Peregrine

Tsunami: 9 months after video

2012-01-21T20:17:00.000-08:00

A video that my friend Eric and I have put together of the tsunami damage and clean-up from my recent trip to Japan was posted on WGM's blog page at:

http://missionscentral.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/japan-earthquake-damage-9-months-later/

or you can view it directly on youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwr18YDACG8

There is also a shorter video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv7WsasQArY

Two Photos, Nine Months After the Tsunami

2011-11-30T12:54:00.000-08:00

Everest

2011-11-30T12:43:00.001-08:00

I talked with another man who was living in the temporary housing. I think he started talking with us because he had some interest in what an American was doing there. He said that he usually went to Hawaii every year on vacation, but that he didn’t go this year because of what happened. When he was in his 30s, he climbed partway up Mount Everest. He said that, when the quake happened, he went into his house to grab his important documents and then left. He said that, if he had tried to get anything else out, he would not have made it. He showed us photos on his cell phone of his house after the tsunami hit it and the surrounding neighborhood. He got teary-eyed as he scrolled through the photos and changed the subject to a farming game that he was playing on his computer.

Forward

2011-11-30T12:37:00.000-08:00

I sat and spoke with a man named Susumu, which means something like “Forward” or “Keep moving ahead.” He and his wife are in their sixties. They have been married for 40 years. He likes John Wayne movies, but has never been to the US. He is a licensed ham radio operator, who once made a trip to Guam to visit someone he was communicating with there. His house is up above where the tsunami came. When the earthquake happened, though, his house was ruined. He got a phone call from his daughter who was stuck in town, so he drove down to pick their family up. The roads were clogged with cars trying to escape, but he was able to get to them and get them out of the city on back roads. He said that from where he was up on the hillside, he could see a wave coming in from one side, then another wave coming in from the middle, then a third wave coming from the other side, and they all met in the middle. His daughter’s house was washed away by the tsunami. It was a week before they had their first bath, and that bath was in one of the temporary tent-baths that were set up for them.

Susumu kept telling me that he had never studied English, but, as we were talking, he was surprised by the English that kept popping out. At the end, as they were leaving, he looked at the pastor who was there and said, “This is my friend, Zach.” I said, “This is my friend, Susumu-san.” He smiled, happy that I remembered his name.

I felt a lonely feeling as I watched my friend walk away, knowing that I will probably not ever meet him again. Oh God, please send others into Susumu-san’s life. Please watch over him and fill his life with light and hope.

Washed Away

2011-11-30T12:35:00.000-08:00

While visiting another set of temporary housing, we met a man who tried to escape the tsunami with his mother. He looked about sixty, and I believe his mother was in her nineties. He was holding her hand, trying to get them both to safety. They were walking in water up their chests when his mother released his hand and was washed away. He survived. He is living in the temporary housing now. He stood at the door, talked with us while we were waiting to leave, and said goodbye, even though it was very cold that day.

Knee Surgery

2011-11-30T12:32:00.000-08:00

On November 18th, we went to do another mobile café. One of the ladies who came was an older lady who was living there alone. She had gone to the hospital to have knee surgery the day before the earthquake hit. When it hit, she was on the fourth floor and she said the jarring threw the other woman in her room. She had asked someone to look in on her house while she was in the hospital. She was worried that that person might have been at her house when the tsunami hit. She kept thinking it would be her fault if that lady was there when it happened. It was days before she could make contact with anyone beyond the hospital. Her house was ruined, but the person who was supposed to check on it was okay.

Now she lives by herself in the temporary housing. All her children are in Tokyo.

Grilled Fish and the Taste of Tanuki

2011-11-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

At the end of one of the mobile cafes, the head of the temporary housing unit showed up with two other people (the head is sort of like a mayor or something. He or she lives there, but watches over everyone’s interests). He brought in a plastic container filled with finger-sized fish. At first, he walked in, said, “Go ahead and eat these, if you want,” and then he stepped back out again. Nobody knew exactly how serious he was or whether we were just supposed to eat them raw or not. When he came back, he went into the little kitchen beside the meeting room and began grilling them.

It is surprising how tasty a little fish can be with just a little grilling. It is also surprising how easy it is to chew up a skull, bones, tail, and all. Just try not to think about the eyes popping in your mouth too much and you are fine. I thought they were very good and had about five.

The headman brought a jar of sake, his friend brought a can of beer and a pack of cigarettes. They sat talking about enka, fishing, the animals in the woods around the temporary housing units, and how tanuki tastes. They say tanuki tastes pretty good.

Temporary Housing

2011-11-30T12:28:00.000-08:00

On November 17th, we drove to the tsunami affected area. In the city, there are many buildings that look like someone punches giant holes in their ground floor. There are large empty spaces where buildings have been completely torn down. Some buildings look like the ground floor was crumpled or crushed. There are crumpled cars too. Other houses look fine on the outside.
9 months after the quake and the streets are clean. Traffic moves through in an orderly fashion, although some street-lights still do not function. It is obvious that a huge amount of work has been done, but there is still much left to do.

We drive a little further outside the city proper and find backhoes climbing a massive pile of pulverized concrete. It is a mound of concrete collected from buildings and houses waiting to be recycled again. Beside it is a pile of other debris, a mass of unidentifiable detritus. We drive, following the shore to the failed sea-wall. On one side of the wall is the peaceful, sparkling, blue ocean. On the other side, we drive through a flat, gray area interrupted by the outlines of foundation stones and the remains of structures, ringed on the hillside by brown trees. “What used to be here?” I ask. “This used to be a town. There is the outline of a gas station. The trees are brown because the saltwater killed them.”
We drove on, into a valley between the mountains, passing road-workers trying to repair the damage that the earthquake left. We get far out into the countryside and arrive at the temporary housing. They are mass-produced, gray buildings that look a lot like trailers split up by multiple doorways.

CRASH is focusing on what they call “heart-care” right now. At the beginning, they were doing cleaning and clearing of land, but they are currently trying to engage the survivors of this disaster. One of the ways that CRASH is working to encourage people in the temporary housing is through mobile cafes. Some of the housing has a meeting room. So, CRASH goes into this meeting room, brings coffee, tea, juice, and snacks, sets up tables, and gives people the opportunity to get out of their rooms, relax, meet other people from their housing unit, and talk about whatever they want to talk about. Many different subjects come up, but people still want to talk about what happened to them in the tsunami. Mostly, I was just there to listen.

It has been nine months since the world watched in horror as the world shook and water poured over the land. Since then, there has not been much news coverage outside Japan. However, these people are still dealing with deep hurts. Some of them still deal with trouble sleeping, but do not want to see a doctor. When you talk with them, you hear the word nagasareta over and over again. “Washed away.” “The middle school was washed away.” “My house was washed away.” “My daughter’s house was washed away.” “That was there, but it washed away.” “My mother washed away.”

They split people up into the temporary housing by what type of family they are. Elderly people go into one area; families with children go to another area; single, young people into another area. So, most of the time, people are not from the same neighborhood and do not know each other. The temporary housing is set up in areas that are deemed safe from further tsunami danger, but this means that many of them are far out in the country. If a person does not have access to a car, they are rather stuck.

After the first couple months, after the cameras pack up and newscasters move on to other subjects, these people are left in their gray trailers to wonder what happens next. Some say the temporary housing is drafty, that you can hear everything your neighbor does, that they get cold, and the areas they are in get very dark. At one of the locations, there was a conversation about how dark it is and how it would be nice if there were just some Christmas lights put up so it would not be so dark. I imagine the close quarters, the dark, the cold, and the lack of transportation grind at people in this situation. The lack of work, the boredom, the waiting, the uncertainty must grind at people.

I have been to places in the world where physical needs are more pronounced. I have been in houses with dirt floors and walls made of scraps. However, I worry about the spiritual needs of these people that I have met in temporary housing in Japan, especially the older people. When you have worked all of your life and stored up a certain amount of stability, security, a house, a car, some things, how do you start over again when it all washes away? How do you go from being someone in a neighborhood where you have established a life to being a statistic living in a room in a non-descript, gray trailer? Where do you find hope at that point? How do you hang on and live just for the sake of living?
Life is so fragile. As a Christian, I found myself praying as I listened to these people, “Dear Jesus, please help them to hold on and not despair. This is probably the only time I will see this person, but please send other people into this life. Please bring peace. Please let this person know they are cared for. Please bring healing here. Please bring real hope here.”

Rebuilding in Kamaishi

2011-11-30T12:24:00.000-08:00

Below is a link to a youtube video that I posted recently. It is a video of some of the damage and rebuilding that is going on after the tsunami in Kamaishi, one of the cities that I visited recently. This is nine months after the I took it while we were driving through the city on our way to the temporary housing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv7WsasQArY

An Unexpected Conversation

2011-11-30T12:17:00.000-08:00

On November 16th, I traveled by bullet train up to the northern part of the tsunami zone. The CRASH base there was in Tono, but we would be driving to Kamaishi, one of the areas that was very hard hit by the tsunami, during the two days that I was there. On my way, I had to make one transfer from the bullet train to a local train. The transfer came at a little station called Shin-Hanamaki.
The transfer from the bullet train platform to the local train was a big change. I had to walk with my baggage out of the station, follow some signs around a dimly lit path, go down a set of stairs, go up a set of stairs, and then I was suddenly standing on the platform for the local train. This is a little shocking to me. In Tokyo, in order to get to the platform, you have to buy a ticket and go through an automated ticket wicket. So, to be standing on a platform without going through a wicket was a little disorienting.
I stood there, alone on a dark platform (something that very rarely happens in Tokyo), wondering whether I had done something wrong, struggling to read the signs posted around me, and trying to figure out whether I should leave to hunt down a train official or not. At that moment, I heard steps approaching from below. Someone was coming. The person turned out to be a lady in her late 50s or early 60s ascending the steps to catch the same train I was.
When she got to the top of the steps, she found a befuddled foreigner waiting for her. I told her I was a bit confused about how this system works. She looked at my ticket, said that it should work, and told me that they only check tickets at the other end, when you get off. That done, she invites me off the platform to a little, heated waiting room. It is nice in a way that Tokyo stations are not. There are benches with little cushions that look like someone bought them at a store and left them for everyone to use. It seems like a homey touch, like the town owns the train station waiting room, not an impersonal train-line.
I follow her in, but, thinking the door was automatic, I do not close it. She very kindly makes a comment about it getting colder lately, stands up, and slides the door closed for me. Then we talk. First, she asks about where I am going and where I am from. Then she tells me about how thankful she is for all the help that people from other countries have offered. She talks about her city, Kamaishi.
She still has a house, but she talks about the people whose houses have been washed away. She says that her town was mostly older people. The children moved away to find their living in other cities. She expresses her doubt that older people will be able to find the money to rebuild and move back, instead of just going where their children are. She talks about people who lost everything. They could flee from the tsunami to places that were untouched in order to find food at first, but what do they do now with no jobs? Kamaishi was a fishing community. That industry was destroyed. She seems to want her town to return to the way it was, but doubts that she will see it happen in the next ten years.
Then she talked a bit about here daughter and how she is planning to go to Hawaii sometime soon. Then more people come in to the waiting area, so we sit quietly, waiting for the train.

Gratitude

2011-11-30T12:13:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a two and a half week trip to Japan. While there, I was able to visit people in the earthquake/tsunami affected areas twice. One thing that struck me before I even got to those areas, though, was how thankful the Japanese were for the international aid that came.

I was on my way to the CRASH office to get some paperwork for my trip up. CRASH is a Christian relief organization that sprung up in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami. I had never been to the office before, so I ended up wandering around the town not knowing where I was. I had the address for the office, but it was doing me very little good. So, I stopped and asked an old man if he knew where the office was.

The old man looked around and then took me over to a housing unit where he asked a little girl if she knew where the address was, which she didn’t, and then whether there was someone in the housing unit who would know, which there wasn’t. Then, he took me over to a delivery-man’s car. The delivery-man was inside sorting papers, and the old man asked whether he would help us find an address. The delivery man was not happy to be interrupted. He grumbled like a dog who has just been woken up. However, he looked the address up on his map, got out of the delivery truck, and pointed grumpily down the road telling us it was two blocks in that direction.

It was a pretty long two blocks, but the old man insisted on walking with me. I tried to tell him that I would be fine, but he insisted on accompanying me, saying that he was out for a walk anyway. I was moved by his kindness to a complete stranger. I walked behind him blinking my watery eyes.

He kept referring to CRASH as Crash-san, as if CRASH was a person. I told him that CRASH is actually a Tohoku relief group. Suddenly, he starts thanking me. He thanks me for everything that people from other countries have done and are doing in Japan. I am so thankful for his help, but he is thanking me over and over for things that I did not do.

He walks me all the way to the door. We bow. I strain the extent of my vocabulary to try to thank him. He leaves, thanking me as he goes.

The Green of New Life

2011-04-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

As Ohioans, we have a special understanding of spring. Every year we watch the seasons turn. Every year we enjoy and we endure that long season called winter. We know what it means to see the whole world grow dark, silent, and dead. We hunker down and wait through the long cold.

So, it is always with a unique joy that we greet the first robin and realize that the trees are waking up again. It is with a pleasure those further south do not know that we watch our streams flood with melted snow and our fields grow sticky with mud and newly sprouting life. I look forward to the sunlight shining through the translucent green of new leaves. The sharp contrast between winter and spring is the poetry of the north. Every year the impossibly endless death of winter breaks open into the bright, beautiful, bursting life of spring.

However, in Ohio, the icy winters release their grip slowly. Even though the calendar announces winter’s end definitively, there are many years that it feels like the calendar has been rather optimistic and, perhaps, premature. I usually do not feel like spring has really come until Easter. That is when I start believing that the winter really could be over.

It is hard to imagine a better time of year for Easter than spring. The glowing, growing, green spectacle of nature provides us with countless easy metaphors for the resurrection of Jesus. We find analogies in seeds and flowers, in bird’s eggs and butterflies. We find little stories of how life appears where we thought only death reigned.

The resurrection of Jesus is like spring in Ohio. Jesus died and then burst living out of His own tomb so that life and blessing could come to humankind. In Jesus, an unstoppable riot of new life began spreading throughout the world. Spring was coming to people who knew only the cold, dark, endless winter of their own hurt, turmoil, mistakes, heartaches, pain, and sin. Suddenly the world bloomed into the hope of life that never dies; life that beats death.

To some, I probably sound like that optimistic calendar. Where is the proof of this new life, this human spring? The world still looks like it is caught in the clutches of a deadly winter. There are earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. There are wars that do not seem to end. The world seems rife with horrors and hate. People die and they do not pop out of their graves again. Where is this spring?

Well, I am like that optimistic calendar. I am announcing something that is true, but something that is not fully realized yet. In Jesus, we saw the first robin of the new life. In Jesus, we saw that there can be hope in this life and the life to come. There are still many who live without that hope and only know winter. The fullness has not yet come. The good news, though, is the hope that the death and resurrection of Jesus gives us. Christians are announcing that Spring has begun. Even though it may not seem so, the sap is rising in the trees and there are crocuses under the snow!

Reflection on the Tsunami

2011-03-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it takes a giant earthquake and a sudden catastrophe to make people see a need.

As I watched the first footage from Japan of the black wave of water pouring across the landscape, I was horrified. A few hours before, I had begun to read the news reports and thought I understood what was going on, but I found myself unprepared as I watched the tsunami sweep away houses and cars and boats and treasures and memories and normalcy and loved ones. That dark swell of water was an unstoppable challenge to all the preparation and security of which we are so confident.

I watched and tears came as I thought of the grieving, hurting, and death that came so quickly to so many people. So many of those infinitely hard questions for human beings to answer rise up to be wrestled with. So many whys take you by the throat in that moment.

