Portion Sizes and Contentment

In the spirit of the approaching Thanksgiving holiday, which, as I'm sure you understand, is not celebrated here in Japan, I feel the need to count my blessings aloud. Here are the top 5 that have been in my prayers lately:

1. My supportive family is dearly missed here in Japan. The more I see of this world, the more grateful I am for parents who raised me in a loving home and in the church. My parents have done well in showing me how to love others, and they have more importantly pointed me to the One who is Love-defined, without whom love is unreasonable and, even further, impossible.

2. I have two siblings who I consider my best friends. My most fervent prayers have been for these two.

3. Everywhere I've moved since my graduation, the Lord has quickly blessed me with friends and a church to help God's Word sink further into my heart. It's been said that the longest journey is from the head to the heart, and I don't believe any aspect of this journey was ever meant to be made alone. In this journey, God consistently provides the beginning, the means, and the end.

4. I'm in Japan and loving every day of it!!

5. I'll forever be grateful for the gift of music. I've seen tears shed and hearts soften, not excluding my own, as a result of this gift (thanks parents!)

Now to the deep end of my Kiddie pool (hope you brought floaties):

So October's virtue-of-the-month was Patience as the moving process required a lot of it.
This month's theme has been Contentment. Two areas of my life, specifically, have had revelations in what it means to be content:

1. God has blessed my finances in the past few years, but infinitely/eternally more important is that He so often reminds me to remain detached from this particular blessing. (To be clear, when I say 'detached,' I do not mean 'in denial of' and I do not mean 'uninvolved in its management'.) I wrestled throughout this month with these Scriptures on how God wants me to treat material blessings; and the answer to my questions was always contentment.
Contentment is a way of life that is achieved by surrender (a state of the mind) and maintained by gratitude (a state of the heart). The Bible has a lot to say about material wealth and possessions, and almost all of it is about its dangers - i.e. how money has a way of trapping the heart and the soul without our knowing, how wealth more often complicates than simplifies our life and worries, how riches might keep us from taking hold of "that which is truly life." (I Tim 6:19). My continual prayer is that the Lord will bless me with a grateful heart in exponential proportion to my material accumulation - God knows I need it.

2. I mentioned above that wherever I move, the Lord blesses me with a great church where I can serve and grow. What I noticed at this church in Japan is that my eagerness to serve often turned into vanity and pride (as many of our virtues have the potential of becoming.) The Lord has taught and given me many gifts that I'm eager to share with others; but when I'm not able to use these gifts as I would like, then how do I respond?
Do I quickly assert myself and openly offer my talents? Do I socially manipulate my way into the position I want? Or do I just wait in discontent until I get what I'm waiting for? These questions, as you can surmise, don't just apply to service in the church, but can be heard in our workplaces and in the grumblings of any hierarchical organization.

A sermon from Pastor Steven Furtick rings clear in my mind where he explains that when doing work for the Lord, you should never have to promote yourself and risk the pride that will well up inside of us as a result. I think that being assertive is important, but if I have to promote my standing/position while doing so, then my soul might be better off without the object that I was trying to obtain. Instead, Furtick says, do the best with what you have and wait for others to promote your standing for you.

It was during a recent sermon, when I couldn't listen over the noise of my own malcontent, that the Lord asked of me, "If I were to have you only serve as a church janitor for the rest of your time on earth, would that be enough for you? If your position never gave you the opportunity to teach, to play music, or to even be seen by others, would you be okay with that? If my portion for you gave you no glory on earth, would you still serve me with gladness?"

My truthful answer was "No, it would not be enough," and my realized arrogance broke my heart. Who am I really serving if my motivation is recognition and promotion?

The Lord was quick in redemption as He reminded me that He alone is my portion (Psalm 16:5). He reminded me that even if He removed from me every talent and blessing, I would still have more than enough in the only One who can save us from our own self-destruction and narcissism. Christ alone is our portion and He is enough for me.

As I write this, I'm reminded of the lyrics from the song quoted in my first post, which brought about the name of this blog:

"Whatever the cost

Whether it works out or not

...I'll follow You

With all of my heart."

In my workplace and in my service to the church, I seek to increase the quality of my portion and not the recognition of my position; because in the end, I'll have to give to the Lord an account of my allotments and I don't want to have to explain how I was too busy wondering about my next promotion to care for what has already been given to me.

After all, it's not what we do that's important, but who we love.

I'm going to build a settlement...

