Something about powerwalking and prayer or the power of walking in prayer, or something

I must ask you in advance to please forgive any spelling or grammatical errors I might have in this post because I'm writing it from a phone.

It's 9:00 in the morning in Japan and I have an empty period before my first lesson with fifth graders today, so I wanted to post a quick update and type some things that have been on my mind.

To begin with, today is wonderful. Just an absolutely amazing day. Yesterday I had a day off and I was able to spend time with my housemates (a very rare occurrence) and have a truly restful day. Today, some of my housemates woke up early so we all had Costco muffins and breakfast tacos together. It was a wonderful start to the day. On my walk to work this morning (10 minutes to my train station, 20 minutes from the station near my job) I got the chance to compare days like yesterday and moments like this morning to what my life looked like 2 months ago, when I had little to no contact with anyone outside of my jobs. And I thought about prayer.

Several weeks ago, just before I found myself very much alone in a foreign hospital, I started praying that god would help me find community. That he would send people I can learn from and also people to teach me. I want to be able to pour into others, but I also need help from people who can pour into me, too. I had one good friend in Japan who could help me find that sort of community but we could only meet once a week at best, and for such a short time that it was difficult to actually hang out. It's been discouraging not having anyone around the last few months. My forced introversion started making me become more introverted, to the point where I didn't want to talk to people or go out of the house or do anything because it was too strenuous or troublesome (though that may have been due to the mono). However, a long time before I started praying for god to send a friend to help me he was already preparing to send someone.

My friend who was living in Japan had come here with a missionary organization called ywam. I still don't know a whole lot about the program itself, but I do know that the people I've met from ywam are wonderful Christians with hearts for changing the world. Anyway, she invited me to a ton of events the organization put on, and on a few occasions I was actually able to go. In this way I became acquainted with some wonderful people who have hearts set on seeing Japan redeemed and the people of Japan instilled with a desire to know Jesus. While I was in the hospital I was asked if one of the members of ywam could stay in my room for a few weeks. As a favor to my friend (and because I was realizing the depths of my feeling of friendlessness) I agreed.

Having this new friend stay at my house for the last few weeks has been one of the biggest blessings (so far as my limited perception can tell) I've received in many months. It was a very real answer to a very earnest prayer.

This is what I've been thinking about: answered prayers.

Recently I've been bombarded by messages from books, acquaintances and church services with either the entire theme or at least some part of the message focused on the idea of using the right words. In Matthew chapter 7 we're told if we ask then we'll be given (what we'll be given is not specified, but I think that's a different idea then what I'm talking about now). But why is it that sometimes it feels as though god refuses to give us things when we ask for them? I've heard a lot of answers to this question and the one that I hear the most frequently is also the most disconcerting to me - "maybe you're not asking the right question". Of course this statement can have several meanings, but I've often heard this used to mean maybe you're not using the right words.

I can't believe in this. If I believe in a god that knows my heart and knows me even deeper than I know myself, a god responsible for creating the world by speaking it into being, then I can not believe in a god that is subject to the constrains of human language. But following down this trail I have to ask why does god have us pray in the first place? Why should we even bother expressing out desires and needs if he already knows what we need?

The answer hit me hard this morning while I was walking to work in the heat that I can't describe any other way but "sweltering". (lucky for that, because I wiped my face with my handkerchief it looked to everyone else like I was wiping away sweat.) On an unrelated note, summer in Japan is awful. I thought, growing up in Memphis and Nashville, I'd be ready for the humidity, but it is just terrible. If you're planning a trip to Japan, I have two pieces of advice: do not come in the summer time and make sure you come to Tokyo and say hi to me.

Anyway, this morning I heard so devastatingly clearly the answer I was trying to find because as I thought about the breakfast I had with my temporary roommate I could not possibly not remember the prayers I prayed for god to send friends and community.

So the answer I felt was this: god lets us pray cause he loves us.

Weak, right? Hold up, son, I ain't finished. If I hadn't prayed for friendship, if I hadn't expressed my desire to grow and be sharpened (the iron sharpens iron) then when I discovered that kind of friendship I would of course feel happy that I had a friend, but I wouldn't feel the joy from receiving a gift from god, and my friend wouldn't receive the blessing of being seen as a gift from God. The thing is, when we get to share in God's glory with him and I mean, when we can see his work in us and the world and we can as they say, taste and see that he is good, then the whole world changes right in front of us. Our lives stop being subject to our self-centeredness that so often leads to cynicism and our inability to love and be loved. (because if you don't believe in god, how can you believe in love?) We get to be part of something else, something good, and I mean 100%, no shadow side, no faltering, good. Once we've realized our desperation (for me it was my desperate loneliness which may be better described as aloneness, desperate not because of the way i was feeling during that time, but desperate because of the divide I was creating between myself and god), and trust me, we're all desperate in a lot of ways, and we come to god, and he answers those prayers, there's no where for the glory to go but to him. He lets us see his glory, which we have no business being able to see, have no right to get even a little glimpse of, and the only reason that I can think of to explain why he would do that is that he loves us. Oh, how he loves us.

