DSak - Reflections of Japan

Our God is a Sovereign, compassionate, merciful, loving, and mighty God. All praise and glory be unto Him forever. His Gospel truth has the power to turn lives upside down and irrevocably change their course. His Gospel truth is desperately needed in so many parts of the world, is ritualized and taken for granted in many others. But once in a while, the seeds of His truth fall upon fertile heart soil, and compels a heart to pursue a dangerously transformational Christ-like life. I pray that God instill a passion in me that puts me amongst the least of these, that I might give my life without reservation for the Glory of my Heavenly King who withheld nothing from me. May no other pursuit of this life satisfy or fulfill me, but I pray I find joy and satisfaction in declaring the love of Jesus.

How can I begin to articulate all which God has shown and whispered to me these past two weeks? In my heart I still wrestle to understand it all, but perhaps I am simply not meant to understand it all in this life. I have eternity for that. My heart has been refreshed by the trip and I have been richly blessed by the company I was blessed to keep, and the children I got to serve and minister to. Their smiles were truly priceless. My heart has been broken by the deep need of the people of Japan.

I confess, I spent more time in Japan reading the Kenya team’s blog than attempting to write on our own. Their stories were incredibly compelling and touching. I was also slightly intimidated by the gifted writers on the Kenya team and wondered if I could possible write something that could be as significant. Their testimonies of the poverty they witnessed and continue to witness are heart-wrenching and demand action. Their sentiments stand true – our world is not as it should be. The Bride of Christ – the church – is not as it should be. But more on that later. =)

As I meditated on what the Kenya team has been sharing, and what God has been revealing to me through this trip, I came to realize some things.

1. Japan and Kenya are two completely different countries at opposite ends of the spectrum. Japan represents what some would consider the pinnacle of human innovation – technologically advanced, civilized, no where in the land would you find poverty like in the slums of Nairobi. In Japan, convenience and efficiency are maximized, trains and buses take you almost anywhere you need to go (and they’re almost never late!). Vending machines and shops line streets, giving the people access to almost anything they need, and all within walking distance. And the Japanese people are proud of what they have achieved, despite being a small island nation they stand as one of the most influential nations on the planet. Kenya on the other hand is a developing nation that many consider to be “third-world”, still lacking much of the basic infrastructure that those of us living the “civilized Western world” take too much for granted. In Kenya, people have to travel great distances to get the most basic necessities of life – food and water – if they can get them at all. In Japan, more than half the population live in massive metropolitan centers (amongst the largest in the world). In Kenya, the majority of the population lives in conditions no human should have to endure. Kenya and Japan are two very different countries.

2. The people of Japan and the people of Kenya are not so different – both are living in poverty. In Kenya, the poverty of the people is a harsh and glaring reality, visible to anyone who dares take a walk through the slums. The need of the people is apparent, and heartbreaking, and seemingly so very easy to meet. The people of Kenya are physically impoverished. In Japan, they have everything they could ever want or need. At least materially. But all that they have built, all that they have achieved stands as a towering monument – an idol that stand between them and the love of Christ. The people of Japan pride themselves in their achievement, but their pride prevents them from realizing their deepest need of all – the love of Christ. The people of Japan are spiritually impoverished. Some might argue they are rich spiritually because of the prevalence of Shintoism or Buddhism, I will contend that any sort of “spirituality” aside from the worship of and relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is empty idol worship that only adds to the poverty. A poverty that many of the Japanese feel but fail to realize. The people of Kenya and the people of Japan both need the love of Christ more than anything else.

I have been reading a book called Spiritual Warfare by Dr. Karl Payne. Right before I left for Japan, I read the chapter titled “Demonic Warfare: Blatant or Stealth?” In it, Dr. Payne made a very compelling argument – all the more so because I saw it to be true in Japan. Dr. Payne writes,

