Jean-Pierre de Caussade wrote, “Those things that happen at each moment by God’s command or permission are always the holiest, the best, the most divine thing that could happen to us.”

He writes of moments, each moment as being a gift from God, the master of time.

And that each moment brings with it the fullness of all that God has for each of us. As time flows in, around and through us, moments—holy moments continually flow in, around and through us. Once we are in a right relationship with God through faith in His Son, Jesus, we stand perfect, holy and in harmony with the Creator of time, and with the moments He commands and allows to flow through our lives. We can receive them with joy, worshipping Him as they come to us with unceasing flow, or we can resist or we can ignore the holiness of them and treat them as ordinary things without realizing the majesty of the gift.

If we fast, then through the day our hunger is known to us. As we shop for groceries, as we do our job, as we speak on the phone, always, the hunger is with us. In that same way, as we are more or less continually aware of hunger, we can be aware of God, of His presence in us. We can be in continual communion with Him. And as our continual awareness of hunger does not interfere with the fulfillment of our daily duties, so, the continual communion with God does not interfere.

But, hunger brings pain. Awareness of God, communion with Him, brings a joy that we can’t understand. But just like we don’t need to understand fire in order to be warmed by it, we don’t need to understand the joy that comes with full surrender to all that God brings. But to enjoy it, we must stop resisting, stop stressing about what is or is not happening. Receive from God ALL that He brings to us in each moment. Give thanks and praise Him for it all. Pray over things you sense are not right or not complete. Pray with urgency, pray with passion. Fast and pray. . . and receive with humility whatever He brings.

Well, no fog today! Right now the sun is shining through an open door next to my desk and actually it’s almost too warm!!! (that’s pretty unusual for San Francisco)

You would have really enjoyed our conversation around Jesus’ cleansing of the temple and how important it is to guard the truth and to guard our hearts. But as for just when to say, “stop” to someone or something–that was a difficult question with no exact resolution. We were amazed together at the courage of Jesus to take such a strong stand against corruption in the temple. Makoto really seemed to get the correlation between the temple and our bodies. The Lord is really opening his mind to these things. Please continue praying for him.

Well, tonight, after some weeks of very warm and intimate conversations, we’re going to have a movie night. We’re going to show The End of The Spear.

This will be a very special night. Several things have happened to make this an especially small gathering; a couple of people are sick, someone will be taking a mid-term test online and we haven’t heard from a couple of others. That means that we will have a chance to spend some special time with Kento. Since I was not well earlier this week he and I were unable to meet together. I hope (and pray) that this will be a special chance to sow into his life. I wonder what questions he will have after watching this great film??
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Questions I might ask:

• What is forgiveness?
• Can you forgive and still be angry?
• Have you been forgiven by a friend?

• How did it affect your relationship?

Your prayers are really so important to us. Thank you for joining the battle with us!

In the powerful and loving name of Jesus,

david

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At our recent trip to Japan I heard Pastor Katsuhiko Seino of Tsuchiura talking about the problems that new Christians have when they return to Japan. He shared an extremely important insight. He said that we must remember and teach that the basic Japanese and Western church cultures are different!

1. At times we hear North Americans say that most Japanese churches are dead and not healthy.

2. However, the truth is that there are sick North American churches as well as Japanese churches.

3. The main issue is that there is a basic difference in church cultures, which take the characteristics of the broader culture.

4. I don’t remember all the differences, but here are some of them.
1) North American culture (and church culture) tends to be horizontal; Japanese is vertical.
2) NA is informal; Japanese tends to be formal.
First names or honorific titles
3) Those who experience large active churches come back to smaller churches with fewer activities.
4) Western learning tends to be by discussion, but in Japan lectures are the accepted method.
5) The Western method of debate and speaking the “truth” no matter what is different from the Japanese desire for group consensus.

5. It is important to prepare the Japanese as he/she returns. Perhaps they will remember the general cultural differences, but if they have never experienced Japanese church life, they will expect a Western church culture.

Lets toss away the idea that the Japanese church is dead. It is alive and well! Lets remember to prepare people as they return to Japan.

What do you think?

I love her dearly and she is a wonderful young woman. I have no doubt that she and Ben will become a delightful family together. They will face challenges as of yet undreamed of — and they will overcome.

But right now, those thoughts are crowded out with the rush to get married. All their energy is focused on that one final goal, to be married. By now, “boyfriend / girlfriend” has long ago fallen away to “fiancee” and now, there is no time to lose in putting that label behind them. They will be married. . . . . and I will be there to witness this grand occasion.

Congratulations!

sakura

Simple, beautiful, meaningful

Sakura–cherry blossoms, delicate and beautiful. But as you may have noticed, they only last a couple of weeks before they begin falling off the trees. If you are too busy to go out and see the sight, you will miss it. But even in their falling, they are beautiful, like a pink snow in warm weather. They float and flutter away in the wind like a gentle rain.

Last week a beautiful thing happened that only a few privileged people were able to witness. . . .our good friends, Kotaro & Junko-san were baptized! Unfortunately (for me) I was not able to be there to witness the event. But this is big news! A Japanese couple putting their faith in Jesus and getting baptized is no small thing! I really love to see a baptism; the look of confident joy after coming up from the water is really something to behold. And it’s wonderful to watch the effect it has on everyone who is watching. This is a great time of celebration; everyone is so happy!

But then, quite suddenly, it’s over. All dried off, the baptized people go home, wash their wet clothes and maybe settle down to watch some TV or something. But the memory lingers, the deed is done and there is a liberating sense of the joy in the obedience to an ancient command.

I wish you could have been there. . . . .I wish I could have been there.