I apologize for my absence from this blog. My excuse: in my busyness with work, church, and moving, I haven't had the chance to sit down and write for a while. So while I have a few hours this evening, here's a quick rundown supplemented with pictures:

1. Work

Work has been keeping me fairly busy as I try to learn a new job. Around the 20th of this month, I'll enter into a shiftwork schedule, which means odd hours, weird weekends, and hopefully some travelling during the time I have off! My commute is an hour door-to-door. I walk for 10 min to the train station and spend 30 min on the train before I make the 15 min walk to work. I've never been a huge fan of long commutes, but a brisk walk and a half hour train ride have proven to be a great way to start my day. I walk out the morning grogginess and even get a guaranteed half hour in the Word before and after every work day!

The city life is proving to not be so ill-suited to me!

2. Church

I've been attending a great little church called Jesus Lifehouse and have been meeting plenty of like-minded, similarly-impassioned, and musically gifted people! There are two services on Sunday at 12 and 3, and a service on Tuesday at 7pm. (I try to go to all three because different people attend each one!) The sermons are given in English with a Japanese translator, and the worship songs have been translated so half of each song is in Japanese, which is really cool to be a part of and does a great job of welcoming nationals and foreigners alike. About half of the church is composed of Japanese nationals, while the rest is from...well...everywhere else. I'm meeting people from New Zealand,  Australia, China, Taiwan, France, Brazil, and many from America. Everyone is, of course, very friendly and inviting; I've been having a great adventure so far getting to know these fun and Jesus-loving people that God has put in my life. I'm humbled and grateful for meeting new friends so quickly on the other side of the world. God knows I'd be very lonely without them and I know there's no way I wouldn't be having conversations with my desk lamp if it wasn't for their company.

3. The Move

...is finished as of yesterday!

Last night, I cut and tied up the rest of my moving boxes, which signified the end of my moving adventure. It feels so good to finally have a place to call home, a bed to sleep in, and a kitchen in which to cook some bachelor-dinners. I just took a couple panoramic photos to share with you. I apologize if they're not stitched together very well, but I'm sure you can get the idea.

My tatami room hasn't changed since the last time I posted, but here it is again anyways. I'll be using it as my dining room / guest room:

My other dining room and office:

My kitchen, complete with hot water keeper, rice cooker, a fridge made for a family, and a four-compartmented recycling/trash can to help me navigate the complex recycling instructions: (I've been here about 3 weeks now and I still refer to the instructions whenever I need to throw something away.)

I'm very excited about my movie/music/reading room, as it's a room I've always dreamed of having!

Finally, my bedroom. I bought a bed that's a little bit too big for the room (but still fits!) and a bookshelf as a cheaper alternative to a dresser.

That's all I have for now! I'll post more on my experience in Japan as the adventure continues!

(Kudos to whoever understands this blog title's reference and I'm sorry if you don't - it's the best I could come up with right now.)

Transitioning

It's hard to believe I've been here in Japan for only a month now. There are many changes that have been occurring within the past two weeks that I'm not even sure where to begin or what I should report in this post (seeing as it's 1:30 in the morning, this post's length will be limited by time and energy); so the following is a summary of the biggest change for me in the past two weeks - my new apartment!

I've moved into an apartment in the heart of Yokohama, a large city part of the greater Tokyo metropolis and home to 3.7 million people. With thousands of restaurants, shopping centers lining the streets, and a world-famous transit system, I'm sure I won't ever have to leave Yokohama for new cuisines and fun weekend plans.

Last Monday (a week ago), I signed a lease for and moved into my new apartment, called 'Silk House Yokohama'. With three bedrooms and a fair-sized living room, I have more space than I should ever need during my stay here. One of the three bedrooms is called a 'Tatami room', named after the (expensive) woven, grass mats lining the wooden floor. These rooms are typically used for dining during the day and sleeping during the night. I, in my attempt to experience Japanese culture and also due to not yet having a bed, am using the Tatami room for its intended purpose:

The grass mats breathe very well and, from what I hear, are especially useful for staying cool during the hot and humid summer nights.

The "bathroom" is separated into the toilet room and the bathing room:

The toilet, as you might be able to see in the picture, has a sink that drains into the toilet's basin. So the water that you dirty from washing your hands will be used for the next flush instead of going to waste. This is ingenious water conservation and efficiency if you ask me!

The apartment came with the washer/dryer machine as shown in the middle picture. I absolutely love this device! It washes and dries my clothes with the touch of one button (there are many other buttons with Kanji all over them that I'm afraid to test), which hardly gives me an excuse for not doing laundry since I don't even have to be home now to transfer clothes from a washer to a dryer.