That was a lot to type by phone. Especially in between classes and on the train ride to my other job, but that's all I wanted to share. God is very good to us. Please, let's see that together.

So pray for me! I'll try to update when prayers are answered. For now, my friend is leaving Japan in less than a week, please pray for a friend, for it is not good to be alone.

Sorry for the errors, both in my fumbling attempts to understand this life and this love, and in my thumbling (get it?) attempts to type this on my phone.

working in silence

Today I am full of hope. Maybe it’s the poignant lyrics of the music that I’m listening to, ormaybe it’s the peace I’ve received from reading excerpts from St John of theCross’s “Dark Night of the Soul”, but today I feel a certain level of deliveryfrom my anxieties as to what it is I’m doing in Japan.

I came to this country because in my prayers and in mythoughts I felt so led to be here.  I don’tknow why, though.  I’ve never been muchof an evangelist; my presentation of the Gospel isn’t usually what we wouldrefer to as “seeker friendly”.  I focuson the things that my own faith has been focused on:  the idea of complete depravity, the idea thatthere will be a constant struggle that will only lessen as you grow deeper inChrist between your lower instincts (your desires of the flesh) and your higherones (the things you want to do) but to grow in Christ you have to give up oneverything that is you and what you think is your own.  This isn’t really a big selling point to alot of people who are just kind of trying on Christianity most of the time.

I’ve been reading a book recommended to me by a friend whilehere in the hospital.  It was written bya great evangelist named Mahesh Chavda. In his book he writes about the power of Christ’s blood and the millionsof conversions that he’s seen by way of his messages over the years.  Anyway, reading the way he writes and hisgeneral presentation, I can say with more assurance that I am not anevangelist, at least not in the same strain as this man.

Because I don’t typically think of myself as an evangelist Ihave to wonder.  Why did God call me tothis country?  I came here nearly 9months ago expecting to find some form of ministry or to better understand mycalling once I got here, but so far God has remained silent.  What I’ve found instead is a regimen ofspirit-breaking work.  I’m writing thispost from the hospital, because after six months of 70-80 hour work weeks (13hours a day, 6 days a week) my body finally had enough and decided to stopworking properly.  I have been blessedwith these jobs, with the ability to pay for the loans I took out in order toattend University, and for the experience of working in several differentpositions, but I also know that I have been working too much.

Over the last two months, as fatigue started to set in, Istarted wondering why.  Why did God callme here if there is no ministry for me to be involved in?  While thankful for the jobs he provided, whydidn’t he show me one with a better salary, so I could afford to live withoutworking in this manner?  Why haven’t Ibeen able to hear his guiding spirit to find out what to do next?

I have a feeling that God has been preparing me through thistime.  He’s been teaching me, I see now,how to cut out the fat from my life. This is why I’m full of hope today. Today I see how God’s silence isn’t an abandonment it’s a call: a callto come to know him deeper, to walk in discipline towards his righteousness, toseek to be filled with his spirit, not in a way that I can feel, but in a waythat changes my entire manner of living. I’ve been so reliant on feeling and conviction, that I’ve neglected theeveryday presence of the Lord, and I feel as though the last few months havebeen preparing me for a time to come closer to him in ways that I’ve neverknown before.

God has also shown me his glory through prayer these monthsas several longstanding prayers have been answered.  This too, lends itself to hopefulness whichbrings joy in despair.  This is also atopic that would merit its own post, so I’ll try to work on that later thisweek.

God is again changing my heart to be closer to his own.  I know that my life will reflect his glory,so long as I have the courage to let it. Please pray for my courage, for that, now more than ever, is what Ichiefly need.

Sorry for the recent ramblings.   Thanks for your prayers and love.

I'm back! For a moment...

Dear friends and family.  I must first apologize for my longstanding absence from this forum.  It’s been almost six months, I think, since I posted on this blog, and that, I have realized is far too long a time not to share.  It’s sort of one sided most of the time, but the encouragement, prayer and acknowledgment I receive from readers of this blog is an invaluable form of community for me that I have, unfortunately, cut myself out of.

