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.