Struggle.

To be frank, the last few days at home have been kind of difficult. Difficult in different ways, but largely in remembering not to be self-centered and selfish. I didn't come home with the attitude that I would love my family, no matter the circumstance. I didn't walk into the house constantly asking God to give me strength and wisdom, to help me love my family.

I really wish I did.

Home is hard because of a few things. (And when I say home, I mean, more specifically, my physical house in Lexington.)

-My parents aren't Christian. In fact, their views on spirituality and religion are as far away from Christianity as they could be, and each in a completely different direction. This manifests itself in a lot of different ways, in different life-views, little living habits and actions.

-There are a lot of distractions. Mostly, computer games, on which I can tend to waste a lot of time on and lose sleep because of. Not that computer games in general are bad, but can definitely detract from my focus on God. Which, sometimes, there was not much of.

-My previous living habits at home were not the greatest. Prior to college, and even afterwards, I did not do a very good job loving my family. That has been something I have been working to change, and it seems like I didn't do a great job this week.


The thing is, this is a struggle that I will constantly, repeatedly face. I don't know why it's hard. I don't know why I can't just help them out in the little things that I help everyone else out. Like, the other day my mom asked me to take my sister for a bike ride, and I really didn't want to. But I had no reason to say no, except for, "I don't want to." If it were almost anyone else, I probably would have gone without thinking much about it. Twenty or thirty minutes out of a day isn't much, especially when all I was doing is sitting around anyways.

A lot of life seems to be a struggle. But I think what makes struggle worse, what Satan is probably pretty good at doing, is making us feel alone. Because a lot of times, especially when I was with my family, I felt very alone. Felt like, feels like, this struggle is something that has been placed on my shoulders and is my burden to carry. Like nobody else will really understand or know what it's like. Sometimes it feels hopeless. Like they are so lost in their own worlds that I cannot imagine their minds being opened to Christ's love, like I am so sinful that I will never be able to really love them.

And these are all just feelings. A lot of what I think and write about is just feelings. Because deep down, I know the truth. I know that God is capable of anything, and can soften even the hardest of hearts. I know that I cannot love on my own, but God's love and grace is so great that His love will allow me to love my parents. Nothing is impossible with God. Nothing.

I guess, herein seems to lie the struggle, you see. Because I know that nothing is impossible for God. Right? I've seen Him do crazy things, I've seen people's lives turn around, heard stories of miracles. So there is this deep, internal struggle, against what seems to be, the world. This struggle to be in the world, but not of the world. One of my favorite memory verses was Colossians 2:2-3; "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God."

Maybe that does a better job of describing what I'm thinking. Things above vs. earthly things. Things that may seem like they don't have an immediate effect vs. things that have immediate payoff. Things that are unseen vs. things that are seen. Holiness vs. worldliness.

Sometimes, these earthly things get in the way of those things above. We let them get in the way. We forget to constantly, constantly look to the cross. To look to our Heavenly Father.

Let's not forget. Remind me not to forget.

Why can't (some things in) life be more simple?

I think we like to make things complicated. Or, we like to think that we are forced to make things complicated. But often they aren't.

Strangely, I found myself sitting in a car with two good friends listening to classical music earlier tonight. Since leaving home for college two years ago, my friends at home have changed a lot... some friendships, strangely, seemed to have strengthened, while others (very sadly) seemed to vanish. And I can't really tell you why, nor can I say that it's really possible to hold onto every relationship that I've had...

But even after months and months apart, most of what the three of us did was just sit there. We parked at the local field, turned the engine off, and just sat there. We talked here and there, but mostly just sat and listened to classical music together. It was not what I expected to be doing in my four days at home.

I think one thing that language does is it creates this medium that we think we need to interact through. Like we have to use words to get to know each other and have a good time, and we need words to express ourselves or tell people who we are. Maybe in part we do, but I know that largely in part, we don't.

Words are nice and all, but I'm starting to think more and more that they only give us barriers to hide and duck behind instead of showing our true selves. It's great to have nice, deeps talks with people, but maybe we need to learn to treasure the silences too.




[insert silence here.]

Summer.

Summers are weird.

In the past I've had a hard time transitioning from summers to school years and back. And from long winter breaks to school years as well. I think it kind of messes with my sense of reality; rather than time simply passing, it's more like I'm going from one world to another.

I used to always think similarly of weekends; that it was simply a break from reality. Like, weekends were there just to fool you into thinking that you have time to relax and do your own stuff, but once that Monday hits, you gotta hit the ground running, whether it be school or work or whatever. (I guess this varies depending on what you're doing at the present time, but you get the idea).

Often, in ways, when I think about Japan, it also seems like a different world. And in many ways it is, but in many ways, it isn't. And I'd like to think about the ways that it is.

Because mostly, what we did there, what I did there, might be a life-style that we should consider everywhere. In everything we did, the focus was clear: to do everything in our power to love people how God loved us. Every day we would wake up with prayer and worship, asking God to do mighty things each day, and every day we would end by thanking Him for everything that he is and everything that he's done. We took correction earnestly, we did everything we can to humble ourselves, to become servants every moment of the day.

And yet it seems like there are so many more barriers to this throughout the year. We go to school, we work, we have more obligations, our time is split up among different people, we become distracted... but through all of these things, our focus should be the same. Yet too often, it isn't. Too often, my summers, my retreats, my spiritual highs, become breaks from reality. I feel like they something along the lines of... bringing me back to reality, instead.