The bathing room allows for me to follow the traditional Japanese-style bathing process in my own home. I had to look up online how this whole process was completed. First, you rinse off using the shower head and make sure you get all the dirt and grime off your body that you don't want in the bath. The tub is filled with near-scalding hot water and you 'soak' in the hot water for a while. After some time of 'soaking', you would get out and use the shower head to soap up, then rinse off again since you don't want any soap or suds in the bath tub. You then return to the hot tub and 'soak' for a while longer until you're completely relaxed. Cleansing process complete!

So I've actually tried this process this past week after a particularly strenuous day hoping that the bath would make for a good stress-reliever as it is claimed to be. However, not only did the bathwater make me feel a little  less clean than had I simply showered as normal, but the process took entirely too long and became more of an exercise in patience and cultural understanding than in cleansing and relaxation. There's a good chance that tub will never be used again unless I decide I'd like a koi pond in my apartment. (Actually...that would be awesome!! Stay tuned for this developing koi pond idea...)

One last noteworthy future of my new apartment is the incredible views from my living room window and from my balcony. My living room window opens to a small Japanese shrine with a beautiful and wonderfully-maintained garden. This was huge selling point in my apartment hunting:

And I don't think the nighttime view from my balcony will ever get olde:

This picture doesn't do it justice. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a better photo of the skyline one of these days.

This is all I'll discuss about my apartment for now. More pictures will be posted once my furniture arrives in a few weeks.

As a parting gift from this post, here's a few photos I took during my climb up Mt Takao today:

 

I'm not one to enjoy too much time living in transition and until my furniture comes, I'm camping out in my empty apartment, feeling more like a squatter than a resident. But my feelings of impatience and restlessness are completely eclipsed by my gratitude to the Lord for this unique and exciting adventure, for the support of my loving family back home, and for all the new friends I've been getting to know here at my Yokohama church - they are all very kind to me and deserving of their own post sometime in the future.

I never cease to be amazed at the beauty of the Lord's handiwork in nature, at His provision in my life, and at the revelation of His Word. I am undeservedly blessed and can only worship in response to His goodness and mercy.

Things Matt Ate This Week

This is not just a post about food!

That being said, here's a few unique cuisines I've enjoyed this week:

Going from left to right, top to bottom:

1. Here's some of those ramen noodles that I mentioned in my last post. This was "dipping ramen with full plate."

2. Vending machine coffee! It cost ~$1 and tasted as good as those Starbucks frapuccino's.

3. The Korean BBQ place was a lot of fun as 7 of us shared this little grill and cooked all our own pre-marinated meats. Also with great kim chi!

4. Udon dipping noodles, cucumbers with unrefined miso, and ...cow tongue??? The cow tongue was awesome.

5. I knew we couldn't go wrong with Indian food for dinner. A nice little bowl of Chicken Tikka Masala and a fresh-baked garlic naan the length of my hand and forearm!

6. And who doesn't like churros!!? Although, these Japanese churros are very different in that they're crunchy like a cookie and are meant to go with coffee.

The Indian place was pretty sketch. This was the tunnel stairway we took to the basement level restaurant.

Besides food, I was able to experience three very different aspects of Japanese culture throughout this week:

1. The Kamakura Temple

This temple was built by the first Shogun (or militant leader) to conquer the entirety of Japan with his army of samurai. His temple  is famous not only for its historical value, but for its beauty and scenery. I was only able to take a brief tour of the grounds, but every aspect was rich with historical and metaphorical value.

The gateway to the temple is a long path whose entrance is marked by two dog statues and the Torii gate. The dog on the right has an open mouth, which symbolizes life, while the dog on the left symbolizes death with its closed mouth. This is meant to reflect how we enter the world with an open mouth, hopeful and experiencing all things new; then we pass away with a closed mouth and at peace.

The Torii gates are all over Japan and symbolize a passing into a spirited or holy area.

The path actually narrows as you get closer to the temple, which gives the optical illusion of the path being significantly longer than its actual length. This was engineered by the first Shogun in order to deter and intimidate challengers to the Shogun position, as they would have to assassinate him in order to take over his role.

Before entering the temple, we performed some ceremonial washing at a small, but well-decorated, fountain. There was a whole procedure to follow, which I know that I completely messed up. I had to quickly pull out my 'American' card and speak English to the confused onlookers in case it wasn't already obvious enough that I had no clue what I was doing.

After this point, I couldn't take any more pictures due to being inside the temple. The scenery everywhere around the temple was absolutely gorgeous, though, and I wish you could all experience it someday, too. There were two small ponds that were installed by the wife of one of the many Shoguns to live by the temple. The pond on the right was filled completely with white water lillies, while the pond on the left was filled only with red water Lillie's to, again, symbolize life and death. Although the lillies were not in bloom, the ponds were both beautiful and very serene.