This is my ways of apologizing for the internet silence these last few months.  There are other things that I feel I could apologize for, but I’ve already mentioned the thing I wanted to post about today, so instead, I’ll just jump right in.

Recently, especially the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about community.  It’s a concept that has always interested me, especially when living in cultures with a different sense of community as the one I grew up in.  Anyway, community and thoughts about community have pervaded my thoughts recently because I’m really struggling to understand how community in Japan works and how that is a reflection of what community in the Kingdom of Heaven will be like.  I’ve been thinking about this topic especially as the lack of community in my life becomes ever more clear, and I’m left wondering, do I need to create community, be able to rest in the community of Christ, God and the Holy Spirit, open my heart to be able to join an already present, but as yet invisible to me, community, or some other thing?

It seems this blog is going in several directions, please bear with me, I’ll try to tie things together by the end.

I was recently talking to a friend about the high rates of depression and suicide in Japan and South Korea and whether or not the collectivist mindset of the culture in these countries has any impact on these alarmingly high statistics.  I wish I had more training as an anthropologist than the two or three classes I took while at Biola, because I’d like to do this question justice, but I’ve come to the hypothesis that the answer is a very indirect yes.  It’s not the collectivism that causes the high rates of suicide, it’s the pressure that kind of collectivism can bring on.

I’ve heard the difference in culture described like a machine.  In the west we focus on the cogs, the gears, the gemstones in the watch, but here the focus is more on the machine itself, on the actual functioning device.  I can’t say which is a closer image to what true community looks like, because they are both severely flawed and they both have their own advantages, as well.  Especially among members of my generation, there is a severe distrust of systems, at least in America, which is due, at least in part, to the focus we give to the individual.  True community, I believe, is founded under the direct leadership of the Spirit of God, but in the west, if we all want to be radical and unique and to be leaders, then who will be able to follow even the simplest of directions from the Holy Spirit?  Conversely, from what I’ve seen in Japan so far (and my views are especially limited here, as I still don’t speak well enough to enter into anything other than small talk conversations) if someone can’t find a way to fit into making the machine (society) progress and move forward then there is a lot of pressure to either remove yourself entirely from that machine or to change yourself so you can fit into it.  This sort of forced community may be where some of the anxiety that leads to suicide comes from.

I wish I knew more about culture and could see more, to have something more interesting to relay back, but what I see and my understanding of things is always so relative, so reflective, of my own life and experience that as it is, I may not have anything interesting or new to offer to anyone, but I don’t think things need to be new or interesting to be relevant, so: Today, I want to talk about the idea of viewing people in terms of their functionality.

Three years ago I felt God call me to give up on my grasp of earthly things, so I did.  I gave up all of my money, which included my rent and food budget for the next two months.  The following week I wondered if I had made the right decision, as I frantically searched for new jobs to take on so I could afford to live.  It wasn’t until recently, looking back at that decision that I can see a fraction of the way God blessed me through that bit of very difficult obedience.  One of the greatest blessings I received was the desperation for work that led me to taking a job I might not have otherwise taken.  In the fall of 2009 I started working with an adult day care center as a paid intern.  I was responsible for custodial maintenance as well as assisting full time staff while they worked.  Later, I became part of the full time* staff of the organization I was working for.  Amongst the workers I met an array of so many different people from so many different backgrounds, and among the clients I met so many people with so many different disabilities.  I had to begin overtly wrestling with the problems of viewing humans in terms of functionality here (even though I’d been wrestling with it for much longer).  If I saw my clients in terms of what they had to offer anyone other than themselves, if I saw them in terms of societal cogs, then I could not justify working where I was working.  If I tried to draw a picture of community, incorporating my clients into the picture, I had no idea what to do with them.  My clients, who quickly became my friends (and the greatest source of community I’ve ever known) have no place in a society driven by function.  Understanding this, and understanding that my view of their abilities or disabilities is irreparably contrasting to how God views them (as creations, fearfully and wonderfully made) was how I started to learn to view people not by what they can do, or even by what they do, but by how they were created.

