV): "Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.  Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.  How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings."

Just to make sure you understand the impact of this type of love, I have included a link to one of my favorite songs about this very Psalm.

Imagine for a moment, that you are teaching a class of young children, and one of them is panicked. This child has discovered in her life that to get what she wants, all she has to do is yell, scream and physically pound on you to be let go.

You decide that you want to change her life, so you choose one of these two methods:

Humanism:  You hold the child and tell the child that you like her when she behaves as a young lady. She punches you.  You tell her you don't like her when she punches you.  She screams.  You tell her people will like her if she is not screaming ... etc

Following God's Example:  You hold the child, and she punches you while she screams, "I hate You!"  You tell her that you like here no matter what she says and does. That you will help her do (whatever she needs to do that caused her to panic to begin with).  She punches and kicks you and screams.  You tell her that no matter what she does, you will still like her, and that her behavior only changes when she gets to leave.

My daughter was teaching a karate class with a 5 year old who did just this.  My daughter and I picked following God's example.  That child now is one of the leaders, even though she has only been there for 3 months.  That child even tells other misbehaving children that we like them, no matter what.  

We have spread the culture of God's unconditional Love.

Here is another example:

Zephaniah 3:17  “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (NIV)

Just in case you need to hear to believe.

God loves you no matter what.  When Jesus tells us that we are to Love the Lord our God and our Neighbor he means with this type of love.

Can you Do it?