There were many other temples and shrines around the Kamakura area, all of which I hear are gorgeous places to visit. I'm hoping to spend a full day in that city sometime in the future.

2. Harajuku

As a city known for its fashionable and trendy shopping centers, Harajuku is crowded every weekend with Tokyo's younger demographic. There are hundreds of stores within a mile radius of the train station, most of which are stacked on top of one another as it is with most of Japan's buildings and stores. I saw many of the major American outlets like H&M, Gap, Nike, and Tommy Hilfiger, but also noticed a peppering of trendy Japanese stores. Their fashions and styles are very similar to what we have in America and most of them seem pretty hipster. (Btw, are expensive, used clothing stores existent in America? Have I missed them completely? There were a few of those here with ~$40 t-shirts that have clearly been worn.) There was even a whole street that was decorated to look like a shopping avenue straight out of NYC; every outlet advertised american-styled clothing.

Harajuku is also known for its cosplay-ing weekend visitors. I was only able to snap one decent picture of the costumed locals:

She was last in a line of various uni-coloured princesses. Many shops had girls advertise in front of their doors dressed to look like they popped straight out of an anime cartoon. Probably the weirdest advertiser was the one who wasn't a girl, but was a guy in a skimpy Snow White outfit. For obvious reasons, no pictures were taken of that disturbing character.

I also visited a rabbit cafe while I was in Harajuku, which is a place where you pay a few bucks to play with a rabbit for a certain amount of time. Apparently these cafes, along with puppy and kitten cafes, are becoming popular all over Tokyo due to the restrictions on owning pets for those who live in the city. I didn't pay to spend time with a rabbit today, but at least I now know where to go if I'm having a bad day.

3. Akihabara

Akihabara is Tokyo's famed electronics district. On the left in the picture was a large multi-row market that sold only and all electronic parts. It had a booth for any electronic component you could ever need: capacitors, transistors, screws, flukes, wire strippers, motors, computer fans, batteries, lightbulbs, etc.

Straight ahead in the picture was one of many several-storied arcades. These arcades are an epileptic's nightmare. As soon as I stepped through the doorway, I was greeted with flashing screens and gameplay noises from every direction. Almost all the arcade games were multiplayer arcades and most required trading cards that the players purchased separately and used to interact with the game. It was all very impressive. Though perhaps what was most amusing in the arcade was the bathroom! The urinal itself was a video game! As I peed into the receptacle, I racked up points by the mL and filled up two soda cans, about which the little anime character in the video game seemed pretty excited. I don't think I got a high score, though.

Akihabara is also known for its maid cafes where the waitresses are all dressed as french maids and serve you very eagerly. I only saw a few maids out in the streets advertising for their cafes, but wasn't in the mood for feeling like a huge creeper that night.

Aside from reports on my tourism, I should be moving into my new apartment in about a week! I'm very excited for a place to call my home and I'm really looking forward to living the city life for a while in Yokohama. This past week was filled with a 5-day, mandatory, training course on adjusting to the new culture. It was very useful and I'm glad I went through it (it provided me the trip to Kamakura!), but it took away valuable time from the paperwork trail that I have to hike in order to move in to my apartment. Nonetheless, the Lord has faithfully been blessing the details of the housing process, allowing me to find an apartment and schedule a lease-signing meeting much sooner than normal. I'm continuing to pray for this process as I continue to realize my dependence on the Lord for all my needs.

ロスト in Translation

Exciting. Adventurous. Exotic. Great food. Interesting food. Complete and utter confusion.

All excellent descriptors for my first few days here.

The journey began last week on Monday when I left Dallas for an overnight stay in Seattle-Tacoma Airport. I arrived at Sea-Tac in the afternoon with an early check-in the following Tuesday morning, so I decided to enjoy my day in downtown Seattle. To briefly cover my touristy wanderings, here are pictures of the two sites I spent my day enjoying. If you're ever in Seattle, I highly recommend these brief stops:

Chihuly Garden and Glass:

And the Seattle Central Public Library - probably the coolest library to ever exist:

The long flight the next day arrived Wednesday morning. I walked the town the first night with my sponsor and he introduced me to the area a bit, a very hospitable gesture that gave me the comfort of knowing how to get back to base.

Thursday night, I was eager to get lost in the town armed with my fluent command of all four of my Japanese phrases. 

Those four phrases aided by grunts, nods, smiles, and plenty of bowing allowed me to order myself dinner at a restaurant then, later, sign a two-year contract for a cellphone. The dinner was a large bowl of ramen noodles; and not american, cup-o-noodles ramen, but savory, filling, delicious, Japanese ramen. A must-try for my future visitors.