“…it should be no surprise that the more sophisticated a person or society assumes itself, the more subtle and crafty the enemies’ subterfuges must become to be effective. Demons attempt to destroy their enemies. They do not play at their work or take vacations. They work in deadly earnest. Demons approach their assigned responsibilities from a win/lose mentality. They fight to win and work diligently to make Christians lose… ridiculing Christianity and demonism as emotional hocus pocus and the sign of a weak, gullible mind could be a very effective way to keep a proud, self-made, rationalist, and empiricist, impressed with his own education, opinions, and accomplishments from even exploring the possibilities of spirituality in general, demonic warfare specifically, or the Gospel message of new life in Jesus Christ. The cost of honest exploration might seem too great a price to pay among skeptical colleagues. Satan and his demons are masters of creating confusion and deception, and understand that to be effective it is necessary to fight smarter, not just harder. People who are critical of Christians, Jesus, the Bible, Christianity and miracles are essentially looking for reasons to reaffirm their belief that religion is just the opiate of the naïve, and a mental crutch for the weak-willed people who are looking for someone else to think for them. Overt activity that challenges their basic anti-supernatural worldview could, therefore, become counter-productive. Why wake up people who are spiritually asleep, haplessly bobbing on the waves of naturalism and happily adrift in a sea of moral, ethical and religious relativism? If someone or something made the mistake of rousing them from their stupor, they might actually become motivated to take some type of aggressive action. A more effective plan is to let them stay drugged in their hubris and religious skepticism, sound asleep and devoid of any understanding of spiritual realities.” [p. 137-138]

That, to me, pretty much captured the state of Japan in a nutshell. The Japanese people are a very proud people. Proud of their education, proud of their accomplishments, proud of their own strength. They are a very self-sufficient people and believe in working diligently. They grasp and are very good at working at things with all their hearts, but their motivations remain self-serving. Many seem content just to let things go the way they are, in Japan rocking the boat, so to speak, is considered a big social taboo. In Japan, the cost of following Jesus is incredibly high. My dad and Richard-sensei had a chance to sit and talk to a gentleman from the TMK church who literally had to give up everything to follow after Christ, and he shared about how he barely had enough to feed and care for himself now. His struggle is that before he had everything he needed and there was no cause for worry. After choosing to follow Christ, he lost all of that material security. For some, choosing to follow Christ means facing a level of social rejection that many of us from the US simply cannot understand.

The spiritual opposition in Japan is powerful. The enemy’s stronghold is formidable. The material wealth of the Japanese and their pride makes it hard for them to see their need for Christ and to admit that they are in need of the Savior. On the spiritual side, numerous “Christian” cults (Jehovah’s Witness, Children of God) who proclaim their version of the gospel have made many people very wary and skeptical of Christians as a whole. It seems the enemy is using Japan’s wealth to keep them “happily adrift” in their spiritual poverty. What’s harder, because everything in Japan is so expensive, it is becoming harder for missionaries from abroad to stay there. The government of Japan prohibits and non-Japanese citizens from holding jobs, so it is very difficult for the missionaries to support themselves through working their. Satan and his forces have lost the war, but they are fighting tenaciously to take as many people down with them as they can. By the grace of God, and the willingness of His people to faithfully follow Him, we can reach the hearts of the Japanese. But it will take time.

Richard-sensei shared a sobering insight with us. Missionaries have recently celebrated 150 years of missions in Japan. 150 years, and barely 2% of the population claims to follow Christ. Something needs to change. At Urbana 2009, one of the keynote speakers from Kenya blasted many of us. For many of us coming from American churches, we think the most important part of missions is money. The speaker basically told us, we can keep our money. If we want to see change happen in Kenya, we have to invest our lives and our time into the lives of the Kenyan people. A sentiment that is very true for Japan. It is very costly to live there, but the only way to win the trust of the people and instill even the slightest amount of curiosity or interest in what the church, in what Christ has to offer, we need to invest not just our money, but our time, our love, every part of our lives to loving them to Christ.

For many Americans, it seems this concept of having to commit so extensively and for such a pro-longed period of time is terrifying. But this is exactly what needs to happen! Are we, as the Church of Jesus Christ, committed to building HIS CHURCH? Or our own? Are we more concerned with our plans, our agendas, our budgets, our buildings, our programs than with sharing the love of Christ at all costs? Have we made the church our church instead of Christ’s? These are some of the questions Richard shared that weighed on his heart, and they’re good questions to stop and ask.

God’s certainly given me a lot to think about from my time there. Many priceless memories. The children I got to meet and serve were truly priceless. Far too many memories to recite for an already long post. My prayers remain with the NBF team as they to prepare to minister to the children in Nokendai. May your hearts be open though to what God has to show you. For me many of the most impactful things God revealed to me came not through the VBS itself, but through other times either listening to Richard-sensei or John-sensei, or just being out in the city and observing the people around me.

May the God of grace and mercy be with the Reasoner family, the Nakamura family, the Smoker family, the May family and the Tamura family (and many of the others there!) as they serve and minister to the people of Japan.

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.

It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” [Philippians 1:3-11]

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." [Philippians 4:8]