After I left that company, in order to return to Tennessee to prepare for leaving the country, I must have forgot what I spent such a long time trying to learn.  Either that, or I stopped wearing my contact lenses, because myopia started setting in.  I began to view my own life in terms of my function.  What thing have I done?  What have I accomplished?  What has my life led to and where will it lead?  How can I make God happy?  What can I do to be a good person?  What can I do to make the people who know me proud to know me?  Admittedly, not all of these questions are terrible if you’re looking for motivation, but I wasn’t looking for motivation.  I was looking to reinforce the lie that I wasn’t good enough for God’s grace, or for anything that I was setting out to do.  This, I believe, was my greatest source of spiritual warfare before embarking on my trip to Japan.  The ideas that God would never use me because I wasn’t good enough for him, and that I have to be used in certain, specific ways for God to bestow love and grace on me permeated my thoughts and left me feeling very empty, very estranged.  I realize now that the majority of these thoughts on personal functionality are centered in pride.  I want to know how good I am so I can compare myself to others, or measure up on some “You must be this tall to ride” picture of Jesus, cut from acacia wood, of course, holding his hand somewhere by his waist or something.  I wanted to know what God thought of me, but the idea that he loves me is unacceptable at times.  If I truly accepted that he loved me, knowing what I know about myself and knowing what I know about God, then my response would have to be so drastic that at times I would just rather not accept God’s view of me and exchange it for a view of my functionality. 

I think this is where a lot of people get caught up.  I think this is where the collectivist society can add pressure, making an already difficult problem swell into an insurmountable one.  This is where my thoughts have been today.  I’m going to try to sum this up concisely (like I promised earlier):

Community, true community, is an assortment of different people (individuals) living together (in a system) under the head of one common goal (the Glory of God).  Community cannot exist when we measure ourselves against our goal because this destroys the image with which we were created, the image of God; in order to live in community with others we must accept a view of ourselves and of them that does not lie in their function (what they can do for us, what they can do to further our goal) but instead lies in the very fact that as humans created by God they bear his image and his stamp of approval.

Thanks for reading.  Please pray that God helps us to see others and ourselves for what he has created, rather than the shadow of what our function might be, and pray that Japan is receptive to the word of God.

Shake shake shake.

There was a 6.1 Earthquake this evening, well by the time this post publishes it will have been several evenings ago.

My thoughts on experiencing an Earthquake from the 4th floor of a building:

Woah! Another earthquake!
Ooooookay, it's been 10 seconds, why is the building still shaking?  Why is it getting stronger?
Alright, I think I might die today.
Okay.

I should mention, the other day I had a dream that there was an incredibly strong Earthquake while I was in a building and the building fell over.  The dream ended with me falling towards the street from 50 feet up in the air.  In my dream, though, I felt like even if I fell, it would be okay.  I ended the dream knowing I would wake up and be okay, even if I hit the ground, and then, right before I hit the ground in the dream I woke up.  And I was okay.

I don't have a death wish, please don't read this and think that.  It's not the truth.  But as clearly as I knew I would be okay in my dream, I knew today, during this earthquake, that I would be okay.  Even if I fell and hit the ground, I would wake up and everything would be okay.

That said, some notes on what an earthquake like that feels like:

When the walls start shaking I can always hear it before I feel it.  Then, when the building sways back and forth it feels like I've climbed to the top of a tall tree and the wind is blowing really hard.  After that feeling passes I get dizzy and I can't tell if the earthquake has ended or not, because I sort of get my quake legs (think sea legs).

Now, some notes on what an earthquake like that makes me think about:

The earth cries out.
The next big, or for many people, the last big earthquake could happen at any time.  How have they prepared?  How have they been prepared?
There will be earthquakes in various places.

I don't believe in predicting the return of Christ (he'll come back like a thief in the night, y'all) and I don't even like talking about the end times, because I don't believe that was the focus of the ministry of Christ, but it's hard not to think about it when you can feel the Earth shaking so violently, as though it was sick of being in the shape it's currently in.  As though even the very ground itself was sick and expressing it's need for the savior.

Again, I'm not trying to sound foolish or like I seek death or anything, but you gotta admit:

That's pretty cool. 

And if you don't think it sounds so cool (mom), then think about this - love transforms the way we think.  Earthquakes remind me of love and of God's love for us and his desire for us to know him, because even if we don't show him love, even if we don't glorify his name, for God's sake (literally) the Earth will!

I caught a cold

For the last few days I've been sick.  It started as a little bit of a headache and stretched to be a full blown achy-body, snot-factory, lung-hacking cold.  I feel pretty bad, but I am also, admittedly, a big baby about getting sick.  In fact, I am absolutely terrible when I'm sick.

My friends who have lived with me (God bless their patience) can probably attest to this.  When I am sick I act like a spoiled child, even more so than when I'm not sick.  I refuse to do anything for myself, I won't even get up from the couch or bed or ground or wherever I've decided to lay down to perform my normal complain, moan, complain routine until someone comes along to take care of me.  It's awful, and I don't know how anyone ever put up with it.