What does it mean when so many die so suddenly in a country where so few know or have had the chance to really know who Jesus is? If He is the way, the truth, and the life, what happens to those thousands who are suddenly ushered into eternity?

Lord Jesus, please have mercy.

I do not know where the death toll will stop. It seems to rise every day as we watch the news unfold. It is already at multiple thousands.

That number, though, made me remember another number. You see, Japan does need our help because of the earthquake and tsunami, but Japan has needed Christians to reach out for years before this. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. In 2009, it is said that suicide rates were over 30,000 for the twelfth consecutive year (Japan Today). To how many catastrophes is that the equivalent? Yet, because that darkness washed over these individuals silently, we missed it.

Oh, Church, please do not miss it. When the relief work is over in Japan, our work will not be done. Please do not let your relief monies relieve you. We have work to do. Sometimes it takes a giant earthquake and a sudden catastrophe to make people see a need.

Praying for Japan

2011-03-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

As you know, Japan was recently struck by a massive earthquake and an ensuing tsunami. Esther and I were in Colorado at missionary training at the time that this happened. We were awakened at 5 am by phone calls from family telling us to check the news. We did not have television where we were, so we read some news articles on-line and then tried to call Esther’s family. Thankfully, we were able to make contact very quickly to Esther’s father and find out that her family was okay. Through e-mail, we found out that the other missionaries were alright, though one was stranded in Yokohama and another had to walk two hours home through Tokyo. Through Facebook, we began to find out that our friends in Japan were okay.

However, we did not see any of the video clips from the disaster until we went to class that day. The instructors decided to skip what was planned and do a prayer time for Japan. They started by showing some of the first images of that black wave spreading across Japan. It is amazing how powerful video is. Esther and I were shocked as we watched and realized the extent of damage. Our hearts broke, as we know many of yours did.

As I write this, we are still watching events unfold as workers struggle to control the nuclear reactors in Fukushima. It is shocking how quickly a nation that was so stable can be thrown into turmoil.

Some people have asked me for some ways to pray for Japan during this crisis besides what is seen on the news. Right now, there is much to pray for on the news, but that is mostly praying that more bad would not happen: that the death toll would stay low, that people would be found, that the nuclear reactor would not explode. However, we also need to pray forward, that God would somehow work good out of this disaster. So, here are some requests:

Pray for the grieving and the afraid. So many people lost loved ones and the trauma of going through such a situation can linger in a person. Pray that people would not bottle those emotions inside and that they would be able to find real comfort.

Pray for people and pastors as they struggle together with the hard questions that such a tragedy creates. Why did this happen? Where is God in all this? Is there any meaning in this tragedy? These are hard questions, but they can lead people to seek for truth. Pray that they would seek until they find.

Pray that this event would awaken a thirst in the soul of the Japanese people. When the world looks stable and mankind seems to be setting its own course, materialism provides many answers. However, when the world is not stable and all the plans of men come to a stop, there is a window through materialism into the possibility of more.

Pray that God would move people to reach out long term as the eyes of the world are turned to Japan right now. Many times Japan is overlooked because it is rich and not seen as a mission field. However, this is a country that needs long term Christian investment.

Pray for the churches in Japan. Christians are a minority in Japan and many times there is a struggle to access the surrounding culture. Pray that this would be an opportunity to reach out to their neighbors and really love them.

Washes Away

2011-03-17T14:22:00.000-07:00

What does it mean when your world washes away? What would it mean if the trapping of life: the car, the house, the computer, the television, and all those other possessions were all gone in half an hour? What if everything you worked for was wiped away?

What if all those things were all you had? What if the material world was all you believed in? What if it was your only hope? Where would you go? Who would you scream at? Why would you wake up the next morning?

What if you did believe in god? What if you believed in a sun god and tree gods and an ocean god? Who would you turn to for protection? Where would you go? Who would you scream at? What amulet would you buy for the future? Could you be devoted? Would you be pious?

What if your loved ones were stripped away and you did not know how to peer across toward the other side with hope? Where would you go? Where would you find hope? Where would you put the pain? Is your heart big enough to hold that suffering?

Where would you find meaning? Where do you find meaning?

What does it mean when your world washes away?

Still Alive

2011-03-08T21:44:00.000-08:00

Hello, kind people who read my blog. As you may have noticed, I have dropped off the face of the earth, as far as blogging goes, for the past few months. My deepest apologies. I am not dead, I did not lose my fingers in a horrible can-opener accident (although something similar to that did happen to me in fourth grade), and I have not joined a cult and disappeared. Thank you for your concern.

Actually, my wife and I had a baby. So, the blog got put very low on the priority list for the past few months (somewhere below "SLEEP!!!!"). I hope to get back to a more regular posting schedule sometime soon, but we will just have to see how it goes.

If you have still been checking in, thank you for checking in. You are very dedicated. Leave a few comments to let me know that you are out there.

Z

Trick or Treat!

2010-10-31T19:05:00.000-07:00

Woodchuck Wonderment

2010-10-31T18:42:00.000-07:00

As we were driving through Pennsylvania recently, my wife and I were passing near Punxsutawney. So, I began to talk about Groundhog’s Day and the pomp that surrounds this particular groundhog. My wife is Japanese, so she is not all that familiar with this American holiday. She asked me, “So, is the groundhog good luck or something?” “No,” I laughed, “He can tell the future.”

Thoughts on Luke 19:1-10

2010-10-31T18:29:00.000-07:00

The first thing that strikes me about the passage is the geographical location. The inside of Jericho connects this passage with the passage before it, which took place outside Jericho. So, we have some connection between Zacchaeus and the Blind Beggar. Jericho also brings to mind the triumph of Israel (which reminds us of the opposite here, since a Rome is setting up tax-collectors), walls coming down, and the sin of Achan. It seems interesting that Z is said to have gotten rich and powerful through a system which most Jews would have considered as paying with “dirty money.” Achan’s greed leads him to wanting the riches of Gentile people also. His story ended in stoning and being cast out of the encampment of Israel.

Next, there is an emphasis on “looking” or “seeing” (depending on your version). Z’s problem is not that he is short, but that he cannot see. He wants to see Jesus and Jesus looks up at him. This word connects Z again to the passage before. The blind beggar wants to see and Z wants to see.

That brings us to what is hindering their sight. In both cases, it is the crowd that hinders sight. The crowd hushes the blind man and the crowd blocks Z. The crowds are blind and this seems to be the case in passages before this. In fact, I wonder if, when the text in 18:39 says that the “leaders of the crowd,” or the “crowds ahead” of Jesus, if it means the disciples. In 18:31-35, they are blind to Jesus’ meaning. In 18:15-17, they are the ones blocking the children from coming to Jesus. How much to we as Christians hinder those who are trying to get to Christ?

The crowds have a wrong perspective. They see only a sinner. They call Z a sinner. Jesus calls him by name and calls him a “son of Abraham.” That is a big difference. The crowds that have been traveling with Jesus are the only ones in the passage with a bad attitude. They have been walking with Jesus, but they have missed the point.

Jesus enters a city where walls have come down in the past and he shatters the fellowship walls of the religious elite. He extends the Kingdom of God beyond the safe, narrow boundaries. His table fellowship brings salvation to one who needed it. Jesus even initiates this radical fellowship.

Z responds in the passage with excitement and joy. Jesus does not tell Z that he has to give up his money to the poor, but Z responds that way. It is different from the story of the Rich Young Ruler in the passage before this. RYR is told to give it all away, but he cannot. He goes away sad. He does not know how much he needs this salvation that Jesus offers.

Z, however, is the opposite. How does he know what Jesus expects when Jesus has made no demand? He is not a self-righteous religious leader. Z is a sinner. He does not need his faults pointed out to him. He knows what is wrong with him, so he jumps to correct those problems when he is met with the mercy of Jesus.

It is interesting that his statement to Jesus is not necessarily an admission of guilt, but a declaration of a commitment to justice. Z is shown to be a child of Abraham by giving to the poor and seeking restitution. Sons of Abraham are not defined by race.

Jesus does not mince words. He declares that Z was lost (which is a bit unflattering to your host), but, more importantly, now he is found. He once was blind and could not see, but seeing changed his life.

Goldilocks and the Triune God

2010-08-31T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have not thought very deeply about Goldilocks and the Three Bears in the past. In fact, I always found it to be a tediously repetitive story, but, recently, I thought about that story in a different light. There is something about the story that reminds me of the universe that we live in and how we discover God. I suppose every good story relates its reader to truth, but I think Goldilocks provides us with an interesting analogy.

Goldilocks stumbles upon a house in the woods. The house does not belong to her and she does not know the owners, but she decides to invite herself in. That house is a bit like our universe, the entire created order. We enter into this world not knowing what’s going on. We are in medias res, and we have to pick up the story that has been happening as we go through life. We stumble upon this universe, and find that there is so much to discover.

Goldilocks quickly makes a trespasser out of herself. She does things that are obviously not appropriate for someone who discovers another person’s house in the woods. She eats things, breaks things, and treats everything as if she owned it. Isn’t that how the story of every human being begins? We quickly make trespassers and vandals out of ourselves as we work our way through life. We break things, cause damage, and live like we are the center of the cosmos.

An interesting things, though, is why Goldilocks is doing what she does. She is on a quest to find that which is “just right.” Strangely enough, in a house that is not her own, she finds that which is “just right.” There really should not be any reason why, in a house made by bears, Goldilocks should find anything “just right” for her. In life, we find that we have thirst and there is not just something that quenches thirst, but something that is just right for quenching thirst. We are on a quest to find that which quenches the longings within us, and, strangely enough, there are things in this world that match our longings.

Goldilocks eventually comes face-to-muzzle with the actual owners of the house. They are shocking and unexpected. She either runs away or faces the threat of being eaten. That is kind of like the way we meet the reality of God. He is surprising, unexpected, fearsome, and totally other. He is more other than we thought He would be. We either have to run from that reality or be consumed by it. The reality that we are not the center is uncomfortable for us, but the universe makes much more sense when we realize that truth.

No, Goldilocks, the house is not abandoned.

The Joy Thief

2010-08-31T16:43:00.002-07:00

I have found that I can be rather critical. We excuse it as having a high sense of quality or wanting the best, but being critical can be a dangerous thing. If I look at someone and my heart is full of criticism, it steals my ability to bless that person. Criticism steals all the encouraging things that I should say out of my mouth. So, instead of being uplifting to that person, I am left standing in silence.

It also steals joy. It impoverishes us when we cannot rejoice in the work that others do. We could be enjoying and sharing, but instead we criticize and are left empty. A heart full of criticism has no room for something as large and life-changing as joy.

I would rather have a heart full of joy and good things to say about the people around me, than to have the power to force everyone to “get it right.”

Sometimes the healthiest thing to do is to learn to be content.

2010-08-31T16:43:00.001-07:00

Lord, have mercy on us when we suffer alone.

Lord, have mercy on us when we drive people away and suffer alone.

Lord, have mercy on those we lash out at when we suffer.

Lord, thank you that we never have to suffer alone.

Lord, thank you for suffering with us.

...and none of us know how long this will be.

2010-08-31T16:40:00.000-07:00

“We have been given no miraculous signs; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be.” Psalm 74:9

Psalm 74 is not a cheerful psalm. It is not a hopeful psalm. It is one of those times when the psalmist is going through a time when God seems silent, and the life is being ground out of him. There is a desperation in the tone of the psalmist.

I read this psalm recently as I was sitting by a hospital bed. I was waiting. I was waiting because I did not know what would happen. I was waiting because I did not know the future.

Much of life is fluffy, like dandelion seeds. It softly floats past you and disappears. The hard, sharp, slow moments in life sit beside hospital beds and coil themselves around us as we receive an unexpected phone call. The moments that carve themselves into our memory are the ones that force us to wait in the dark.

Since sitting by that hospital bed, I can still say that God is good, but, in that moment, it was a relief to know that the psalmist was sitting and waiting in the dark too.

Thy Kingdom Come

2010-08-31T16:39:00.000-07:00

Thy Kingdom come:

No matter what it takes?

No matter what the cost?

No matter where?

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Do we mean that?

Do we want Jesus to come?

Would we be upset if He did come back today?

Why do we want Jesus to come quickly?

Are we ready?

Journey: Joy

2010-08-04T04:56:00.000-07:00

Being a missionary, I think there is something in me that connects with people who have traveled. I have been on a journey for a while now, and there is something in me that is hard to explain to someone who has lived in the same area their whole life. Not that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, that sort of life sounds really good to me sometimes. Yet, there is still something I must do elsewhere, so the journey stretches on before me.

Tonight, I would like to look at a journey that a group of people took. Please turn with me to Luke 2:1-18. (Read)

I know it is not Christmas, but let’s think about the wise men for a moment. They are very mysterious characters. We do not know where they came from and we do not know where they go. They come onto the scene and stir up trouble by alerting Herod to the fact that there might be a contender to his throne in his kingdom. Perhaps they were from very far away, because they seemed unaware of the delicate political situation of Jerusalem. They follow a star, but we do not exactly know how the mechanics of their astrology led them to Jesus. They find the house where Jesus is; they worship Him, give Him gifts, and go home. God warns them not to go back the way they came, so they don’t. Then they disappear.

What do you think motivates these astrologers from the east? What do they accomplish? They are men of means who have the ability to speak with kings if they so choose, but they travel to the house of a carpenter and worship a child before going home. They certainly did not get any political advantage out of what they did. They lost some money because of the expensive gifts that they brought. I doubt Joseph and Mary were able to reciprocate with gifts of equal value. They certainly lost a lot of time traveling. The other Gospels do not even include them.

However, I think our understanding of the coming of Jesus is richer because of them. There are many very serious things going on in the coming of Jesus. God becomes human. There is an emperor who is oppressing the chosen nation of Israel. There are taxes that have to be paid and long journeys with pregnant women. There is an evil king and a disturbed Jerusalem. There are angels and messages from God. There are soldiers who kill babies. There are all of these very serious things happening. Yet, in the middle of all of this, there is joy. The wise men see the star and they are filled with joy. These three mysterious question marks walk into a hurricane of serious events and remind us that the best thing to even happen to the human race has happened. They were filled with joy. Joy.

Serious political figures do not travel long distances to worship poor people. Serious political figures solve things Herod’s way, with intrigue and force. These foreigners could have stayed home. They could have let things be. Instead, we find them filled with joy standing in front of a carpenter’s house. They knew something wonderful had happened and they wanted to be a part of that wonderful event. They came to worship. They came to see for themselves. Something beautiful had happened and they did not want to miss it.

We get fixated on the serious things sometimes. Sometimes I forget that the Gospel is Good News. I forget the joy. I forget that Jesus is worth seeking because of his goodness. He is such a good friend and he loves me so much. I am weak and not so lovable, but He loves me. The Gospel is joy. These wise men went on a journey with no guarantee, just a large amount of hope. Yet, at the end, they found what they were looking for. They got a chance to be a part of the Messiah’s story. They were filled with joy.

Do we worship a God who is so lovely and good that He is worth pursuing? Does it fill us with joy to get a chance to worship God? The wise men found Jesus as a child. He had not started teaching yet and he had not gone to the cross yet. Even so, they were filled with joy at the chance to worship Jesus. They were granted the grace and pleasure of being in the presence of the Messiah. Is there joy in our pursuit of Jesus?

When I was young, I think it was hard for me to understand a loving God. I was a child and it was easy for me to understand God as an angry God who is constantly watching for me to mess up. I remember lying in my bed asking God to forgive me of my sins over and over and over and over again, until I would fall asleep. I was afraid that I would sin sometime between praying and sleeping, and I might live through the night. I was young and I needed to grow out of that. There is no joy in pursuing that type of God. I was afraid.

