05
Planted (One Year Later)
Jon Burgess“I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one. ’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people, ’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ”. Hosea 2:23
The love of God is on beautiful display here in this passage. His heart is to restore relationship. It always has been and always will be about bringing His creation back to Himself. In the midst of our unfaithfulness He remains faithful! The permanency of the word "plant" after so much waywardness and wandering must have sounded like an impossible dream come true! It meant roots could go deep and fruit could form again after such a long season of barrenness and sin. It meant God was taking ownership of our care after telling Him so many times we could care less about Him! He was making us His Ohana!
Clearly the context of this scripture is the restoration of Gods sinful people into relationship with God. I thank God for His relentless pursuit of me in my sin and my intimacy I now have with Him. When I read of how He would plant His people in the land, how He would invite them into a new O'hana and call them His own, I couldn't help but think about what God had done for the Burgess Ohana. One year ago today we moved from Big Island to Oahu as the new campus pastors of New Hope Oahu. We had seen such fruit in the one year we spent with our New Hope Legacy Ohana that we thought for sure we would be there forever. That's what we had planned anyway. That's not what God had planned. Every time we talked about eventually buying a house in Kona we didn't have a peace and that didn't make sense. The last place God had clearly called us to put down roots was in Seattle. We were able to see 10 fruitful years of ministry with New Hope Seattle. Prior to Seattle we had moved 13 times in our first 10 years of marriage (many of those moves were in the same city). We felt more like a military family, Gods military, ready for deployment when the command came. Then God called us to Seattle and we heard Him clearly call us to put down roots. He had planted us in that land and made that people our people. So, it was a shock when 10 years later we knew He was uprooting us and bringing us back to the islands. It was an even greater shock when, one year later, we realized Kona was preparation for Oahu. He brought us to Kona to reconnect with our Hawaiian roots and way of life. We were to find, raise up and release Makana and Tammy Delovio as the permanent pastors of New Hope Legacy. We were to reconnect with Pastor Wayne and our New Hope Oahu Ohana when he would occasionally bring me over from Kona to guest speak. I didn't understand then what is very clear to me now. God wasn't letting our roots go deep in Kona because He was calling us to a permanent planting here! One year later I can say with all confidence and joy that for the first time since Seattle, God is saying to let our roots grow deep, that these people are our people, and He is our God! His love for us is clear as God has planted us on this Aina and we aren't going anywhere for a long time!
I stand in awe at how much You have done in such a short amount of time! Thank You for putting us right where You wanted us. Thank you for the New Hope Seattle Ohana who sent us to Kona. Thank you for the New Hope Legacy Ohana who sent us to Ohau. Thank you for the New Hope Oahu Ohana who have truly embraced us and called us their own! Thank You for the fruit we are already seeing in our family and ministry only one year later. The fertile soil of the New Hope movement is something I didn't create but have been privileged to plant in and be planted in. I can't wait to see what You are going to do next!