If you're churchgoing folk, you can probably already tell where this is headed, but be patient, I haven't finished the build up yet.


So, most of the time I'm a pretty healthy guy, but when I do get sick it takes me a long time to get better.  Mostly because when I get sick, even though my body starts to get better and heal, I start feeling worse and worse and worse.  There's no escape once I get sucked into the maelstrom of depression from sickness.  As much as people have helped me in the past when I got sick by bringing me soup or gatorade or doing my chores so I can rest or any number of other pleasant things, no one has ever been able to help me recover.  I mean, don't get me wrong, they help my body get better, but the damage my spirit takes when I'm sick sometimes feels irreversible when I'm still feeling sick.


Alright, here it comes:

This is why it's so difficult to follow Christ, but also why it isn't.
I'm not claiming to be a strict Calvinist, I don't know if I could ever make that claim and that could be the subject of a whole different sort of blog post, but I do believe in the total depravity of man.
To some degree, some more than others by way of our choices, we are all spiritually sick, and one of the hardest things to do when you're sick is to take care of yourself, or, in this case, to let someone else take care of you.

I don't think I've made much mention of this yet, but in the months I was planning and preparing to come to Japan I was feeling really sick.  I mean, I was fighting depression and wading through some stuff from the last few years that I'd been putting off confronting, and the whole struggle led me to feel disillusioned a little, and to be honest, pretty angry at God.  I kept asking myself the same question that everyone else was asking.  Why was I going to Japan?  Except for me, the full articulation of this question was more like, "Why am I doing this thing for a God that I don't even feel like I know or particularly want to know right now?"  Luckily I was raised in a family that believed that serving God transcends how you feel, so I was able to base my own answer to my question on optimism that one day I would want to be close again, and in that day I would be glad to have stuck through doing what I knew was the right thing to do, regardless of my feelings.  I guess, to a small extent, this feeling could be classified as faith.  But I'm not talking about faith in this post, because even though it's an important and (at times) difficult concept to discuss, I've got bigger fish to fry here.

Today I'm talking about grace.

I mentioned earlier that sickness, and for me the ultimate feeling of pessimism that comes with it is why it's so difficult to walk with Christ, but also, why it isn't.  It is because in these moments especially I'm like Paul in that what I would, I do not, but what I hate, that I do.  The problem with relating too much to Paul here is that sometimes this is where the comparison ends.  I don't think about the fact that there is another spirit, a holy spirit, willing to work inside me and fight this sinful flesh that I'm trapped inside of.  I don't think about the fact that Jesus still loves and was even willing to die for such a broken, dirty person.  All I see is that which I hate, I do, and in these moments, at these times, I start to see a broken (yet all too prevalent) philosophy creep into my thoughts, and even more damaging, into my feelings:

I start to think that I am the sum of my actions.


What I mean is that I start to think that the definition of who I am is just the sum of my actions.  Therefore, if I walk I am a walker, if I eat I am an eater, if I sin, I am therefore a sinner.  Now, these things are true to the extent that I have all of those aspects inside of me, and they make up part of the mosaic that is my person, but there's also more to me and in these moments of utter weakness I forget what those other things are.  I forget that this mosaic of my person is a window, not one of those stone mosaics, but a stained glass.  I forget about what I look like when the sun shines through, mostly because I've distanced myself from that source of light.  One of my favorite metaphors representing Christ came from (of course) C.S. Lewis.  He said that he believed in Christ like the risen sun, not because he could see it, but because by it he could see everything else.  This is how I often neglect to see myself, especially when I'm sick.  I don't want to see Christ and I don't want to see anything else by his light.  I don't want to know what that mosaic of stained glass looks like when his light shines through.


This is why grace and love (and how they go hand in hand in an unbelievably inseparable way) are still the central message of the gospel to me.


Now, how do I show that, in truth and power, to other people?  How do I affect the people around me so that they can feel this love, so they can experience the refreshing peace offered by grace?  How, in essence, do I show Christ?


Man, this post took an unexpected turn at the end, but it is a valid question, and as I close I should mention that I would LOVE any answers any readers might have to these questions.