I grew up a little more and my church sent the youth group on a mission trip to Honduras. Now, some people would question sending youth on a mission trip. Youth cannot get as much work done as adults. They do not have many building related skills. Testimonies given by young people can get rather incoherent sometimes. So, why does a church sacrifice to send youth on a mission trip? To give them a chance to see how big the love of God is; to allow them to experience the joy of taking part in Jesus’ story. My little country church changed my life. Every time I give my testimony, they are part of it. I got outside of my religion of looking at myself constantly and worrying about whether I was clean enough. I got inside this Gospel movement in the world. I saw that God was reaching out to every person with love and forgiveness and hope for a better tomorrow. There is beauty and grace happening out there that I did not know existed. I needed to see that.

Up to that point, I did not have much vision for my future. My dreams were mostly self-centered. I wanted to be a veterinarian because it was a good job that paid well and I liked animals. When I came back from that trip, I realized that I could be a part of what God is doing in the world. I realized that I wanted to be a part of what God is doing in the world. I realized that God was shifting my focus and changing my heart. He was growing me into something new. That was my call into missions.

I am not a missionary because I feel like I have some amazing guilt that I need to work off. I am a missionary because God has put this joy in me to do this. I have a chance to be wrapped into Jesus’ redemption story. That is what I want. I do not know why God lets me be a part of this. I do not know what I will have accomplished when I reach the end of my life, but, if it pleases God to let me be at His service, then I am pleased to do whatever I can.

I went to Japan. I was on the mission field and I was learning things about the depths of the love of God that I had never known before. Serving God is joy. Pursuing Him is joy. Loving and worshiping Jesus is such amazing joy.

From the world’s point of view, the journey of the wise men does not make much sense. They enter, worship Jesus, and exit. However, the world also does not understand the joy of the wise men. Only the wise men understand the joy they experienced. From the world’s perspective, missionaries do not make much sense. Politicians, soldiers, embargoes, and security councils make sense. However, the world does not understand how good the Good News that we have is. Do you see how good the Good News is? If the wise men were filled with joy, then we have so much more to be joyful about, because we have the honor of knowing how the rest of the story goes. We get to be a part of spreading this Good News. We have a purpose in this world. We can worship the Jesus who came to earth and who rose again from the dead. We worship the Jesus who opened the way to eternal life. Where is our joy?

Have you found the joy on your journey? Do you know a God who is worth pursuing? In the middle of all the serious parts of life, do you still have a hold of the wonder?

Journey: Discovering God

2010-08-04T04:49:00.000-07:00

Genesis 11:31-12:4 (read)

Part of this journey that we are on is the journey of discovering who God is. That is a long journey, because God is infinite and we are always at the beginning of discovering. We cannot know anything about God, unless He chooses to reveal himself to us. However, he reveals enough for us to make the next step.

This passage is about Abram. We started in chapter 11 with the father of Abram, Terah. We know that God calls Abram to go to the land of Canaan in the next chapter. The interesting thing is that we find the father of Abram beginning a journey to Canaan. It does not say that God called Terah to go to Canaan, but Terah begins a journey to Canaan but stops partway.

To me, that is a fascinating bit of information. We talk about Abram being called to Canaan and the journey that he took, but the father of Abram also began a journey with the same goal in mind. Abram’s father brought Abram partway.

In this journey of discovering God, no matter how far our parents get us, we have to make the journey ourselves. The people who came before us can prepare the way, they can make our paths smoother, they can walk along beside us, but it is up to each one of us to hear the voice of God calling us onward and to follow. So, we find in chapter 12 that Abram gets a message from God. Abram’s father went on a journey, but now Abram has a journey of his own to make. We each have our own journey to make.

What is the first thing that Abram discovers about God? God gives Abram a command tied to a promise tied to a blessing. God gives Abram a purpose, a hope, and says the whole world will be different because of Him (read vs.2-3). That is pretty amazing. If I were Abram, I would be pretty surprised. Here Abram is living somewhere between Ur and Canaan, and God says, “Follow me. I will bless you. I will protect you. I will change the world through you.” I would probably go, “Huh? Did I miss something? I have heard Canaan’s a nice place and all, but maybe you have the wrong person. We are from Ur. There are lots of gods in Ur, but most of them don’t talk to people and invite them to go traveling. Most of them just sit there and don’t say much. So, I am not exactly sure what is happening right now. The blessings sound very nice, but who are You?”

Maybe there was much more to the conversation than we are told in chapter 12, but there is not really a whole lot about who God is in the command/promise/blessing that Abram is given. However, Abram obeys God and the promises and blessings come into play. So, the first thing that Abram begins to understand is that obedience leads to discovering more about God. Obedience is the beginning of the journey. The more you obey God, the more you discover about God.

Sometimes people want it the other way around. Sometimes people want God to bless them, protect them, and get them out of their problems before they obey God. Some people want God to reveal Himself on their terms before they obey Him. It is as if they hold themselves hostage and say, “God, if you want me, then you have to show yourself this way.” Some people give up on following God because they do not have the experience that they want right away. They expect to come to God and receive a sudden flash of enlightenment. However, Abram does not get everything right away. He is given the first step to take. The first step of faith is a step of obedience.

If Abram did not leave his family and obey God, then Abram would have known that God is a talking God and that God is a God who makes promises, but he would not know whether God is a true God who keeps His promises. Abram would not know that God is a good God who follows through on what He says. God is not just a God of talk. If we believe in the Bible, but are not applying it and obeying it in our daily lives, then we are missing out. The first step on the journey of discovering God is a step of obedience.

The first step, though, is not the last step. Abram does not understand everything right away. If you continue reading after God calls Abram, it becomes obvious that Abram does not yet understand everything. He tries to make God’s promise happen himself, because he and his wife do not believe she can have any children to fulfill the promise God gave them. So, Abram takes a second wife and has a son at the age of 86. This causes Abram quite a few headaches in his family and makes things more complicated between his first wife and his second.

Even so, God does not accept the son of the second wife as the legitimate heir. The lesson Abram is supposed to learn is not how to get things done on his own. The lesson Abram is learning is how amazing, faithful, and good God is. The lesson is that the promise endures and God is not hindered in fulfilling His promises by time, health, or what seems to us to be impossible.

The interesting thing is that God does not totally reject this second son. Even Abram’s mistakes are made good. Ishmael has a blessing of his own. Ishmael’s descendents will become a nation also. God takes the broken, messed up pieces of our lives and weaves goodness into them.

It must have seemed odd to Abram. He goes through his life; he keeps getting older and older, but God keeps promising to make him the father of a nation. God promises when Abram leaves Haran at the age of 75. Then life happens to Abram for a while and he does not have any children. Then God makes his promise again in chapter 15 and tells Abram that his descendents will be like the stars. Abram tries to make the promise come true. There are some family issues that Abram has because of this and then God promises Abram again when he is 99 years old in chapter 17. There is a difference though between chapter 15 and chapter 17. In 15, it says in verse 6, “That Abram believed the Lord.” In chapter 17, it says in verse 17 that Abraham laughed to himself in disbelief. Abraham is human. There are times that it is hard to believe. It is hard to hold on for a long time to promises that you once believed true. It is easy to get discouraged. However, when God tells Abraham to circumcise his household in chapter 17 as a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham, Abraham obeys. Even in the middle of his doubt, Abraham obeys.

There are times in our lives where it is easy to doubt. There are times that we do not understand why things are happening the way they are happening. There are times when we wait and wait and wait for a little bit of hope and we find that we have to wait some more. That is a time in our life when we have to hang on to what we knew and obey. There is an Amish saying that goes, “Do not doubt in the dark what you knew in the light.”

God promises again in chapter 18 that Sarah will have a son. Then in chapters 19 and 20, more life happens. Until, finally, after years and years of waiting, after hardship and turmoil, after belief and disbelief, after a lifetime of obedience, comes chapter 21, verse 1. “Then the LORD did exactly what He promised.” “and the LORD did for Sarah what He had promised.” God shows His goodness in an amazing way. This was not something that was put together by people. This was not something that was mostly the way it was supposed to go. This was God doing what He promised. This had to have been incredible for Abraham. This was the point that he had been waiting for his entire life. I bet Abraham wanted a son before God had ever called him. God had been with Abraham through all the other things that had happened in his life, but this was the moment he had been waiting for. At that moment, I imagine Abraham discovered more about the love of God than he had ever known. Yet, he never would have got to that point on his journey if he had not taken the steps of obedience along the way.

For Abraham, this was probably enough. Having an heir was the climatic point in his life. He did not expect more. God, though, had more in mind for Abraham. God had been calling Abraham along in this journey, and the journey was not over yet. There is more. So, we come to chapter 22 (read vs. 1-2). The voice of God comes to Abraham once again and asks him to do the unthinkable. God asks Abraham to give the gift back. Isaac was the son of the promise, but now God seems as if he is undoing that very promise.

I do not think that the Abraham we met back in Ur would have been ready for such a command. I do not think seventy-year-old Abraham would have had the faith to take his son out and sacrifice him. Yet, Abraham walked with God for years and years. He saw God work in impossible situations. God never failed Abraham, even when Abraham messed things up. The Abraham in chapter 22 knows that God is good, God keeps His promises, and obeying God is never the wrong choice.

So, we find Abraham climbing the mountain. I wonder what all the thoughts that were going through his head were like. I imagine he had plenty of time on that journey to look back over his life over and over again. God promised that Isaac would be his heir, but now Abraham was going to kill Isaac. It probably did not make sense. It probably seemed like his world was caving in around him. Even so, the God he followed was always good to him, and the writer to the Hebrews in the New Testament says that Abraham believed that God could even raise Isaac from the dead.

Abram in Ur probably could not believe that. Yet this Abraham had seen the impossible happen. He had been on a journey. He had discovered the character of God through seeing His promises fulfilled in his life. He had faith that had been tried and tested, but was confirmed over and over again. So, Abraham climbed that mountain in the dark. He put his son on that altar not knowing how all of this would work out. He raised the knife, and I imagine the agony in his soul was tearing him apart. His choice, though, was to trust God one more time.

(Read vs. 11-19)

Of all the commands that Abraham was given in his life, I imagine that one was the easiest, “Lay down your knife!” Can you picture that scene? Can you picture the relief on the old man’s face? Can you see him untying his son and the tears that must have been rolling down his cheeks?

Most of us would not have blamed Abraham if he refused to go up that mountain. Many people probably would think of him as a wacko for doing what he did. Why didn’t God just leave Abraham alone? Why did God have to test him?

God had more to reveal to Abraham and through Abraham to the world. God showed all of us how far He could be trusted. Even if the gift: the most important blessing in Abraham’s life, even if his beloved son were to be placed on the line, Abraham still obeyed. The goal of the journey is not the blessing that God can give you. The blessings come through discovering that God can be loved with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Loving God without reservation, without distraction, and without fear is the goal of the journey.

God promises Abraham once again that his descendents will be like the stars in the sky and the sand of the seashore. He is promised that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through his descendents. Those are promises that Abraham did not see in his lifetime. They are promises that reached far into the future. God would have fulfilled his promise to Abraham if he had stopped at the Israelites, but God himself became one of the descendents of Abraham. The blessing of God through Christ comes to all of us through the line of Abraham. All the nations of the world have been blessed.

So, all of this about Abraham is great and all, but what does it have to do with us? Well, we are all on a journey discovering who God is. There are things that we learn little by little, there are hard lessons that we do not know exactly what the point is, there are tests that come along in life, there are places in the Bible that speak to us so clearly at different points in our lives. Yet, if we want to keep going, if we want to know more about God, we have to take the leap of faith known as obedience. We have to obey what God is telling us to do right now.

Faith is a journey. Sometimes we want the gift of prophecy and the ability to see far into our future, but that is not really what we need. We need to obey the things we know we are to do right now. That does not always mean an audible voice from God. It might just mean loving your neighbor a little more. It might mean loving your literal, next-door neighbor a little more. The more we obey the things we know God has for us, the more the path in front of us opens.

I did not know God would have me in Japan one day. I knew I was being called into missions, so I prepared for missions in college. That step of obedience led to the next step and the step after that until I was led to Japan. I obeyed and went to Japan only to find that God blew my mind by guiding me into Esther’s life. I would never have met her or started dating her if God was not guiding my path. There were times that I worried I would never find a wife who was willing to be a missionary, go to Japan, and marry me. But, the future was not my business. God provides for our needs and more, if we are willing to follow. We seek the Kingdom first and then everything else falls into place. We don’t get everything into place and then seek the Kingdom.

So, tonight, where are you and God? How much have you discovered of His goodness and faithfulness? Where will obedience take you?

Facing the Questions of Children

2010-06-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

How much is the Gospel worth? How far are we willing to follow Jesus? When He asks us to follow Him, do we leave our boats? Do we walk away from the tax collecting table? Do we get up from under the shady tree where we were sitting and go?

When our children look at our lives and evaluate how much this Jesus is really worth, what will they find? Will they find that He has made a difference in our lives? Will they find a life that has pursued Jesus wherever He leads with passion and commitment and oneness of focus? Or will they find a life that has only followed Jesus so far? Will we be ashamed to look into the shining faces that look up at us and say, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” Will they see through us and realize that our love is cold or fickle?

When we take them to church and they watch us sing, pray, and worship, what will they see? Will they find a community of people so full of love that it reaches into the nation and every corner of the world? Will they find a group of brothers and sisters devoted to one another and the renewing of the world through the life found in Jesus? Or will they find a gospel which does not reach outside of the church walls? Will they find that the Gospel is not worth sending or taking to the uttermost parts of the earth?

What will our children find? If we do not pursue Jesus wherever He calls us, if we neglect our purposes in pursuit of other things, they may never know that which we took for granted.

Forests

2010-06-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder why there is not just one tree in the world?

How is it that wonders and miracles pile up on one another and array themselves over the landscape? Imagine if there really was only one tree in the world. It would be a marvel. What should we say about forests of thousands of trees? How do we describe life that covers, reproduces, and grows densely over the world? If we had only one tree and only one blade of grass we might understand better the awesomeness of creation, but we are spoiled by millions and millions of blades of grass, so we do not notice them.

Why is there not one mountain, but ranges of mountains? Why are stars so plentiful and different? Yes, why are they so different? With all of these repeated themes, why does each one sound unique? Why is uniqueness built into this production? What paradox is this? Every ant has a twin, but no two ants are the same.

Man is the only creature that attempts to copy, but even his best attempts at copy are each unique. Repetition surrounds us in this universe, yet copy seems impossible. Even our experiences are ever changing, and we can never go back and steal the same happiness from a moment by doing the same thing over again.

God seems to delight in doing the same thing an endless number of different ways.

So, my child, welcome to the human race. You are one of us, a piece of a song with billions of notes. However, no one can add to the song what you can add. You are not a copy. When people ask you to be the same, when they point out your differences as failings, know that your Creator loves you.

Loud

2010-06-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

After nine months of silence, babies enter the world with a shout. In life, our first instinct is to make ourselves heard. We struggle to make our feelings known. Rarely do we regain the silence. Seldom do we achieve the art of listening.

We meet the silence of the grave having shouted often,

and learned little.

My Giants

2010-06-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

I realized the other day,
My giants are aging.
Those
Passionate,
Fearsome,
Tireless,
Winsome,
Truly human
Men and Women
Who protected and watched over me
Faithfully,
Vigilantly,
And
Carefully
For so many years,
For my entire life,
Are entering their rest
And passing away.

My giants
Who walked in front of me
And opened a way for me.
Who kept the fires burning
And fought back the dark.
Who sheltered me.
Who carried me.

My giants are aging
And soon will be gone.
Soon, I must become
The giant.
I must grow
For I am small.
Yet, paths must be made,
And the fire must burn.
Lord, help me to grow.

