A Grit Story

Sorry, I’m in a dark car with the light. Facebook live wasn’t working today for some reason. 

I wanted to share a story about how grit worked for me. When we first came to Hawaii to start this church where we were working with the homeless, in my mind, I made a commitment to stay here for five years working with the homeless. One of the things that we said we’re going to do is we’re going to come every single week. No matter what, we’re going to bring dinner down. So we decided every Tuesday night, we’re going to bring dinner down for at least five years. Just going to keep going, going, going, going.

People would come for the first couple of months. And then after a couple months, people stopped showing up for dinner. So we would show up at our normal dinner spot and no one would be there. So we would just walk down Kalakaua Avenue, finding people who were hungry and eating dinner with them basically. We would just do that week after week after week.

We work with a network of churches here in Hawaii called Transform Our World (TOW) Hawaii. We felt as a network that we were called to adopt Waikiki, not just the strip of Waikiki, but the ahupua’a of Waikiki, from the top of the mountain all the way down to the edge of the reef. 

One Saturday, all the churches came together and we began to pray all over different strategic sections of the little pizza of Waikiki. That was a Saturday. I remember the next Tuesday after that, nothing different. We didn’t advertise more. We just showed up every Tuesday like we always did. 

The next Tuesday after that prayer time, so many people showed up to dinner that we ran out of food in a minute. It was like, we prayed like, okay, let’s go. And it was like, and then the food was just gone. It was just gone instantly. I remember one guy going away with a half of pizza in his head and then we were like, “Well, now we got to change up how we do this.” 

And then, I remember the next week after that, we come and the guy says, “Hey, do you think I could pray for the pizza?” I said, “Sure. Pray over the dinner.” He says, “This week I died.” I said, “Oh yeah.” He goes, “Yeah, I’m serious man. I died.” He says, “I died. They were trying to resuscitate me. They gave up and I just woke up.” His friends are like, “Yeah man, you were dead.” He’s like, “So I’d like to pray for the food.” I said, “Yeah, go for it.”

Then afterwards, there was a lady just sitting in the corner. I said, “What’s going on with your life?” She says, “I’m trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life.” I said, “Oh yeah, tell me. This is kind of what I do.” She goes, “They said I took so many pills that it should have killed an elephant, but for some reason I didn’t die. So I’m trying to figure out why I’m alive.” I got to sit there and tell her why she’s alive.

Now, it’s been almost eight years. It’s eight years in May that we’ve been coming down to Waikiki bringing dinner every single Tuesday night. We only missed one Tuesday night. And that was this last Christmas, because Christmas was Tuesday. Papa John’s wasn’t open and we were out of town. We missed one Tuesday in eight years. 

grit is where you decide what you’re going to do and you put your head down and you just do it, do it, do it, and you don’t quit. So, I recommend find something that you feel like you’re supposed to do and commit to doing it for years, not just like a week, not just two weeks, not just a month. Commit to doing it for years. 

Tell me what you guys want to be gritty. What you want to be gritty with? What do you want to do? Tell me in the comments down below. All right, guys.

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