Sorry for the length, and if you made it this far, thanks for reading.

fishes and bread

This week I experienced grace.  Again.  It's a hard thing to explain to someone what it feels like to feel full of power and potential and to be the strongest you've ever been in your life, but simultaneously feel helpless, weak, so humbled that everything in your life, down to the very crumbs from the piece of toast you eat for breakfast is a blessing, and a gift and not something for you to claim as your own.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I've never been good with money.  When I have money I only want to give it away, and when I don't have it, I'm happy enough not to bother getting any.  I don't mind living paycheck to paycheck, it's never been a stressful environment for me.  However, the past few weeks, maybe the past month, and probably continuing for the next month, I have been living on a budget of less than paycheck to paycheck.  I am living from day to day.  Some days I wake up and have literally no idea how I will buy food or how to afford transportation to work for that day.  I work a lot of hours at night and on weekends, but my paychecks are once a month and come at the end of the month after the month I'm getting paid for, so on Feb 25, I got paid for January's work, on  March 25, I'll get paid for February.  Because of the current conversion rate for dollars to yen and because of unavoidable one time fees that came up during my first few weeks here I was out of the money that I had raised to come in a much shorter time than I originally anticipated.

Every day I laugh at myself as a slew of you're so poor jokes go across my mind.  I'm so poor, no one had to tell me that in Japan people are expected to eat every grain of rice, I have never left a grain of rice uneaten.  I'm so poor that even in the snow and rain on days where the temperature hovers around 0 degrees Celcius, I ride my room mate's bike or walk the 4 km each way to work.  I'm so poor that I dropped an egg on the ground and scooped it back up with a spoon and cooked it for breakfast because it was the only food I had left.  Okay, so those aren't very good jokes, but they make me laugh.

And I think that's the point of today's blog.  Well, that and the other thing I'm going to get to in a little bit.  The first point, though, being that even though I'm in a less than desirous situation, or at least what would seem one to most people, I can't help but have joy outside of anything I've ever known.  I've been here for two months almost.  Two months and I can't help but smile every time I see people on the street, I walk home in the literally blistering cold (you should see my hands - disgusting) and by the time I get home my lips are chapped and my cheeks are sore because I was grinning for the last 40 minutes.  Even though I don't know how I'll eat next week, I'm so happy because I know that I will eat next week.  I'm so happy because I am constantly watching as God works in my life.  It's stunning, really.

And there it was, did you see it?  The other point of today's blog.

Even though I can't always pay for food, God has fed me.  Last time I wrote about the church up the street.  I wrote about traveling with them to feed the homeless.  What I didn't read about was how they fed me, also.  The day I met the people from that church was also the day that I completely ran out of money and food.  I had nothing left to eat and no promise of money coming in for quite a while.  I only had a little bit of money left on my train pass, but I decided to go with them anyway.  The day I went was a bad day.  It was cold, it was rainy, and there weren't many homeless people that were willing to go the park on a day like that and sit through a message, even if there was the promise of food.  So at the end of the day there was a lot of extra food that was going to get thrown away.  Like I said before, I couldn't communicate with anyone, so even if I wanted to, I couldn't have asked for them to give me any food.  But the woman I met from the church kept giving me the extra food to take home with me, and I couldn't say no (mostly because I don't know how to still). 

I know that this story, that this entry seems strange, maybe it seems irresponsible.  I realize what my life looks like to a lot of people.  The point isn't how crazy stupid I am, though.  The point is how crazy awesome God is.  Each day I witness his mercy both in how he provides for me, and through his love for someone as broken as I am.  Every day he is teaching me how to love by showing me his incredible love.  He's giving me strength through the knowledge of his power.  I'm being taught to serve by realizing how little I deserve the things he gives me and experiencing how much he loves those around me.  I'm being molded, I can feel it.  Some days it hurts, those days I have to suck up my pride and accept the 2000yen offered to me by the pastor of a church across town because otherwise I wouldn't be able to get back home or eat dinner, or every day I have to decline going to dinner on my break at work because I can't afford to eat fast food.  Those are the days that I also feel the presence of the Lord the strongest, so I can't help but smile.

It's a hard thing to explain to someone what it feels like to be helpless, weak, so humbled that everything in your life is a blessing, and a gift and not something for you to claim as your own but simultaneously feel full of power and potential and to be the strongest you've ever been in your life.

From homeless to work. I love this day.

I just realized how long it's been since I put an actual update on here.  For that, I apologize.  I have like 4 drafts that I never published for various reasons, but I'm going to do my best to put this one up, no matter how short it is.

Let me start with a brief analysis of what my day to day looks like, just for the curious.

I started working on January 18th as a full time private instructor for English.  I love this job because I have the opportunity to meet so many people, and while the focus of our time is on studying English, the format of the lesson allows me to get to know people and for them to get to know me.  I've worked every day, with the exception of an unexpected day off last Friday, since the 18th.  I know it sounds strange, but I actually enjoy working every day.  Because I'm working so much, though, I've been able to meet around 100 new people in the last few weeks, just through work, and while I'm not able to explicitly express my faith (through strict company rules) almost every new client I have asks the same question: "why do you came to Japan?" or some other variation of mixed up grammar. 