Metal Bars

2010-06-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

Message for a Japanese Church in the US

If you have your Bibles today, we will be reading from II Corinthians 5:14-21. (Read)

We are missionaries. Because we are missionaries, we often have to explain why we are missionaries. People want us to tell them what motivates us to go back to Japan. There are people in churches here who fear that the United States is getting so terrible that we should not be sending missionaries to other parts of the world. They believe we need to take care of this country first. Of course, there are needs in the United States, so there is some truth in that statement. However, because I am speaking to a Japanese church today, I know I do not need to explain the needs and opportunities of Japan. We know the realities of living in a country that is 0.7% Christian are very different from a place where you can see churches right across the street from each other. There are many people in Japan who are waiting to be reached with the love of Christ in Japan.

I think it is easy for a person or a church to find a reason not to reach out to other people. It is easy to close ourselves in. In my own life I have seen that. I did not always want to be a missionary. When I was young, I wanted to be a veterinarian. It was a good job that paid well, and I would not have to work with people. I realized in school that people had a tendency to hurt you if you opened your heart to them. So, I did not want to work with people. I wanted to work with dogs or anteaters. There was already this tendency inside me to withdraw and not open my heart to people too much.

However, the church that I belonged to sent me on a mission trip to Honduras. Through that mission trip I saw that the love of God is big and reaching out to every corner of the globe to every person that still needs to hear that Jesus lives, loves them, and forgives them. Seeing a God who is active in the world across languages and boundaries changed my life. I realized that the love of God is beautiful beyond imagining and beyond expectations. I wanted to be a part of what God is doing in the world. I realized God was calling me into missions. He was opening and changing my heart. So, I followed the direction He was guiding me. Sometimes my life has been harder than it might have been if I had become a veterinarian, but the life I have chosen has been better and more meaningful than I ever thought possible.

There really is no Gospel if it is not a Gospel that reaches out to the world. That is what Jesus did and what He commands us to do. That is what moved Paul to travel across the known world teaching about Christ. Let’s look at what Paul says in II Corinthians again. Verse 15 says that those who receive new life will no longer live to please themselves. If you can really see who Jesus is, then you realize that life is more that the desires of selfish, little me. It is not about protecting yourself from getting hurt. Life is about pleasing Christ.

Verse 17 says that we become new people. The old life is gone. Sometimes I think we stop there where it says that we have become new people. We say, “That is the end. I am a Christian. I read my Bible and go to church. That’s good enough.” Or we say, “My family and friends are Christians, that’s all I care about.” Some of us in the United States say, “Until all of the US is Christian, I am not going to care about anywhere else.”
Yet, Paul does not stop there. There is no Gospel unless it is a Gospel that is reaching out to every person. Paul says that God has given us the task of reconciling people to him. The Gospel does not stop at Zach having new life. Zach is then given the task of reconciling people to God. Why? Verse 19-20. God was in Christ, reconciling the WORLD to Himself. We are Christ’s ambassadors.

When I was in Latin America, I lived with a family for a short time. Most of the homes there had metal bars over the windows. You see, there is a lot of crime in Latin America, because there are still many people with problems who cannot find jobs or food. So, people with jobs or food would lock themselves into their homes and put metal bars on the outside of their window to protect themselves from the problems in the world. However, sometimes the homes of those people who took so many precautions to make themselves safe would catch on fire, and the metal bars on the windows would trap them inside. The firefighters would not be able to get inside fast enough and the homeowners would perish. The things they trusted to keep them safe killed them.

Sometimes we have metal bars on our hearts and do not reach out to the people that we could reach out to because we are afraid they will laugh at us or hurt us or we just do not care. Sometimes we close our churches off to the needs around us because we are afraid of certain types of people and the problems that they might bring in with them. Some Americans focus on their country to the neglect of others. However, this is dangerous. Closing ourselves in is not the full Gospel. There is no hikikomori gospel. A church or person who lives like that will wither and die spiritually.

God gives us strength to reach out, even when people might hurt us. God gives us power to love people who are really hard to love. God gives us the task of reconciling people to Him. We are God’s ambassadors. That is why mission is a vital part of the life of the church. Let us take the bars off our hearts and love people.

May God continue to grant us grace to love people everywhere He sends us.

Twice Upon A Time

2010-06-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Part of the wonder of Wonderland is that you cannot find your way back if you try. It is like a magician who is unwilling to do the same trick twice. You plead and beg, but he will not allow you to tear apart his secrets. If you stumble into Narnia again, it is a familiar, yet totally different place from the one that you knew. Peter Pan is always having new adventures, which is what keeps Wendy’s stories so exciting. Oberon’s dancers show off their new steps. That is the magic of the fairytale.

In life, many of us spend time and energy trying to capture the same experience over again. We want things to be like they were that time when everything seemed perfect. We search for the same rabbit hole. Life, though, is far more magical than Wonderland and far less tame.

Fries

2010-06-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about that time when people were mad at France and renamed French fries “Freedom fries.” It seemed like an odd move. I doubt the French really care what we call French fries and we would probably have been much healthier if we stopped eating French fries instead of renaming them. But, of course, not eating French fries just was not an option.

Also, where does the “Freedom” come from? Why were we not content with “fries”?

Anyway, it made me think, what other things will people have to rename if political relations sour with one of our other neighbors? Will Canadian bacon become Liberation Ham? Will Mexican Stand-Offs become an Ambiguous American Impasse? Will Russian roulette become Patriotic Pass the Pistol? These are probably the questions that drive our sub-conscious minds crazy while we sleep.

The Mysteries of Life

2010-03-30T21:02:00.000-07:00

There are some things one does not know about oneself until one gets married.

Turns out, I snore.

Confrontation

2010-03-30T20:09:00.000-07:00

You are not me. I do not begrudge that of you. I am not perfection by any means. However, that scintillating otherness that envelops you both intrigues and confounds me. To live here in the constant contact of a presence that I can know so well and yet only begin to understand is a joy and a hard journey. The culture of you is an undiscovered nation and I am a hopelessly lost traveler, trespasser, transgressor. I am awed and awkward. I have entered a sacred place and found my presence so profane, yet the pride of me revolts against your sovereignty. The wondrous-strange you that I stumble through is a garden, but I am far removed from Adam.

Close to You

2010-03-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

How close is God when you pray? I was listening to a pastor pray recently, and he was praying so loudly that it made me wonder how far away the person he was speaking to actually was. I know that is a silly idea, but, usually, when I pray there is some sort of distance in my mind. Not that I have to shout, but, perhaps, that I need to speak loudly. I suppose there is something about the awesomeness of God that puts me in a throne room, bowing before the King. There is some truth in that, but then I thought about the Incarnation. The fact is that the King got up and crossed the distance to me, knelt down, and put His arms around me. He is so close that the whispers in my heart are known.

I have many questions about prayer, but there was something comforting about that image. Comforting because of the closeness of God, but also because it means that when I pray and you pray, God is close to us. We cannot reach out to the person on the other side of the world, but He can. You cannot reach out and touch me, but He can. He is close to you and close to me. When we pray that someone else will be encouraged, He is right there beside them, closer than we could ever be.

We are so limited by time, strength, and distance as human beings, but it seems like God allows us to take part in an amazing communion of saints through our prayers. We are able to access and enjoy Him, but to also take part in His work in people’s lives and in the world. That is hard for me to understand. It is hard for me to live in that reality. Dear God, help us to know the wonder of Your closeness.

Star Tax

2010-03-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

Oswald Chambers has a way with words. I was amazed the other day by this quote: “When we deliberately choose to obey Him, then He will tax the remotest star and the last grain of sand to assist us with all His mighty power.” My experiences of late resonate with the truth in that statement. God works so intricately. We go through a lot that we do not always understand. There are times that we suffer and do not have an inkling of a reason why. Even so, those who walk with God have an amazing hope. Of course there is the hope of heaven, but there is also this hope that God is working all things together for good. There is the hope that God is doing something really, really good in my life. We are too small and oblivious to catch the scope of the way God works and most of the time the fine details escape us. However, there are moments, those amazing moments, when we see how He has been aiding us and ordering or path. We catch a glimpse of how everything gets put into place and goodness cascades down around us. If God does that in an individual life, then the intricacies of His plans on a universal scale must merit the word glorious in every way. God is good in a subtle, intricate, thoughtful, breath-taking way. God is so good.

Am I Now?

2010-03-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

Philippians 2:1 “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and sympathetic?” (NLT)

I was struck by this passage recently. Paul is asking some rhetorical questions here, but I stopped to ask myself what my answers to those questions would be. I do not want to be someone who claims to be a Christian, but not know what that really means. It is so easy to lapse into a lazy relationship. Do I know the encouragement that comes from belonging to Christ today? Have I experienced the comfort of his love? Do I know the fellowship together in the Spirit? Is my heart tender and sympathetic today? Do I know what Paul is talking about today?

I believe that I have experienced the encouragement, the comfort, the fellowship, and the tenderness, but do I know it right now? These are good things that come as marks of a relationship with Christ. I want the answers to those questions to be, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, AMEN!”

What Sennacherib Sees...

2010-03-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

In II Kings 18, the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, invades Judah and sends his messengers to threaten Jerusalem. His messenger arrives at the city and begins reading his proclamation aloud. It is fascinating to me the way that he describes God, whether intentionally or unintentionally. He says that Hezekiah insulted God by tearing down all of the altars and shrines and making everyone worship in Jerusalem.

Now, the reader knows that these shrines that were torn down did not belong to God at all, they were all pagan altars to various detestable deities. So, there is a bit of irony going on here, if the messenger is not in on it. The problem is that, from the outside, this would be a very easy mistake to make. The people of Judah were so unfaithful that it is no wonder someone on the outside would make a mistake when trying to describe or understand Judah’s religion. Someone on the outside of Judah looking in could not tell who was being worshiped where.

You read on in the passage and Sennacherib’s messengers start describing God as if He is just one more god, one more national deity, like all the others that had been conquered by their army.

It is interesting to read what someone outside of Judah thinks about what is going on inside Judah. It is interesting to read how this interaction works. I do not think Sennacherib was a fool or that his description was inaccurate. The Assyrians lived next door for years and years and knew something of the religious practices of Israel and Judah. The sad part is how little he actually understood about God after all those years.

That makes me wonder how someone who was watching my life would describe who God is, simply by watching on the outside. How would they describe the God I worship? No matter how much we rationalize and explain away why we do this or that, what do people see? What do they learn about God? What would their statement say?

Truth Applied

2010-03-30T19:59:00.000-07:00

Philippians 3:16 “But we must be sure to obey the truth we have learned already.” (NLT)

What a difficult verse! Obey the truth we have learned. The more we walk with Jesus, the more He guides us into truth. He reveals more and more to us. Yet, we are responsible for the past truths also. We cannot discard what we learned in Sunday School while chewing on theology. Learning truth comes with responsibility. We have to grow into that truth and become a person who applies it. Truth that is known, but disobeyed, is useless, dangerous, and never fully discovered.

Zombie-corpse-man-me Prayer

2010-03-30T19:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Jesus, rescue me from my cannibalistic self, who cuts and gnaws and tears at the person you are changing me into. This zombie-corpse-man-me who claws and rages at any gains I make to live your abundant life is so repulsive and, yet, so charming. He beckons me back to the familiar grave which you pulled me. Banish him, bury him, and cleanse all that is not your image from my being.

Perfection

2010-03-30T19:55:00.000-07:00

Philippians 3:12 “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward the day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be.” (NLT)

Paul is not perfect. That statement is encouraging, because we know that even Paul has struggled like we struggle, but also a bit intimidating. If a giant like Paul is still not perfect, if a person who was beaten, stoned, and shipwrecked has not achieved, if a man who was witness to so many miracles does not have it all down, then what titanic gulf separates a person like me from who Jesus saved me to be?

Then again, it is exciting because, if Paul is not perfect, there must be some amazing goal that we are pursuing. Who is this person that Jesus saved me to be? How much more is out there? There must be so amazingly much in store for us, because someone like Paul got so far and was still working towards it.

Ah, there is so much adventure in the pursuit! However, Chambers reminds us that the pursuit is not perfection, because we will destroy ourselves if we pursue our ideas of perfection. The pursuit is pursuing Christ.

Prison Epistle

2010-03-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

Philippians 3:17 “Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example.”

It is rare that you will find someone who is imprisoned writing to free people and telling them to pattern their life after his.

Gloves

2009-12-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

I was stepping out onto the sidewalk to go to one of my favorite coffee nooks the other day when a very tall homeless man spotted me and came straight at me. That is always an uncomfortable situation, because you know exactly what is going to happen next. There is that tension from trying to decide what your response is. Most of us have been there. I have met homeless people and the needy and professional beggars on more than one continent, but the answer never gets easier. What is the proper response?

Then it happened. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and showed me three quarters and an inhaler. His hands were dry and neglected. He spoke in a strangely childish way and said, “Hey, man, I need some food and some gloves. Just need some food and I need some gloves. It’s cold. Can you help me, man? I need some gloves. I am going to go to Rite-Aid and buy some gloves, then I am going to get some food. Do you have twenty dollars, man? I just need some gloves. Can you help me, man?”

It is always easier and safer to have a response for that situation ready. “No,” is a simple reply. People would not blame me for saying, “No.” Walking away is an easy response. It is easier and safer to have a flat, “No,” ready, but I was standing there with my hands in my pockets and I realized that I had gloves. A man was asking me for food and gloves. I had eaten that day. I had gloves in my pockets. I did not have to beg anyone for either of those things. I was stuck.

I know that part of town and I know where the closest Rite-Aid is from where we were. It was within walking distance. So, we walked. At first, he tried to tell me that he wanted to go to another Rite-Aid, but then he settled down to the fact that we were going to the closest Rite-Aid or nowhere. On the way there, he kept saying to me, “God will bless you. God will bless you.” That was not what I wanted to hear. I was in high alert mode, because I felt like I was playing a mind-game where I was always on the brink of being hustled.

We went in to Rite-Aid and I bought him two hats and a pair of gloves (the two hats were a bit of a surprise to me). As we came out, he was wondering if I could take him to the grocery store in my car. He also pointed out that there was an ATM nearby that I could easily access. I was done at that point. I gave him what little cash I had in my wallet and said goodbye. The response was, “Thanks, man. Thanks.” Then we both walked away.

We just walked away.

I was disturbed by that interaction. There wasn’t any light-hearted, you-did-your-good-deed sort of feeling. It was just wrong. It was all wrong. However, I could not figure out what was wrong exactly.

Really, it felt like it was just a transaction. I was trying to invest in another human being in some way more than just throwing money at him, yet I did not achieve much more. I did not know his name and he did not know my name. My life did not really change and his life probably did not really change. My contribution did not change the fact that he was homeless and jobless. I answered the request he had made for gloves. That’s all.

There is part of me that says, “That is good enough. You gave him gloves. That was what you could do and you did it.” He asked for gloves and I gave him gloves. You should be happy, Zach, that you could help someone.

But there is just something so wrong.

Of course it is wrong when a man has to beg for food.

Of course it is wrong when a man has to beg for clothes.

Of course it is wrong that we stand there struggling with the fear and mistrust in our hearts.

Yet, as I thought about why I felt so empty and used, I wondered if I was just like that homeless man. I am a missionary who is supported by a large number of amazing people who believe in reaching out to other people. So, I asked myself, “Do my supporters feel that way?” Is that what I do to them? Do I come up and say, “God will bless you. God will bless you,” and then walk away without asking their names? Are they just expected to give and not know where the money goes?

I would feel like a selfish idiot if I started yelling at a homeless man that he should ask me my name and care about me. However, if our interaction was more than a simple transaction of money or goods, if our interaction was on the level of a dignified human exchange, if it was something that transformed both of us, then we would care about each other, then we would both receive.