I think as humans, it's easy to leave things behind and settle into the patterns that we're used to. After "life-changing" experiences, we feel different; but we don't know how to bring that back to the "real world". I'm sure there are plenty of reasons for this. Maybe our idea of what our life will look like is so narrow minded that we cannot change how we live without changing how we view life itself. Because life goes beyond seasons, beyond ups and downs...

Hopefully I can really start stringing everything together.

Life is funny.

Thinking.

I think sometimes I idolize thinking.

I always want to have deep thoughts, want to be one step ahead of the game, feeling superior to others because I've thought through things more than them. Sometimes when I'm explaining something to you my voice gets a little higher and more nasal-y, and I'll say something like, "well, you can think of it that way, but..."

And it's about time I start letting that go. Not to say that it's bad to think or that it's wrong to go "deeper" into things (mentally), but I think a lot of life, and in particular, being Jesus' disciple, is doing. Micah 6:8 goes, "He has shown you oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Actions. Jesus showed love by his actions, his words; how he lived his life. Maybe beyond understand what it means to do these things; that is, to act justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God, is there much more we need to think about? Other than understanding and knowing what God has commanded us to do, does anything else really, really matter? God desires obedience.

For awhile, I was struggling with considering myself being satisfied with the convictions that I had from Japan. I really thought there was a lot that I was missing, things that I had let pass me by. I think it was kind of like that feeling that you get when you're about to leave on a trip, and no matter how many times you double, triple, quadruple check, you always feel like you're forgetting something. It was, and still sort of is, like that.

And I guess it's a struggle I'll still be having, because I'm sure I haven't completely gotten everything "out of it" as I could've, and it will take a long time for me to. But even if I had completely failed on the missions trip, if I had come back and forgotten everything, if I hadn't pulled out everything that I can... God loves me the same. And He loves you the same too.

So if the biggest thing I come out from this trip is a drive to take action, I think I'm okay with that. For awhile, I've been doing too much thinking, too much second guessing, too much waiting. God calls us to action. The Great Commission itself, is a call to action; "go forth".

Action.


(Disclaimer: To further clarify, thinking in itself is no bad. However, I think (har har) that a lack of action is no good. Rather, to value thinking over simply obeying God's commands, such as loving God, loving our neighbor as ourself, laying our lives down for each other, is something to be weary of, and something that I probably do more often than not, or come dangerously close to.)

(and that was a really long, run-on sentence. But I'm okay with that.)

Kami no kazoku.

Thank you for everyone who supported me through the trip. I know a lot of you did, specifically through prayer, and it was much appreciated. Though I didn't update much later in the trip, I think my prayers often remained the same, only shifting to different people... which I guess I could've updated, but didn't. Oh well. So yea, huge, huge thanks to people that prayed for me... it was definitely felt on the field and appreciated.

And the beginning of (what probably should be, but I might be too lazy to write all of) many posts in regards to our trip to Japan.

If there had to be a "big idea" or "theme" that I personally had for the trip, it might be something like, "God's family" (kami no kazoku).

In a lot of ways I felt, and saw in action, God's family, while in Japan. Allow me to give one example for now.

Me and Maria taught three full English classes (each spanning one week) and then one last class of Dave's that we had to cover for him. We had two adult beginner classes and one older elementary school class. In our second week of adult beginner, our class consisted of roughly seven or eight elderly women (60+ years old, in my opinion) that weren't Christians, and one elderly woman of similar age who was simply on fire for God. On fire like, I've never seen anyone even close to her age so aggressive about sharing the Gospel. Unfortunately I don't remember her name (and never really knew... sadly), so we'll just call her AL, short for "awesome lady".

From the makeup of our class and the nature of our trip, you can already tell there would be some interesting interactions. Our first effort to sneak the Gospel into class was on the second day, when their homework assignment for the next day was to write about their favorite hobby. I gave them an example, which for me, was playing guitar. But why did I like playing guitar so much? Because it let me worship God in my own way, of course. And worshipping God and praying to Him is something I love to do.

Not only have I never met anyone as old as AL who's on fire for God like she was, but neither have I ever seen anyone like AL smile as big as she did once I said this. I'm positive that she didn't understand much either; I think all she got might've been "God" and "pray", but that was enough for her to know what I was trying to do and for her to know we were on the same page.

She then invited our class to stay for lunch the next two days, and told Maria and I that we would be praying for the food. (Maria is pretty decent at Japanese, so when AL explained this to her Maria put together the pieces and figured that's what would be happening). And over the course of the rest of our time together, Maria, AL and I continually shared mini-testimonies and invited our class out to different church events that we had planned, including the weekly Sunday Service. At one point, AL pointed out that even though she had been single for nine years (her husband passed away), she was never lonely, because she had her relationship with God, and that was enough for her.


So there it is. AL, a early-60s, non-English speaking, Japanese woman, and two American NYU students, working together for the Kingdom of God. Across cultures, age differences, languages, our hearts were linked by the love of Christ that was so apparent in AL's life, and I pray was equally apparent in ours.

In this, I believe I saw a good piece of what unity in Christ really means and looks like. We had nothing, absolutely nothing, in common, except for the grace of God exhibited in our lives.


There were a lot of other ways I was blessed, and a lot of other ways I got to see and witness God's love through and in these people. But I think that's all for now.