Sermon Illustration Tuesday (1.8)

Have you ever heard the term “Haole” before? I first heard about it while picking up surfing in High School. I knew it wasn’t exactly a positive label, but until recently I never knew what it meant. Max Lucado shares his own discovery of the word in his recent book “Anxious for Nothing.”

Statistics have recently shown that Americans are the most anxious/stressed out people in the world, so preaching on the topic has some obvious import today. As human beings, we are prone to compare ourselves to others. But what if our entire culture itself is sick? If we are ever going to be displaced as the most anxious country in the world, we are going to need to find outside resources to help us. Recognizing we have a propensity for perfectionist, workaholism is the first step in the process. I hope you enjoy this short story by Max Lucado, which ought to illustrate our own predispositions to be busy-body, stressed-out people:

A native Hawaiian once told me the origin of the name that islanders use for us non-Hawaiians—haole. Haole is a Hawaiian word for “no breath.” The name became associated with the European immigrants of the 1820s. While there are varying explanations for this term, I like the one he gave me: “Our forefathers thought the settlers were always in a hurry to build plantations, harbors, and ranches. To the native Hawaiians they seemed short of breath.”

Taken from Max Lucado, Anxious for Nothing, Thomas Nelson.

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