Benevolente

2009-12-18T09:21:00.000-08:00

Last night, I was lying in bed and thinking about God.

It crossed my mind that many do not believe that God is good. They find Him too judgmental, angry, or imperious. Their standards of good are something different. They believe there could be a better god. So, I started to imagine what a “good” god would be like, by those standards.

I started to imagine a deity of that sort and named it “Benevolente.” Benevolente really only has one characteristic. Benevolente does what we think is good. Benevolente does what we complain that God does not do. Benevolente is a god who is our expectation of good. Nothing more, nothing less.

I know people have argued about what would happen if there was a different sort of god who began creation, but I was wondering what would happen if this Benevolente stepped in and took over things right now. What if Benevolente started making things “good.”

What would we want Benevolente to do? I suppose we would want him to eliminate death first. Then, I think we would want him to eliminate the concept of “bad people” or “sinners.” We would want one of those gods that does not see good or bad. He just sees things as they are. It does not make sense, but I think people want a “good” god with no concept of good and evil. That is what people think is “good,” so that is what Benevolente would be. Of course, we would want him to attend to our prayers instantly. By attend, of course, we do not mean “listen,” we mean that we want Benevolente to answer our whims post posthaste. Let’s admit it; that is what we want. That is what we think would be good. We want to be happy.

However, even though we do not want there to be sinners, human beings still seem to do terrible things to each other. Now, we cannot ask Benevolente to change us, because then our concept of what is “good” would change and this whole line of thinking would be moot. Yet, people do terrible things in this world and people pray for justice. So, we expect Benevolente to fix our messes somehow. He has to deal with these people who are “spiritually challenged in the direction opposed to good” (since we cannot call them bad people). How would Benevolente deal with these people?

That is a problem. If he keeps them with the other people here on earth, they might keep harming others, which would not be good for the other people. He cannot kill them, because he eliminated death, and that would seem like a harsh judgment that we would not expect from Benevolente. Maybe he would take those people and separate them from the rest of us. Maybe he would put them on their own little planet circling their own little star somewhere in the universe. Then they would not be able to harm anyone else and the rest of us could imagine that they were doing fine and getting what they deserve all at the same time.

Of course, at first, we would have Benevolente separate out all the people who propagate genocides and all the warmongers. Once they were gone, though, we would probably have to deal with rapists and thieves and murderers (well, probably not murderers if nobody could die). Then we would continue separating people out until it was down to you and me, and I would ask that you be exiled because you have been blowing grass clippings onto my sidewalk every week for the last three-hundred years and I am sick of it. Eventually, every star in the cosmos would be its own little kingdom of one and each of us would be separated by the cold, unforgiving walls of space.

Oddly enough, it seems like even Benevolente would end up having to create hell. When we get what we think we want, we end up with separation. Because people are broken and our concept of good is broken, our pursuit of “good” ends with us all alone playing the tiny god of our tiny world. The universe would have billions of lonely, quarantined deities.

That is the goal we always have when we think about our “good” instead of true good, isn’t it? We want Benevolente to make us gods and we make Benevolente our assistant. When we are honest with ourselves, “good” means we are gods. However, good seems better than “good.”

Faces of Friends

2009-12-18T09:18:00.000-08:00

I got married in Japan recently. There are many things that are difficult about planning a wedding in a culture that you did not grow up in. A wedding is a deeply cultural thing and there are assumptions on all sides about how things should be and what should happen at a wedding. That is natural. A wedding is something that we build up ideals in our minds about what we want or what the best is. However, we do not all have the same perspective on “best.”

A difficult thing about having a wedding in another country is that there are many people who you wish you could share your wedding day with that are just unable to cross the ocean to be there. They may have been friends that you love who would gladly cross state lines to be at your wedding, but Japan is just too far. That is understandable. There were many people that I wished could be there, there were many people that I missed as the day drew closer, but that is the reality of being married halfway around the world. Many people are not going to be there.

However, when I stepped out before the congregation to wait for my bride to enter, I realized that I was surrounded by friends. I looked out on those faces and I was not met by strangers, I was met by the faces of friends and family. I knew the people who were there to celebrate with us. I only spent two years in Japan. That is not much time to meet people, build relationships, and make friends. Yet, when I looked out on that congregation, I saw grace after grace after grace.

I am not someone amazing. I am not a great person. Even so, God has given me friends; so many friends. He has put people in my life that have loved and watched over me. Friends and family are a grace, a blessing. I know I do not deserve them; I know that it is not my goodness that draws them to me. They have surrounded me with love. They have loved me well, even when I have loved so sadly.

So, for a young man beginning ministry in Japan, that was an amazing encouragement. The people who were there, the pastors, the youth, the students, the co-workers, the friends that were there to cheer: that was the best wedding present that I received. I am so thankful. Looking out on those faces was one more blessing on the journey of grace that I have been on. God is so good to me.

And then, she walked down the aisle to me…

Awe

2009-12-18T08:40:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday, the pastor was reading the passage in the Old Testament where the Ark of the Covenant is being moved from one place to another and begins to fall. A man reaches out his hand to steady the Ark and drops dead. I have always struggled with that passage. It just does not seem fair. Yes, they were moving the Ark improperly. Yes, he was not supposed to touch the Ark. However, why should someone who was trying to help suddenly be struck dead?

This time when it was read, though, it seemed consistent. In fact, it seemed perfectly consistent. There are things on earth that are wildly powerful and dangerous. Hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning bolts, and lava flows are all forces of nature that we keep our distance from whenever possible. When someone chooses not to evacuate the side of a volcano when he is given a warning, we do not think that the lava is unfair when it burns him. People who fly kites in electrical storms do not receive pity if they get struck. Those things are dangerous. We know they are dangerous.

It seems perfectly consistent, then, if the holiest representation of the presence of God should be just as powerful and awesome. It seems perfectly consistent that there should be a raw wildness to the holiness of the Ark. This is the Ark. This is an object that is set apart for the God who masters every storm and is more fearsome than any earthquake. Even our terrestrial disasters pale in comparison to the star-taming, galaxy-spinning power of this God. Yes, it should be fearsome. It would be mysterious and inconsistent if it was not awe-inspiring.

To neglect the awe that God deserves and move the Ark improperly should be dangerous. Play with fire and someone will get hurt. Perhaps it was not this man’s fault, but he was a victim of people who were neglecting to treat a powerful thing with respect. There is safety in awe. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

It is hard being a tea snob...

2009-12-18T08:37:00.000-08:00

Do you know how hard it is to find good bottled tea in this country?! I suppose I should define what I mean by “good.” By good, I mean just tea. Many of the popular tea drinks in the US seem to be mixed with something. I went to the grocery store and wanted some green tea or oolong tea in a bottle to drink while I work. There was green tea with honey, green tea with citrus flavors, green tea with honey and citrus flavors, green tea with lemon. I just wanted plain tea. Then I saw bottles of oolong tea. However, it was pineapple, mango, passion fruit oolong tea. Terrible. In the end I did find one bottle of semi-pure green tea. I also bought a pack of straight black tea, but, when I started drinking it, I knew something was wrong. I looked at the label, and, to my horror, citric acid had been added to provide tartness. BAH! I do not want tartness. I want tea!

Orange

2009-12-18T08:36:00.000-08:00

Many things have changed while I have been in Japan. We have a new president, there is an economic depression, and McDonald’s has a new line of hamburgers. However, I arrived in the airport and there was one thing that had not changed. In a sea of overwhelming changes, it was nice that there was one thing that I could latch onto and say, “Ah, yes, I am back in the United States.” What was that one thing? The terror alert level was still orange. I left the United States, I came back, and I was greeted by that soothing voice on the airport speakers reminding me to be cautious because we were still at orange alert. Nostalgia.

Surrender

2009-10-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

I surrender all to the promises you made,
Because I believe in you.

I believe that life with you is better than any possible life without you.

Because I have seen that you fulfill your promises.

You fulfill them abundantly.

I surrender all to the promises you made,
Because your promises fulfill all my needs.

You promise yourself.

That is what I need.
That is what I long for.
My hope is in you.

If you fail me, I am lost.
If you fail me, I will tear myself apart.
I need you.

However, you will never fail me.

You are you.
You are what I need.
You cannot fail me.
I love you. I love you.

Dear God, I love you.

I surrender.

I surrender all to you.

I love you.

Bus Chess

2009-10-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Streaming Up

2009-10-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was with a youth group here in Japan and the message was about Isaiah chapter 2. In chapter two, it talks about the mountain of the Lord’s temple being raised above the hills and becoming the chief mountain. Then it talks about the nations streaming to it.

The image was fascinating to me. The nations are streaming up to the mountain of the Lord’s temple. They are streaming up. Most of the streams that I have come across stream down. Water follows gravity downhill. Rivulets, streams, and rivers flow downhill. However, the nations will flow up to the Lord’s temple in the last days.

Sometimes our marketers think that they need to appeal to our baseness in order to attract us. So they appeal to our greed or our broken sense of sexuality or our insecurities in order to sell their products. Then their competitors find ways to do that even better. The spiral continues to work its way downhill as tactics become more and more desperate and disgusting. However, the world says that sex sells, consumerism sells, and, if you do not want to be left behind, you do what it takes.

But, the stream of those who follow Jesus has always flowed the opposite direction. The Lord’s temple will be on a mountain. You have to take an uphill path to get there. It is not the path of least resistance. Yet, the nations will stream up to it. Fascinating.

It will be on a mountain. It will be easy to see. People will not have to worry about losing the path on their way to the temple of the Lord in the last days. It will be right there. They will be able to see it. It reminds me of what Jesus said about being lifted up and drawing all men to Him. The nations stream up. The nations stream up.

That will be a beautiful day.

Respect the Train Culture and Eat Your Rice

2009-10-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

I wrote these suggestions to my family members that are coming to Japan for the wedding:

1. Enjoy.

2. Relax. Things do not work the way you expect them to. Things do not have to work the way you expect them to. Different is not bad.

3. Do not get angry. Showing anger is a quick way to break a relationship here. Relax. Enjoy.

4. Respect the train culture. Things work differently on trains here than they do inside our cars. People try not to draw attention to themselves on the train. Listen. Watch what people do around you.

5. Observe. Learn. Absorb. This will probably be the reality that my children spend much of their life in. You only have a week, but the more you understand, the easier it will be to relate to them. I want you to be able to relate to them well.

6. Ask questions. There is much here that you will not be able to see and understand. You will have to ask. Ask the questions that seem like stupid ones. You won't know unless you ask.

7. Smile. You communicate alot with a smile.

8. Be yourself. Relax. Enjoy. Observe. Ask questions. Smile.

9. Do not fear silence. You might feel like there is an awkward pause that you have to suddenly fill, but the Japanese do not fear interpersonal silence like we do. Silence does not mean someone is being cold and it does not mean you must say something. Relax. Enjoy the silence. Then ask your question.

10. Eat your rice. If you do not finish everything else, but you finish your rice, you will have been respectful. It will not be terrible if you do not finish, but it is very good if you do eat all your rice down to the last grain. Parents tell their children here that the leftover grains represent the tears of the farmers who worked for a year to produce that rice. If you can not waste rice, don't. Even so, relax. Enjoy. Respect the trains. Do not fear the silence. Smile.

11. Try. You do not have to succeed. You do not have to do something you do not want to. However, try. You will feel better if you try.

12. Just be here with me. I have felt the lack of you for the past few months as I have gone through this process. Just be here with me. Try. Enjoy. Relax. Observe. Do not fear the silence. Eat your rice. Respect the trains. Smile. Ask questions. Do not get angry. Relax. Enjoy. Relax. Enjoy. And just be here with me. Just be here with me, because that means so much.

Vows

2009-10-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

There are some things in life that must begin with a vow.

There are things that you cannot know until you believe.

In a wedding, the bride stands at the back of the church and she has a choice. She can walk toward the groom and the commitment that awaits or she can walk away. She does not know what the future will hold. She does not know what the struggles and heartaches to come will be. She does not know what the joys will be either. She stands with a choice: walk toward or walk away.

Without that vow, she cannot demand that he love and cherish her with his whole being and he cannot demand that of her. He cannot love her like that until she allows him to love her like that. She cannot receive that love until she opens herself to it.

With a vow, both people must drop all their barriers and trust the other person. In marriage, one person commits to the other and depends on their partner to do the same. They bind themselves into the only situation where truly uninhibited love can exist: without knowing what that will be like. Their hope is their belief in the other person.

It is interesting that the Bible tells us that all life is preparation for a wedding. We all stand at the point of a choice to walk toward or away.

When I think about it like that, it is so easy to understand why it hurts God so much when we choose to walk away from Him.

Sometimes people demand that God show Himself to them so that they can know before they commit. But that demand seems so much like someone demanding a show of love from a person they do not love. How can we expect the God of the universe to enter into a love relationship with us when we do not trust Him and do not choose to enter from our side? We have to choose to walk toward. That is what it means to believe. That is what it means to trust.

However, God did show Himself to us. When humanity chose to walk away, God came running after His bride and opened His arms to her. Jesus came and showed us how far God would go to love us. He is the One who can love us best, and He wants us to know that love. Yet, we are the ones who have to trust Him. We have to turn around.

Hell is never knowing the Love for which you were made.

God loves us, that is so true; but the love of God will not force Heaven upon us.

Even if there was a perfect man for a woman, it would be wrong for him to force her to marry him. She has to walk toward him.

Some things must begin with a vow.

Yet

2009-10-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how much the landscape that we grew up with becomes imprinted on our memories.

There is something about the rolling hills and dark, little woods of Ohio that is burned into my being.

I was in the Japanese countryside, away from Tokyo, and I was reminded once again how much I miss that land.

I can try to love the countryside of Japan; I can try to enjoy the convenience of Tokyo.

But, it is like trying to love your aunt the same way that you love your mother.

It is not the same.

Something in my soul still expects to walk through a field and find a rusty barbed-wire fence on the edge of an overgrown forest.

Instead, I walk out into the rush people, the scraping concrete, the screeching train.

There is little in the city left to heal the soul.

So, when I happen upon a landscape that reminds me that all the world is not a man-made jumble

yet,

The thirsty man inside of me weeps as water softens his swollen tongue.

Voice of God

2009-08-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

I was watching a movie the other day and the main character was struggling with depression and the voices inside his head. I suppose we all know the type of voices he was dealing with, to one degree or another. These are the voices that say, “You are not good enough. You are nothing. You are worthless. Why are you even alive?” This is the voice of the internal monologue that walks hand in hand with our failures, our depression, and our lack of self-worth.

The movie made me ask, “How do we tell that voice from the voice of God?” Is what that voice is saying true? Sometimes it seems like people who give up on Christianity have only heard a voice that says, “You are guilty. You are guilty. You are a sinful worm. You shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t have done that. What’s wrong with you? You are a mess.” They struggle and struggle under the burden of this voice and it steals all of their joy. There was a point in my life when I could not understand God any better than that. He was more like a great pagan idol in constant need of appeasement than the God of the Bible. However, if that is the way you view God, when you read the Bible it is hard to see anything besides this angry, crushing god.

Now, I would also be loathe to say that the voice of God is the other extreme. The voice of God is not the passive, permissive voice which some who would like to live with their life free of any moral check say that they believe. There is nothing weak or paltry about the voice of God. It is the voice that is speaks worlds into existence, that thunders from mountain tops and pillars of fire, a voice that people beg to stop hearing for fear that they will die. It is the voice that spoke through the prophets to condemn the wrong and bring people back to the right.