I think that this blog entry will be on that question.  Why did I come to Japan?

Recently, I was talking to one of my best friends, who's heart has also been incredibly moved for Japan, and we talked briefly on the subjects of love and joy.  The conversation actually went like this:

Robert: From homeless (we'll get to that later) to work.  I love today.
Robert: Who am I kidding, I love EVERY day.
Friend: You're so Genki* all the time!
Robert: How could I not be!? I feel the favor of the Lord, I feel like I'm walking in his will.
Robert: Do you know what kind of joy that produces?
Friend: Yes.

*Genki is a Japanese word often used to mean energetic or enthusiastic

It's been a strange month (I've been in Japan for 1 month and 3 days now), but I can't shake this joy.  Every day on my walk home from work (at like 11 pm) I look around the streets I live on and I can't help but smile.  I feel so blessed that God has brought me here, and I have faith (read: hope) that he's already using me in ways I'll never understand.

So, the first answer to the question "why did I come to Japan?" is, simply put, to walk in God's will, and by doing so, to walk in joy.  I'm not talking about a small measure of joy here, either, i mean, crazy awesome, peace-bringing, not even earthquakes shake me, joy.  I mean, the kind that people not only notice, but notice enough to have to comment on.

I have more to say on this, but it's getting too late to post more about it right now.  Because I promised earlier, though, I'll quickly mention what I meant when I said, "from homeless to work".

There's a church that meets down the street from my house.  The only church in like 3 square kilometers is a one minute walk from my house.  God does amazing things.  Anyway, I NEVER see people at this church, probably because I walk past at like 11 pm at night, but last night there just happened to be some lights on and I noticed some people inside, so, like a creepy foreigner I searched for the door so I could knock, but all the doors looked like windows, so I had to just stand outside the window where I saw people moving inside and while I was trying to figure out if i should knock on the window or just go home they noticed me standing there, all creepy like.  So, caught off guard a little I sort of waved my hands frantically as if it silently say, "I'm not creepy! I swear!" Somehow, I guess it worked, because after a few seconds I saw this little woman walk away from the window, and a few seconds after that I heard one of the door/windows opening.  I went over to the door and the first thing I asked was, "do you speak English?".  They did not, and the first thing they asked me was "Kurisutan desu?" which means "Are you a Christian?"  Somehow, with my shady Japanese and their less than elementary English (and I believe much assistance from the Holy Spirit) I found out that the church was started by Korean missionaries and that the next day at 12 20 they would be going to a nearby neighborhood to feed the homeless.  So, today at 12:20 I walked the one minute walk over to the church and we went to Ueno to feed the homeless before I had to go to work.

I sang a song last week that I haven't thought about since I lived in Memphis and went to Raleigh Christian Church, later named New Hope Christian Church.  The song was Step by Step and I had completely forgotten about it, so while I was singing it at church I got so caught up with reminiscing about the days I used to sing that song that I didn't really pay attention to the words, but now I can't get them out of my head.

I will seek you in the morning, and I will learn to walk in your ways.  And step by step you'll lead me and I will follow you all of my days.

I'm walking one step at a time right now, so while I can't totally answer the question of why I came to Japan I can say in confidence that this is where I'm supposed to be, and I'm so excited to see what the next step will be.

I feel the blessing of the Lord, and recently I've been reminded of the power of prayer, so thank you for your prayers to this point.  I have been blessed.  Thank you.

not an update, more of a promise.

I realized today that I've been in Japan now for a week.  I have already been incredibly blessed by the amazing faithfulness of the Lord and there are a few things I will need to make updates about soon:

My trip to Meiji Temple in Yoyogi Park.
My first experience with Mustard Seed.
The way I think I'll be blessed through challenges with my new job.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get to at least two of these topics this weekend.

Sakura House 101, 1-12-8 Kosuge, Katsusika-ku, Tokyo 124-0001

Wow.  I'm sorry I haven't been able to get to this before, but I just bought a power converter from the "hyaku en" shop for my laptop today.

Oh, in case you don't know what I'm talking about, let me fill you in:

I'm in Japan.

I started typing out a detailed explanation of everything I've done since I've been here, but decided that there was something else I wanted to talk about instead.  If you want more minute details of my life that I'm trying to get used to, I would love to talk to you about it.  Skype is probably the best way to reach me (Skype: robert.bolgeo) but here, in this medium, there's something else I want to express.