Sometimes the voice of God is as unavoidable as a natural disaster. Sometimes it comes to His prophets like a fire in their bones. There is something inescapable about it. At the same time, the voice of God sometimes comes like a still, small voice, like to Elijah; a whisper that reveals the presence of the divine. Whether it is a thundering voice or a small voice, there certainly seem to be many people in the Bible who ignore the voice of God. That much is obvious. Humanity has a knack for ignoring or deliberately disobeying the voice of God in whatever form it comes: spoken, written, incarnated.

So, is this voice that runs through our heads and says, “You are a guilty, worthless, sinful worm,” the voice of God that should be accepted? We are all sinners. We have all messed up in life. We have all ruined things to the point that we cannot fix them on our own. God does not want us to be in that mess. The Holy Spirit does point out sin in our lives. However, I think we can tell the voice of God by the ends.

God is not trying to destroy us. His voice is not trying to drive us to despair. Darth Vader is not God. For this I am very thankful. God is not a man with a black mask and a lightsaber standing over us ready to force-choke the life out of us every time we mess up.

If the voice says, “You are worthless,” then it is not the voice of God. You are so valuable to God.

If the voice says, “Maybe it would be better if you were dead. Why are you even alive?” then that is not the voice of God. God is not trying to drive you too despair. He knows why you are alive. He has purposes for your life. He gave you life for a reason.

If the voice is just an endless, crushing mantra of “Guilty,” after you have repented, that is not the voice of God. When we follow Jesus and ask for forgiveness, God throws our sins into the sea of forgetfulness and remembers them no more. That condemning voice is not His.

In Dr. Hamilton’s class on Jeremiah, we studied that passage in Jeremiah 3 and 4 where God is speaking about His people like a husband. Some people say that the way God is represented in the Old Testament is vindictive and blood-thirsty, but it is hard for me to see that when I read Jeremiah. Dr. Hamilton points out how many times in the passage the word for “return” is used in chapters 3 and 4. The picture in Jeremiah is of a husband who has been betrayed, not once, but many times. He has been cheated on in the worst possible way. He is past the point that many husbands would give up and be quite justified in giving up. What do we find the voice of God saying in the face of so much deliberate wrongdoing?

We find that the God of the entire universe is not too proud to beg. He is a husband pleading with the wife that He loves to come back to Him. “Return to me. Return to me. Return to me,” the voice of God pleads through Jeremiah. There are consequences to sin, there are consequences for doing evil, but God does not want to see us destroy ourselves. He does not want to see us come to ruin. The voice of God is pleading, “Return to me. Return to me. Return to me. I love you. Return to me. Please, return to me.”

When we return, we do not find Darth Vader. We find the Father running toward us with His arms open wide, interrupting us in the middle of our confession to talk about celebration preparations. We find joy. We find guidance. We find strength and hope. We find healing. Does the voice you hear say, “You are my beloved child. I love you”? Does it say, “Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace”? Does the voice say, “Come, follow me”?

I fear that there are many people who have mistaken a voice that only crushes and condemns for the voice of God. When God speaks, the goal is not destruction, the goal is healing. Even when a prophet like Jonah enters the city of Nineveh and tells them they will be destroyed in 40 days without giving them any hope of reprieve, God is more than willing to forgive the people when they turn to Him. God does not desire destruction. He wants us to turn to Him so He can heal us.

“Return to me. Return to me. I love you.”

“‘If you will return, O Israel, return to me,’ declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 4:1a (NIV)

The Joy of Return

2009-08-12T08:24:00.000-07:00

The road stretches on
From the bottoms of your feet
To the places you go,
To the cold and the sleet,
To the sun just beyond the edge of those hills,
Through the valley that’s dark and the breaking of wills
Into noise
And the pain,
Past the grime on the street,
Past the boys on the train
And the lady you greet,
‘til it brings you around
To the knob on your door
To the people you love,
To the girl you adore;
‘til it ends in her arms
At the end of the day,
And the journey finds meaning
As the light melts away.

To my dear Esther: may we have a door with a knob soon.

Poem of the Month: Fire and Ice

2009-08-12T07:55:00.000-07:00

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

First Steps

2009-08-12T07:50:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the problem of young people in the church straying away from faith once they grow up stems from our view of redemption. Perhaps we look at the point where someone, “gets saved,” with far too much finality. We have a lot of joy when someone “gets saved,” and we should. However, what happens after that?

After all, becoming a Christian is not about “just repeating this prayer.” Many people have said that Christianity is more than that, but, especially in Protestant circles, we still do not have much guidance to offer the new Christian. “Yeah, you’re a Christian. Come back next Sunday,” is not satisfactory. It is like we work so hard to convert someone and then we just let them fend for themselves.

I was reading one of the church fathers today and was struck by the structure and process that he brought to conversion. He saw someone else’s redemption process as God’s work, his work, and their work. The process did not stop or become blurry at the person’s decision to follow Jesus. That is when the guidance comes into full swing. He stressed the order of things and that, though the new Christian had taken the first step, it was time to be drawn further in and receive the teachings of the church step by step. He was careful about building them up in the faith.

Are we doing that in our churches? When someone becomes a Christian, do we say, “Congratulations!” and then walk away? Are there people who are going to take each new Christian under their wing and draw them deeper? Are there people who will take the spiritual formation of others as their own responsibility?

I do not think that is a job just for the pastor. The spiritual formation of a new Christian is our responsibility. That is a big responsibility. That is a fearsome responsibility. However, that is our responsibility. It is what we do. We are the Church.

Sinking Deep

2009-08-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

“Let all of my words sink deep into your own heart first,” God says to Ezekiel.

Sinking takes time.

Do we spend time allowing the God’s word to sink deep into our hearts?

Ezekiel was given messages from God for the people around him, but those messages were to sink into his own being first.

Sometimes we are very eager to apply the Bible to the people around us, but do not take the time to apply it to ourselves; to let it sink deep into our own hearts. I need to spend more time. I need to let the Word sink deep into my heart.

Sinking takes time.

Old-Fashioned

2009-08-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

I do not understand love that

Gives up,
Backs down,
Cuts things off,
Quits,
Or claims that it is over.

Perhaps I am naïve, perhaps I am an outdated fool, and perhaps I am a windmill-tilting Don Quixote,

But,

It seems like those who say they love should hold that word inside until they know they love, until they are willing to

Swim that ocean,
Climb that mountain,
Kill that dragon,
Face the future.

Until they are willing to love.

What a shame for love to be proven liar! What a shame for love to be proven fraud!

Maybe it is stylish for love to be promised and then revoked, but I am not a modern man. I am an anachronism. I still believe a woman deserves

Flowers,
Chocolates,
Doors that spring open for her,
Soft words,
Long listening,

And love that is trustworthy and true.

The Value of Ten Days Together

2009-07-14T04:13:00.000-07:00

For me, this time of year is camp meeting time. Even though I am sitting here in Tokyo, Japan, a few thousand miles away from the camp that I grew up going to, I am quite aware that this is Hollow Rock Camp Meeting season. Hollow Rock has had a consistent positive effect through my life, even though it was only for ten days out of every year.

Why is that little holiness camp meeting so important in my life? I suppose that, in my life, it is a symbol of the world we are working toward. To go to Hollow Rock for ten days was a chance to taste what life will be like when we enter the Hoped For; the Long-Expected; the Rest at the End of the Race. As a child, I could not understand those concepts yet, but I could feel them, every year. There was something so right and so good about camp meeting.

Camp meeting was the time of year when my family and friends surrounded me. People that I loved, but did not see any other time of year were there. We lived close together and there was time. There was time. There was time to sit on a porch swing and talk and listen and laugh. There was time to just swing and enjoy the peace and the sound of the breeze as it winds its way through the valley, shaking hands with all the trees. When do you get a chance like that in every-day life? When is there ever that much time?

There is something amazing about living together for ten days. Eating together, singing together, praying together; that is such a privilege. There is a healing for the soul in that togetherness which is hard to find anywhere else. My camp is about to begin, and I miss that togetherness. It is the best example I have ever experienced of the world as it should be. I wish I could be there.

However, every year camp ends. The tenth day comes and we know that we will be returning to life in a world that has no idea what this togetherness and hope is like. There is a sadness in saying goodbye, but the purpose of camp meeting is not to be permanent. The purpose of camp meeting is to help ground us in what it truly permanent. Our lives get filled with busyness, voices that scream for our attention, and daily worries. Our values slowly shift. We lose track of what normal really is. Camp meeting gives us a chance to listen to the voice of Jesus and see His love lived out in the lives of the people around us. Camp meeting is a chance to step out and be grounded in Reality.

We come together for renewal so that we can step back into The-World-That-Is-Not-Yet-What-It-Should-Be and be the link to Jesus that people need. That is what I hope I am here in Japan. Hollow Rock was integral in fixing a vision in me of our purpose in the world as Christians and what it is that we are working toward. I am so thankful that I got to be a part of Hollow Rock.

Camp Meeting: Change

2009-07-14T04:11:00.000-07:00

I have been doing Bible studies on people who change after meeting Jesus. How people change, when people change, why people change, are all fascinating questions for someone in missionary work. It has been interesting to study people who change when they meet Jesus.

Not everyone changes when they meet Jesus. There are people in the Bible who meet Jesus, miss the point, and walk away sad. There are people who see Him and reject Him outright. Meeting Jesus, though, is a chance to change. Jesus reaches out to all of us and gives us that wonderful, costly chance.

I have been graced with so many chances in my life. Jesus has reached out to me over and over again. One of the ways He has done that in my life is through camp meeting. My family went to Hollow Rock Camp Meeting. Hollow Rock was one of those steady, fixed dates on the calendar. It made the year stable like Christmas and Easter. Time flowed through camp meeting.

From a very young age, I would go to Hollow Rock expecting to meet Jesus. I expected to go, be with friends and family, listen to great preaching, have my worldview questioned, turned upside-down, ripped apart, put back together, and then leave different. I expected this wonderful, painful, necessary time of soul-searching. It was something that had no equivalent in my life. I expected to go to camp meeting and change. I expected to meet Jesus.

Camp meeting reinforced in me all those vital concepts like redemption, sanctification, world mission, grace, hope, and the reality that the Kingdom of Heaven is among us. I knew I was not alone and Christianity was bigger than just me or my home church. Camp meeting is where I open myself to mission and where I accepted a call to missionary ministry.

The fact that I am working as a missionary in Japan is, in no small way, an influence of that tiny camp meeting in Ohio. I expected to meet Jesus there, and I am different. I am thankful that Jesus has given me so many chances to change and keeps changing me. I am thankful for camp meetings that give us a chance to deliberately stop and meet with Jesus.

Wanted: Camp Meeting

2009-07-14T04:09:00.000-07:00

When I was traveling through the United States raising support to come to Japan as a missionary with World Gospel Mission, I had the chance to visit many camp meetings. Some of them are doing well, but many of them seem to be a mere whisper of what they were in their hey-day. I suppose the value of camp meetings must be very deliberately communicated from one generation to the next, or they will simply shrivel up and die. Some camp meetings have obviously done this better than others. Some camp meetings that I went to were depressing in the way that such a rich heritage and vision was being allowed to decay and be lost.

Would you be surprised if I told you that the denomination I work with in Japan has an interest in starting a camp meeting? They are probably many years from being able to make that dream a reality, but the idea of a place where people could come and be immersed in a Christian community for a time has immense value here. In the United States, where there are churches all over the place and where it is easy to surround oneself with Christian friends, we sometimes do not see the value in deliberately being together. Now picture yourself in Japan. The Christian population is less than one percent, so the odds of your schoolmates, co-workers, or the people you meet on the street being Christian are rather slim. Most of the churches are very small, so meeting other Christians your age is sometimes difficult. One young man told me that he had never met another Christian his own age until he came to college and got involved in a Bible study there. Imagine the difficulty finding a Christian spouse in this environment. Imagine the difficulties and loneliness that come from being a religious minority.

How valuable a camp meeting would be here! A place where Christians are not a minority; a place of rest after struggling so long in a country where Christianity is so foreign would be so refreshing. What an experience it would be to suddenly be able to meet other people your age who are dealing with the same struggles that you are! A camp meeting could be such an amazing way revitalize the church here and reach out to Japan.

Do you see how valuable this part of our heritage is? Being able to be a part of a camp meeting is not a privilege all of us have. Cherish it, if you do. The opportunity to share in Christian community is always a treasure, a gift. Don’t waste it. Don’t lose it. Share it.

2009-07-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

There is a shaking in my soul, O God,
A feeling that I must move forward,
A feeling that I have been too long where I am.

Help me grow, Giver of Life.
Let Your Life push through the
Rocky soil of me.

Thief

2009-07-06T08:11:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time in Palestine, there was a man who made bad choices. God loved this man, though, and gave him chance after chance after chance to make good choices. However, this man continued to reject those chances. He continued down his own dark path and it grew darker and darker.

This man became a thief. God still loved this man, though, and gave him chance after chance to make good choices. God kept reaching out to him even though this man continued rejecting the chances. His path grew darker until he finally landed in trouble. His actions caught the attention of the Roman government.

This man was arrested for thievery and sentenced to death. They took him out and nailed him to a cross. All his actions, all of his choices led him to that end: death by execution. As he hung there bleeding and screaming in agony, he realized that he had gotten what he deserved. Justice had found him.

God still loved this man, though. The providence of God was bending and arranging the universe to give this man another chance. Even after all the times he had rejected his chances, even after all the things he had done, even after being nailed to a cross, the love of God still reached out to this man. God himself entered the world, became a baby, grew up, lived on earth, was betrayed, tortured, and condemned to die. In the endlessly amazing providence of God, Jesus, God incarnate, was nailed to a cross right next to a thief who just happened to be this man. When anyone else would have given him up for lost, the love of God reached out once again.

God loved this man that much. A nobody, a criminal, a worthless thief was loved by God so much that God chose to die right alongside him and give him another chance.

This man took that chance. The love of God reached him. The love of God reached him.

The love of God reached him.

All Right

2009-07-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

“It will be all right,” is a statement that is difficult to believe when you are in the middle of a struggle. It sounds like a flippant phrase that someone who is outside of the situation would say; someone who does not know what you are going through. Perhaps it is not a fair statement to throw at someone who is in a struggle.

In some of our struggles, it is impossible to escape the pain or burden of the present. There is a fear of facing the future, because the future may bring more of a burden than we can bear. So, we remain caught in the now; caught in all that is not right.

To me, though, there is a strange comfort in that statement. “It will be all right.” It is not right now, but it will be. It will be. The world is still a mess. I am still so flawed. However, there will come a day when it will be right. It will be alright. It will be.

“It will be all right.” There are many things that are good and right in the world now, but there are also many things that are not. There are many things that are dreadfully not right. Even so, we can face the future and know that one day all will be right. All will be right.

In the middle of our battles, it is hard to see the hope. Yet, we know that the goodness of God will not fail us. Somewhere beyond our time and circumstances the day is coming when all will be made right. For now, though, when the pain comes and the sobbing shutters through our souls, we know that He holds us close to His heart and says with no flippancy at all, “It will be all right, my child. It will be all right. I will make it right.”

We Cool

2009-06-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

One Body

2009-06-08T21:40:00.000-07:00

Being one body in Christ means I do not have to do everything and you do not have to do everything.

I do not have to worry about people I cannot reach, because I know you can and I trust you to reach them. My responsibility is to love all those I can reach. I leave the rest to you.

This is not a work of desperation and limited resources. This is a growing sphere of influence that Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven, which is provided for by grace.

This is not a futile work or one with an uncertain future. The future of what God starts is secure, written in the bedrock of reality.

So, we keep working together.

I know that I am free to do whatever I am called to wherever I am called to do it, because you will be doing what you are called to where you are called to do it.

Together, the world changes.

That is encouraging.

Thank you.

Deserts

2009-06-08T21:37:00.001-07:00

The funny thing about deserts is

that you never know what you will find

over the next dune.

Sparrows

2009-06-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

This was a recent English Bible Study lesson I did at Rikkyo University:

Luke 12:6-7

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (NIV)

Do you know what a sparrow is?
How much money is a penny?

Sometimes we wonder if anyone cares about us. Sometimes we have trouble in life and we feel very alone. Sometimes life is difficult. However, Jesus says that God cares about us.

Luke chapter twelve has a lot to say about worries. It talks about worrying about money, worrying about food and clothes, and worrying about those who are powerful and can kill you; there are many things that we could worry about in life. However, Jesus says that God cares about us, so we do not need to worry.

In these two verses, Jesus says that God cares about sparrows. Sparrows are little birds that people would buy very cheaply: five sparrows for two pennies. They are not very important animals. Nobody notices sparrows most of the time. When a sparrow dies, does the stock market crash? Does anybody cry when a sparrow dies? No. They are not powerful or dangerous animals. Sparrows are not known for being beautiful. They are just tiny, brown birds.

Yet, God cares about sparrows. God does not forget about sparrows. If God does not forget about sparrows, then God definitely does not forget about us. God cares about us and knows every hair on our head. God knows everything about us and wants good for us.

Jesus says that we are worth more than many sparrows. I wonder how many sparrows I am worth. Even if I were worth one sparrow, God would not forget me. But we are worth more than many sparrows to God.

A little while ago, a friend of mine who is a carpenter was having trouble because he could not find work. One day, I was walking to the station and I was praying for him as I walked. While I was praying, I looked up and saw a tiny sparrow sitting on a power-line. I remembered that God does not forget about sparrows and knew that God would provide what my friend needed. I did not have to worry. My friend did find work.

So, when we are alone, when we are scared, when we are having trouble, we know that God cares. He does not forget us. We can pray to God and God will listen to us. God cares about sparrows and we are worth more than many sparrows. God does not forget us.

Noodles

2009-06-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

I went to Nakameguro Church last month and they were enjoying a traditional Japanese summer activity. They take a long half-pipe of some sort (traditionally bamboo, but the church was using a gutter), allow water to flow down it, and then put noodles into the flowing water. People stand on each side and try to catch and eat the noodles as they come by.

Afterwards, they began throwing other things in: chocolates, cherry tomatos, meat... pretty much anything that would flow. Quite a fun activity and not much to clean up because they put a strainer at the other end of the pipe.

Everyone gets a cup of sauce to dip the noodles in.

It was fun. A good idea for a youth group in the US.

2009-04-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

Dear God,

Tonight, I am alone once again.
All of my loved ones are beyond my reach,
And I am beyond theirs.

Please watch over them.
I am just a man.
I cannot be there for all of them,
Even though I want to be.

I love them desperately, dear God,
And my temptation is to fear
That they will need me and I won’t be there,
That they will hurt and ask where I was,
That they will cry and I will not hear,
That they will stumble without a friend.
I am just a man.
I am alone once again.
My loved ones are beyond my protection.

So, dear God,
In the face of the fear
Of the whispers of the night,
In the face of the fear
Of the things I cannot control,
In the face of the fear
For my loved ones far from me,
I choose to trust.

Please surround them
With ears that listen to their cries
And eyes full of hope,
With hands that reach out to them
And feet that rush to meet their needs,
With people who care
And prayers that are answered.

Please surround them,
Dear God,
Please surround them.

Please watch over them,
Because I cannot.
I am too finite.
I must choose to trust.

In all things, You are good.
Thank you for loving them.
Thank you for loving me.
Thank you for Your perfect love,
Which casts out fear.

Amen.

Purpose

2009-04-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Isaiah 49:4 “I replied, ‘But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose at all. Yet I leave it all in the LORD’s hand; I will trust God for my reward.’” (NLT)

II Corinthians 3:5 “It is not that we think we can do anything of lasting value by ourselves. Our only power and success come from God.” (NLT)

We do what we are called to do. The goal is never fame. The reward is not always the chance to see results. The need for success is a brutal master. We do what we are asked, and trust God for the rest. God is the One who brings our attempts, our tries, our best efforts, our well-meaning failures together and creates hope, meaning, progress, beauty, and good. We do not always get to see the results, but we are granted the honor of serving and the chance to trust.

Dear God, please teach me to trust!

The Purple Flowers of Chichibu

2009-04-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

We stumbled upon a flower festival in Chichibu. Nice thing to stumble upon.

The Back of My Head

2009-04-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

I went to the doctor here in Japan recently. Actually, I have been there quite a few times in the past month, but I went to the dermatologist three times recently to remove a knob on the back of my head. Nobody needs a knob on the back of their head. Heads are easy to grab. There are ears on the sides and hair on the top to grab onto, so growing a knob is just a superfluous activity for the body to take up. If I start falling over, there are plenty of ways to reach out and stop me without a back-of-the-head knob.

Well, it never really amounted to something you could call a knob. More of a bump or a lump or a protrusion (but I suppose protrusion suggests something pushing from inside my head and I have found no evidence of that yet). At first, I thought it was a blemish, but then it got bigger and did not go away. So, I suspected wart or mole. Finally, I went to the doctor and he told me what it was but I have no idea how to spell it. It was a variation on a mole.

I was kind of hoping I was growing a third eye back there.

Then the doctor grabbed his liquid nitrogen and started going to town on the back of my head. It stings a little. Then, five minutes later when it thaws, it stings again. It was the first time I had a liquid nitrogen treatment. Oddly enough, all of my hair is intact. In fact, there might be more hair back there, but I cannot verify that.

The most frustrating part of all of this was that it was on the back of my head. For two months I have wanted to see what was going on back there and haven’t been able to. I would use two mirrors, try to take digital pictures, but nothing would work. So, I just had to trust people when they said, “Oh, what is that.” “Hmmm… I think you should have that looked at.” “That’s not a moon, that’s a space-station.” (No, nobody said that one.).

Since my three treatments are over, I think I will get a haircut soon. I have been letting my hair grow until this got worked out, because I have no idea what is back there and I am vain enough to not want to show people things that I cannot spell, but are growing on the back of my head. So, once the last of the healing happens, I will visit my friendly neighborhood barber.

Well, this was probably too much information, but it seemed like too good of a blog topic to pass up.

Prayers

2009-04-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

I am not so surprised God answers prayers because I doubt Him (although sometimes I do) or because I doubt prayer (although many times I do), but because I am surprised God bothers to love someone like me so specifically. God cares. That, in itself, changes everything.

Paths

2009-04-29T10:14:00.000-07:00

In this life, there is always a way back.

Even when every way ahead closes, there is a way back.

Why does it take so much humility to turn around?

Roaches and Skeeters

2009-04-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

I have decided that I like cockroaches better than mosquitoes. Cockroaches are quite polite. They never want to be a bother. When you are in one place, they, not wanting to intrude, go to another. They are the perfect guest; you hardly even know they are there.

Mosquitoes, on the other hand, come searching for you. When they are in the house they are always buzzing and poking about. You try to give them the brush off, but they keep coming back for more. Always hungry, never satisfied, and physically draining to deal with, they just do not make nice guests at all.

The Wonder of Mission

2009-04-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

“To me, the great mysteries in missions are the things like this unquenchable hope, actually believing that you can be a part in a change, love that sacrifices, journeying to help a stranger, providence-backed risk, breaking out of the way the world thinks it has to work, lives wrapped in meaning, the unexpected grace, an unlikely friend along the path, suffering that is swallowed by joy, looking into the face of a great, deep darkness and saying, “Even so, I will follow.” Normal people who use their normal lives so that the world might see a little more of God through them is a grand mystery. The humbleness of God who looks at an unreliable, conceited, critical rotter like me and asks my permission to use me for something more than I had planned is a mystery beyond me.”

--- written in one of my recent e-mails

Known World

2009-04-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

I was listening to a sermon here in Japan the other day and the speaker was talking about the New Testament in relation to the Roman Empire. He was saying that the statements made about Christ were shocking in light of what the Romans believed about Caesar. The speaker began talking about Caesar being considered a god and the father of the known world.

The phrase, “father of the known world” struck me. Here I was sitting in Japan listening to an explanation of a man who was arrogant enough to think he was a god because he ruled the known world. I was sitting in Japan, a country that always knew there was more to the world than the Roman Empire because they lived beyond the reach of that empire, and, suddenly, Caesar seemed rather silly.

Caesar never touched Japan. He never bent this country to his will. He was a force to be reckoned with inside his “known world,” but he was ignorant of much. He looked like a fearsome power inside his borders, but his hand only reached so far. Ruling the “known world” is not the same as ruling the world. Caesar was far from a god, and all the people that his armies never conquered are proof of the arrogance of his line.

Sometimes we build our fortresses inside our “known world” and feel like masters of our own destiny. However, time reveals arrogance.

Out-Paced

2009-04-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

I want to do more, but I do not know how.
I am ever in your debt, O God.

I reach up to you with my trials and errors,
And you smother me in joy.

I cannot keep up with you.
It is too beautiful; your wild dance of blessing.

I want to return to you the praise you deserve,
But you leap ahead of me and astound me with your goodness.

To he who much is given, much is expected,
Yet I cannot keep pace with your masterful grace.

Dear God, what I am and what I have is yours.
If drenching me in your love brings you delight,
Pour on!

Death Ray

2009-04-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

I was looking in an old Japanese dictionary the other day and found an entry for “death ray.”

Fascinating.

It makes me wonder what words they decided to leave out of the dictionary. “Death ray” makes it, but “blob monster” and “body-snatchers” don’t get an entry?

Fascinating.

Literally translated, the entry for “death ray” becomes something like “murder ray” in Japanese, which I do not think expresses it quite right. But, hey, it is difficult to get science-fiction weapons to translate perfectly from one language to another. It was a good try. Hats off to you, old dictionary dudes. Murder ray.

Fascinating.

Z Likes Editing

2009-04-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, WGM asked me to respond to the question of whether or not the difficulties for foreign missionaries was one of the major factors in the seemingly slow spread of the Gospel in Japan. This was my response. It had to be a short response, so it became a study in trying to say the same thing with fewer words. I found it an interesting process. Is the first essay encapsulated in the last one?

In my opinion, the difficulty for foreign missionaries is part of the problem, but not the largest factor. Sure, Japanese is one of the toughest languages in the world for an English-speaker to master. Sure, the culture is difficult to get into and acculturation is a long-term investment. Japan is a field that requires patience and persistence. It has its own unique twists. However, I do not think these things are the biggest hindrances between the Japanese and Jesus. I think they are, instead, all too accessible excuses for people looking to disqualify themselves from the Great Commission. They are the same excuses used for every other field. “I could never learn that language.” “I could never do (insert cultural oddity here).” “I’m just not smart enough.” “I’m just not flexible enough.” I am not enough of many things, but I believe God is making me into what He needs me to be. Can we all have faith enough to believe that and then take the step of faith we need to take?

173 words

Japan is a field that requires patience and persistence. It has its own unique twists. However, I do not think these things are the biggest hindrances between the Japanese and Jesus. They are, instead, all too accessible excuses for people looking to disqualify themselves from missions. They are the same excuses used for every other field. “I could never learn that language.” “I’m just not smart enough.” “I’m just not flexible enough.” I am not enough of many things, the One who is enough still wants to work through me, for some strange reason.

94 words

Japan has its own unique twists for missionaries. However, I do not think these things are the biggest hindrances between the Japanese and Jesus. They are, instead, easily accessible excuses for people looking to disqualify themselves from missions. They are the same on every field. “I could never learn that language.” “I’m not smart enough.” “I’m not flexible enough.” I am not enough of many things, but the One who is enough still wants to work through me, for some strange reason.

82 words

Japan has its own unique twists for missionaries. However, I do not think these things stand between the Japanese and Jesus. They are, instead, easy excuses for people looking to escape a calling. “I could never learn that language.” “I’m not smart enough.” “I’m not flexible enough.” God knows I am not enough of many things, but He is.

59 words

Japan has unique twists for missionaries. However, do these things stand between the Japanese and Jesus? They sound more like easy excuses for wouldn’t-be missionaries. “I could never learn that language.” “I’m not smart enough.” “I’m not flexible enough.” God knows I am not enough of many things, but He is.

51 words

Japan has unique twists for missionaries. However, do these things stand between the Japanese and Jesus? They seem more like ready excuses for wouldn’t-be missionaries. “I could never learn (language).” “I’m not smart enough.” “I’m not patient enough.” God knows I am not enough of many things, but He is.

50 words

Week 12 Completed!

2009-02-27T08:34:00.000-08:00

This scary picture of me was taken on the day of my completion of the Tokyo Academy of Communications' Intensive 12 Week Japanese Course. It was quite a journey, spending 8 hours a day with my classmates trying to program my brain to think in Japanese. We had a lot of fun and I was able to learn a lot during those 12 weeks.

However, this is not the end. There is still much Japanese to learn. Much, much more...

The Proposal Process

2009-01-31T03:41:00.000-08:00

So, I imagine I should develop the “She said, ‘Yes’” post a little bit. If you were wondering what that meant and could not put the pieces together, well, I am engaged to be married. Yeah, it is pretty amazing.

Anyway, I had decided to ask Esther to marry me on the twelfth of January. Why the twelfth of January? Well, up to this point, we had been dating. In a culture where harmony is so important, we had been asked to use some discretion as far as our relationship went. In the United States, people date, break up, date, take their date to the family Thanksgiving, break up, date, break up, and nobody has a problem with this cycle because that is just the way it works. People date and people break up. No big deal.

In my case, it was a little different, being in church circles. Dating and breaking up could disrupt the harmony of the group and create bad feelings. So, public dating seems to be avoided in these sorts of situations because the relationship is still unstable. The idea is not to get people’s hopes up and then crush them. Hope-crushing may cause a problem in the harmony of the group. In the past, this was dealt with through arranged marriages and intricate systems of go-betweens. Now, things are just complicated because Japan is in a transitional phase. Looking at the birth rate and the age that people are getting married, I think that could be said to be true both inside and outside the church. However, since the church is such a close-knit group, there are a few more intricacies involved.

Anyway, all that being said, dating is seen as slightly sketchy and a volatile point in the relationship, so we were asked to use discretion since we both work in the church and plan to continue working in the church in Japan. I do not like keeping secrets, but we did pretty good for the first couple months. However, I started getting recommendations from pastors that getting engaged quickly would be the best thing. In fact, I got that recommendation from four different pastors.

I did not have any qualms about proposing, because I was quite sure about Esther. Really, it has been very clear to me that she is the one. I felt surer about her than about my decision to come to Japan. I felt like God had been strangely and wonderfully involved throughout this whole process. So, I did not have a problem with following through on the advice that was being given to me.

I did, however, wonder how it would be viewed in the U.S. In some ways, I wanted to hold off until it seemed like a culturally appropriate time for both the Japanese and the American sides. Too fast and people in the U.S. might throw up some red flags. Too slow and people in Japan might begin to wonder what was going on.

Again, though, timing was not a problem for me. As you might have understood from the October post, I was pretty sure about where this was going from the beginning. That is a strange epistemological study, but it is true. Any uncertainty I had vaporized very early on in our relationship. Many might call that an effect of the rose-colored glasses of love, and I must admit that my world is quite rosy at this point, but I have had too many confirmations from the people around me and from the way God has brought us to the same place at the same time. I have no doubts about my decision to propose to Esther.

Once I knew Esther was ready, I started lining things up.

Anyway, January 12th. January 12th was a day that I had off from language school. It was a national holiday, so it seemed like I would have time to work out whatever logistics were necessary to propose on that day. It was the only holiday I would have until the end of my intensive Japanese course. January seemed like a decent time frame as far as both sides were concerned, U.S. and Japan. Not too slow for Japan. Quick, but not too quick for the U.S. So, January became my goal.