When I first landed in Japan, I knew that I would have to take the train to get to the head office for the company from whom I'm renting a room.  I brought my iPhone with me to use as a wifi device in Japan, so that I would be able to get around and wouldn't get too terribly lost, but that didn't work.  For some reason, my phone wouldn't work on the wifi connection in japan, so I was in the airport trying to figure out where I was supposed to go, and maybe, if I'd slept at all the night before, or even on the flight (but I couldn't) I would have been able to better reason, but in the state I was in (in the country I was in) I had a mini panic.

Something I've mostly forgotten about, but remember in times like this, is that when I was a kid, shortly after I moved to Fairview from Memphis, I suffered from minor anxiety issues.  I mean, it wasn't anything serious, I was never put on medication for it, but sometimes when I'd go out around large groups of people or sometimes randomly I would have mini anxiety attacks.  Sometimes I still feel that way, like, the first time I went to Disney Land, and the first time I went to a concert in LA, but for the most part I'm really easy going about things, and get excited by the prospect of doing something new.  Still, the fact remains that I can be overtaken by anxiety at times, and its something I've spent a lot of time and prayer dealing with so I know a little better how to handle it now.  I was on the verge when I wasn't sure how I would get from the airport to my new home, but, at the same time, I felt like everything was okay.

Something I read today: "The Spirit of glory and of God rests on you"

When I read this I thought about how much that Spirit weighs, I thought about, so to speak, the weight of glory (which I shouldn't reference seeing as though I haven't read that book yet).  Thinking now, about my near anxiety attack in the airport I can't help but remember that weird weight of the counter-anxiety, that feeling that everything was okay that was as foreign to me as I was to this country.  So when I stumbled across this phrase in my reading I couldn't shake it.  Only now, I'm thinking about what this means moving forward.  What does this mean as I try and make an impact here?

Something else I read today:  Foundation and salvation

Already, I've gone through so many things here that maybe I should be freaking out about, but I feel the sturdiness of my foundation (which is Jesus Christ) and the strength of what has been built on it (which would be the prayers and support of friends and family).  I think in the next few weeks I'm going to see some of the fire that refines.  I hope that when it comes I'm not too stubborn, or ignorant, or lazy to see what it burns and seek to repair it properly.

Before I close out this entry I want to write down a thought I had shortly after leaving the airport.  After my almost-anxiety in the airport, I decided to take whatever train was going towards the city I knew I had to get to in order to pick up my keys.  I was so excited to take my first train ride in  Japan, I almost didn't care if it got me where I was supposed to go or not.  However, by the time I got on the train, it was already dark outside, or at least, it was getting darker.  The trains are lit inside, though, and they stay pretty bright, so the darker it gets outside the brighter the inside seems to get, until you almost can't see outside anymore because the light reflects the inside of the train, making windows more like mirrors.  There are two things I thought about this.

First, I want to be like the train that is so bright on the inside that the darkness outside is nearly invisible.  I don't have much to say about this, except I'm afraid I'll never have the sort of illumination necessary.  I'm afraid I'll try to hold on to some of that darkness out of a perverse sense of self-preservation, making the light seem dimmer.

Second, as I looked at the window turned mirror I thought about how strange it was to be looking out towards Japan but to only be able to see myself.  I was so clearly superimposed over all the buildings that it was as though they barely existed.  So I thought about all the ways I've already been doing that.  How have I been taking Japan away and putting myself in its place?  The answers are humiliating; humbling.  I don't remember if I've mentioned this story before, but even if I have, this seems like a good spot to reiterate it (and I'm not too worried about redundancy): When I was an orientation leader for Biola some of us took a spiritual retreat in order to prepare ourselves for the new students and in order to center ourselves before we had to give so much in service.  While we were there we met with a student from the Institute of Spiritual Formation who taught us an interesting way to pray.  She taught us about the idea of mantras.  The idea is to create a name for God, one that has a lot of meaning to you, then to express a need.  My mantra is something I've been trying to live ever since the moment I made it that day.  Sometimes I'll go a while without saying it, but I don't think I'll ever forget it, because I don't think I'll ever stop needing it:

"Good Father, teach me to serve."

That's been my ardent prayer since I arrived.  I came here to serve, but sometimes I don't know how to do that.  Sometimes I can't look past my face in the mirror long enough to realize that it wasn't a mirror at all but a window; a window looking out on people who need to feel the Spirit of glory and of God rest, people who need foundations and building materials, people who need to be served.

So pray with me.