It is odd trying to arrange these things while studying. The week after Christmas we had class. That Monday, after school, I rode to Okachimachi, went into a jewelry store, and ordered a ring. Usually, it takes about a month for a ring to be ready. I asked him to have it done by the 10th of January. The jeweler left, came back, and told me that he could not have it ready by the 10th. However, he said, he could have it ready by the 11th of January. I breathed a sigh of relief and told him that would be fine.

The next day, during school, my Japanese teacher began talking about how proposals work in Japan. He was shocked to find out that, in the United States, the honorable thing to do was to go and ask permission from the young lady’s father. In Japan, people usually talk to the parents after the proposal happens. Little did my teacher know that, on that very day, one of his students had set up a meeting with the father of the young lady he hoped to marry after class.

True story. That happened on the day that I was going to talk to Esther’s father. Out of the blue, my Japanese teacher begins explaining and questioning methods of talking to parents about marriage. I did not say anything. I finished class and then got on my train to go to Yokohama. I did not know what would happen, since this was not part of the traditional Japanese way of doing things. However, it was the only way I could satisfy that sense of honor from my cultural background.

Her father knew something was up. We talked about fried tomatoes as we drove back from the station. We sat down inside the house and he asked me, “So, do you want to talk before the meal or during the meal. After the meal would even be fine.”

“Whatever you would like to do is fine with me,” I said.

“Well, let’s talk during the meal,” he said.

We ate a very delicious meal and I think I successfully pulled off making small talk. At one point it seemed like the conversation was coming around to the reason I had come that evening, but as I put down my fork and began to collect myself, he very kindly told me to just finish my dinner. So, after dinner, I asked for their blessing. They gave it. They did not know about this American tradition of asking the father for permission, but they seemed to quite like the idea. So, that went well.

After that, I just had to wait. I had the flu the week before I was going to propose, but on the eleventh I was able to get the ring after church. The twelfth came and I was ready. I bought a bouquet of orchids (her favorite flower) and set off for her door.

Various things happened after that, but, to make a long story short, I proposed and she said, “Yes.”

2009-01-16T23:43:00.000-08:00

She said, "Yes."

Shrine Visitors

2009-01-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

Today the newspaper said that 99.39 million people in Japan visited shrines and temples in Japan during the first three days of New Year's. That is pretty amazing when the population of Japan is about 127 million. So, about 78% of the population visited a shrine or temple to begin the year. The Meiji Shrine, which I wrote about earlier, received 3.19 million visitors. It was the most visited shrine in Japan during that span of three days.

One thing I forgot to mention about the Meiji Shrine was that they had put up a giant television on the grounds of the shrine to entertain the visitors who were waiting in the massive crowd to get in. It was like the Super Bowl of Shinto religious events.

So, as you can see, visiting the shrine or temple on New Year's is definitely still a part of Japanese tradition. Whether or not the people who visit believe very strongly in what they are doing is hard to say, but they are still practicing.

Who Goes First?

2009-01-07T01:14:00.000-08:00

Have you ever watched a comedy where the main characters come to a dark and spooky cave or something and they start having an argument about who should go first? “You go first.” “I’m not going in there, you go.” “No way, I’m not going, you go.”

Stepping into the unknown is a scary thing. People do not like dark caves, spooky houses, uncertain futures, or recessions. It is always more comfortable to follow someone into those uncertain times than to try to wander through them on your own.

If we are following Jesus, we do not have to have the fear of going first. That is the wonder of following. When you follow, it means that someone else is going first. It is quite a logical set-up, actually. When you follow Jesus, you find that He has been working long before you arrived on the scene. You find that you are not bringing Him along with you into the situation; you are meeting Him in the middle of a work that He already started. That is quite reassuring.

My job is to follow.

John 12:26

Figs of the Afterlife

2009-01-07T00:13:00.000-08:00

Micah 4:4 is one of my favorite passages about what the world will be like when everything is made right. Clouds, harps, and angel choirs do not stir my imagination the way a fig tree does.

“In the last days… Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make the afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken.” Micah 4:1a, 4:4 (NIV)

Perhaps it is because I grew up in the country, but this passage gives me hope. I can understand that sort of rest. I can understand that sort of peace. After all of our struggles and journeys are over, to be able to return to the work that Father Adam was given so long ago sounds so good to me. I am looking forward to enjoying the peace of growing things. Someday.

“But,” as Robert Frost said, “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” And so, we press on.

Influenza

2009-01-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

So, I have been fighting what I thought was a super-cold for the past four days, and finally went to the doctor today. Really, besides having to take my shoes off at the door, there was not much difference between this little, neighborhood doctor’s office and a doctor’s office in the US. It was a nice little place.

I filled out some minimal paperwork, stuck a thermometer in my armpit, and sat down to wait. Not long after, I was called in. The doctor was very friendly. I began to explain in Japanese and he told me in Japanese that he could understand English. I began to explain in English and he only partially understood, so we continued on with the examination by switching back and forth between Japanese and English. It actually worked pretty well.

Then, he pulled out an eight-inch cotton swab and told me he was going to stick it into my nose. We both laughed nervously at one another and then he told me to look at the wall. I did so and he began inserting the eight-inch cotton swab. I have never had this test in the US, so I do not know if it is the same, but I was amazed. That swab just kept going and going.

So, after he swabbed a little piece of my brain, he stuck it in a capsule and asked me to wait five minutes in an adjacent room. Then I was called back in and he told me that I had influenza type A. He also told me it was too late for medicine to be effective and I should just ride it out. It will be a couple days before I stop being infectious.

That was my first doctor visit in Japan. It cost about $59.

Meiji Shrine

2009-01-05T04:23:00.000-08:00

I went to Meiji Shrine the day after New Year’s. It was not packed from edge to edge with people like it is on New Year’s Eve, but there was still a constant flow of thousands of people going in and out of the shrine. That same day I went to a church meeting where a couple hundred people came together to worship.

The amount of people going to the shrine was not shocking to me. It is reality here. It is a stark reality, but I see the same thing when I look at any crowd in Japan. When I am in the train station and I see the thousands of people rushing off to the jobs which ask so much of their lives as an offering, it is just as stark. When I walk past a department store with a ridiculous line for something that is new or trendy, that is sad too. Perhaps a shrine makes things a little more obvious. Perhaps people throwing money toward a building commemorating a dead emperor makes things slightly clearer, but every crowd in Japan had the same desperate need.

This year, protestant missions in Japan celebrate their 150th year. That is not long. One of the pastors recently told me that he had been a Christian for forty of those 150 years, which gives you a perspective on how short that is. There is much to be done here. What will we do?

Knock

2009-01-05T04:09:00.000-08:00

Knock, knock…

Over Christmas, I was thinking about Jesus saying that when we knock, the door opens. We are told to ask, seek, and knock. Then, as I was watching a Christmas pageant here in Japan and I saw the children dressed as Mary and Joseph going from house to house knocking and seeking and asking for some shelter somewhere, I wondered if Jesus could have been thinking about that when He was talking about knocking.

I wonder if He had listened to the stories His parents had told over and over about that night when they were stuck out in the dark trying desperately to find somewhere to stay. It was probably a disturbing experience for them. Here they were, carrying the Messiah, and it seemed like they kept hitting dead ends. If Providence was ever going to prepare the way, you would think it would prepare the way for that couple. You would think that when they knocked the first door would have flown open and the person on the other side would have been waiting for their arrival. I imagine Joseph was expecting a miracle or something, not rejection after rejection.

Knock, knock…

Finally, they come across some form of shelter that they are allowed to use for the night. I wonder how they felt. I wonder if they felt alone and rejected. They had done what they were supposed to do, but they ended up sleeping in a place fit only for animals, not Messiahs. Did they begin to doubt? Did they wonder if they had just been crazy?

However, the Providence of God had arranged things very carefully. Mary and Joseph did what was asked of them. The closed doors were not the sign of rejection, but guidance. God had not forgotten them. They were led to the place that shepherds would find them and a star would guide seekers to confirm the coming of the Messiah. There was no mistake.

Knock, knock…

So, I wonder if, when Jesus asks us to knock, if He thought about that story His parents would tell with a twinkle in their eye. Sometimes we get discouraged when we knock, because doors open and then close again. Sometimes it seems like we will never find the door that will let us in. It is disappointing. It is hard. Even so, God has not forgotten us. He does not forget to guide those that are seeking His will and His kingdom. Doors that close are guidance too. Keep knocking.

Knock, knock…

Updates Uploaded

2008-12-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

Well, I did not post last month, but I think I have caught up a bit today. These are some of the ideas I have been working on for the past weeks. I know it is not an excuse, but things have been busy this past month, so I have not kept up with blogging properly.

This week I completed my fourth week of intensive Japanese study. That basically means that I am in class in Ochanomizu in Tokyo from Monday through Friday 9:30am to 5:30pm. By the time I get done with that, many of the creative centers of my brain have shut down for the day. Weekends have other responsibilities, so I am behind on a few things like blogging, laundry, and cleaning my bathroom.

However, things are going well. I did get sick in week two of the intensive course, but I am doing fine now. I doubt the sickness has anything to do with being unable to clean my bathroom, but...

Thanks for checking in on Peregrine. Feel free to leave comments. I do read them... eventually.

Photo Courtesy of Robin White

Another Connection to Fried Squid

2008-12-07T04:36:00.000-08:00

This is a young man dressed as a squid trying to sell fried squid. Some people are born cool, some people put on a paper squid cut-out and become rockin' awesome.

Creation

2008-12-07T04:31:00.000-08:00

I was making a gift a few days ago. It was a box with a few things that I had made in it. As I was working on it and arranging the things inside of it carefully, I was thinking about how the person I was giving the box to would open it. I was thinking about how this part would make her smile or she would love lifting this layer and discovering something new. I had some yellow star-shaped stickers which I was carefully sticking to one of the layers of the box when I could not help but see a metaphor.

I thought, “I wonder if this is how God felt when He arranged the stars in space.” When God finished creation and said it was good, was part of that goodness the joy He felt at all the wonderful things He had made to be discovered? Was part of the goodness the anticipation of the joy Adam would have when the sun set and he looked at the night sky for the first time? As He scattered nebulas and galaxies and red giants across the universe, did He enjoy the thought of asking Abraham to count them one day? When He created the rules that govern starlight, did He think fondly about how much Einstein was going to get a kick out of discovering them himself? Did He think of me walking up to my grandmother’s field on a cold night to watch the stars shoot from one side of the sky to the other?

If God is a lover, then I think He probably did.

Providence Booby-Traps?

2008-12-07T04:29:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about how Providence works. How does God guide free-thinking elements toward very specific ends? How does He get a guy from Ohio to Japan through Latin America in a way that the guy meets a wonderful young lady in a very small window of time? Earlier or later and it probably would not have worked. That is a difficult question.

I do not know how to answer that question. I believe the decisions I made were free, but there are things that came into alignment so specifically that I wonder how escapable that point in time was. Was I drawn toward an inescapable conclusion through my free-decisions? Is that possible?

Part of me wonders if chaos theory would not help explain. There are certain patterns and shapes that can be made of random elements. The pattern stays the same, even though the elements are not always the same. Of course, that is a rather plain and imperfect metaphor for what has been happening to me.

Another part of me wonders if the universe is simply booby-trapped with goodness. I wonder if there are always these giant boulders of blessings teetering above us and waiting for us to spring the trap. Could we be surrounded by tripwires and triggers that Providence has set in our path to spring upon us, catch us by surprise, and overwhelm us with unimagined graces? We cannot see the hidden goodness that lays in store for us, but when we take the next step, it all crashes in upon us.

I saw a jacket the other day that said, “Fortune Favors the Bold.” I thought that was interesting. I do not believe fortune or luck is strong enough to create the situation I find myself in now, so I wondered who Providence favors. Perhaps Providence favors the obedient, I thought. Yet, that makes it seem like there is something that I have done to deserve the graces that have washed over me. God wields His Providence to extend Grace to all. God favors us. God loves us.

Visual Interlude For December 2

2008-12-07T04:13:00.000-08:00

Today, I took the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). One interesting thing about the JLPT is that it brings a huge amount of foreigners together in the same place at the same time. Hundreds of foreigners. Hundreds and hundreds of foreigners. The train I rode to the test sight was brimming with gaijin. Fascinating. Of course, I was one of those brimming aliens.

Now, we were told in the instruction booklet for the test to bring a lunch. Packing a lunch is a very common idea in Japanese culture, but those who wrote the test booklet did not convince their gaijin audience. So, lunch time came and there was a mass exodus from the test site into the surrounding neighborhood. Where do hundreds of foreigners go when they need a quick lunch during a test?

Of course, we go to McDonald's. We need comfort food. This is a picture of the line stretching out the McDonald's that I took with my cell-phone. Nice, huh? I did not wait in line. I walked far into the neighborhood and found an onigiri and an egg-salad sandwich in a convenience store.

The other thing I discovered was a Japanese Port-a-Potty.

Yeah, today was a good day.

Wrath and Love

2008-12-07T04:08:00.000-08:00

Sometimes people talk about sin as if the only reason it is wrong is because God does not like it. Since God is good, that is a logical approach I suppose, but it makes God look like some kind of arbitrary rule maker. Then they talk about God being angry about sin and His wrath sounds bit pompous and unreasonably judgmental. But I do not think God is arbitrary or pompous. What if we shift the starting point a little? What if we look at God as a lover in relation to the subject of sin and wrath?

There is an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.). Why would these mothers form an organization against drunk driving and give it an acronym of anger? Is there anger arbitrary? No. They formed this organization because they are women who love their children or loved children that were killed by drunk driving. They stand against something that caused pain, injury, or death to their loved ones. Their position against drunk driving is in relation to their beloved.

A lover can quite easily become angry at anything that would harm the beloved. A lover would do anything possible to protect the beloved from pain and injury. If anything makes a person ready to leap to someone’s defense, it is love. If God is a lover, then anything that would harm us would be something that He hates. God would want to destroy whatever would cause us torment, destruction, or death. That is what sin does to us. Sin destroys us, so God hates it. God’s wrath toward sin is the most righteous and loving wrath that is possible, because He is angry because He loves us so much. He loves us too much to pass over anything that is eating away at us and killing us. A lover would not ignore a fault that is destroying his beloved. That would not be possible. God hates sin because He loves us. God is angry about sin because He cannot stand anything that would destroy us. God is a lover.

Redemption

2008-12-07T04:06:00.000-08:00

I like fairytales. I like the princes on horses, the princesses who do not know they are princesses, the dragons, and the happy endings. I especially like the true love. It amazes me that people sitting around telling stories to their children in the night could strike on something as true as the concept of true love. But, I digress.

I like fairytales and there is something in me that sees romance in terms of fairytales. Yet, I come to the realization that I am not the prince in the fairytales. I am not the man who charges in and rescues the damsel from the dragon. Jesus did that. I could not slay the dragon and rescue my love. Jesus had to rescue my love for me. The true love that conquers all is His love, not mine.

So, I find myself in the position of a man who walks into the story at the end and finds that the prince rescued my beloved for me. I was not around when the dragon grabbed her and flew away breathing fire. I knew little of the way the prince went looking for her and the battle that ensued for her life. However, I walk back home from farming in my field and I find the prince and my beloved having tea in the kitchen and waiting for me to get back. All I can do is be thankful. So thankful. When I could not rescue the person I love, Jesus recued her for me. I think I am more thankful for Him rescuing her from the dragon than when He rescued me from the army of trolls, but that is a different story.

It is strange. I am so thankful for the redemption of another person, especially because I had no control over it. I am so thankful. I am so thankful to be a part in this story.