The phone I purchased was over 50% off with the contract and I'll be paying around $90/mo, so even though I'm sure I was duped several times into buying features I'll never use because I'm illiterate in Japanese and can't even read my own contract, the price seems expected and reasonable for a new smart phone. I've been trying my luck with not-Apple electronics these days, so I decided to buy a Sony Xperia UL instead of going with the new iPhone 5S. The learning curve for the Android OS took only a few days to hurdle, but was exceedingly steeper than it should have been due to - once again - illiteracy. The first few hours with my new phone are best expressed by screenshots of this cat:

Friday morning, I sat through a welcome-to-Japan housing brief, where I learned after an hour that this moving process is going to be about as easy as figuring out why that Japanese cat on my phone keeps disappearing behind his little banner. I'm now expecting the whole process to take about a month's time, which is about 29 days more than I was hoping it would take.

I went out to the city of Yokohama that afternoon to scope out the area where I'm thinking about living; it is a half hour's train ride from the base in Yokosuka where I'm temporarily lodged. The Japanese transportation system was an adventure that I was saving until my purchase of a phone, so having my Xperia gave me the confidence to leave Yokosuka. Riding metro's and reading subway maps are not new to me, but illiteracy, once again, made the simplest tasks most difficult. Fortunately, I have an app that tells me exactly which trains to get on, so all I have to do is make sure I'm on a train that correlates with my app's instructions:

It hasn't failed me yet.

This past weekend, I enjoyed a bowl of cheap, yet incredible Udon noodles:

As with most of my food purchases thus far, I had only a very small idea of what I ordered until I ate it, when I realized I had no idea what I ordered. I only knew this meal was Udon after I asked my real estate agent a few hours later what I ate and showed her this picture. Even while I was ordering the meal, I couldn't even describe what I wanted so the kind and patient lady running her little shop had to step out of her kitchen to watch me point to a picture of the bowl I wanted to order. She kept speaking to me in Japanese and I had no idea what she was saying so I kept nodding and saying 'hai', or 'yes', until I think I counter-confused her enough to just make something  for me that closely resembled the picture I pointed to a few minutes earlier in our 'conversation' (or 'confoundsation'?).

Another food-venture was at a Sushi restaurant here in Yokosuka - a new favourite of mine. I was ordering sushi from my table's touch screen menu as if I was trying sushi for the very first time of my life. I chose any sushi that looked new or enjoyable, impatiently waited for my order to roll up to me on the conveyor belt, then hungrily snatched it into my mouth. I loved it all. I loved the impersonal, yet efficient, ordering process. I loved the conveyer belt that carries delicious products to my table. I love trying new sushi! There was only one sushi I ordered that did not taste very good. Not coincidentally, it didn't look too appealing on the plate either:

I'm not sure what I thought it was when I ordered it, but after placing the order I figured out how to turn the touch screen to the English setting and learned it is called 'Whitebait'. It didn't take me long after tasting the dish to realize that I was eating fish that is typically only used to feed other, tastier fish. It was pretty gross. My situation reminded me of the time I tried eating grass as a little kid because cows eat grass and cows make for tasty meals. Grass is not tasty. Whitebait is not tasty. My illiteracy got the best of me again.

One final, noteworthy expedition I made this weekend was getting lost in Yokohama's Chinatown! Who would of thought there's a Chinatown in Japan?? Conversations in Chinatown were about as productive as my ordering of the Udon noodle bowl, but it was still a great afternoon spent feeling tourist-y and lost in China, instead of in Japan.

Even after only a few days here in Japan, I'm feeling more comfortable with my surroundings, feeling more comfortable with the conversations, and feeling more excited about my time here. Each day so far has been a new experience and a new learning opportunity.

I can't help but thank the Lord for all these new experiences, for the new people I'm meeting each day, and for blessing all of my plans thus far by working out the details for me - the details that I've missed or could never have planned for. These past few days have been a re-realization of my dependence on Him to not only be the One holding the plan for my life, but the One who works out the details to get me there.

All glory, thanks, and honour be to the One who is the Beginning, the End, and the means to the End.

"And [Jesus] said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens:they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you."

- Luke 12:22-31

Pilot

Konnichiwa!

This blog is now officially established to update all those who want to follow me on my (mis)adventures in Japan. It will not, however, be limited to the unique experiences I'd like to share, but will also be a sort-of impersonal journal - an avenue for my thoughts and readings during the next two years that are worth sharing.

The inspiration for the blog's title is from a song I've learned recently on the guitar that made 'MatTV's Top 10 summer hits' for its catchy melodies and heartfelt lyrics:

The Precipice

The Classic Crime

I wish that I could play the violin.

I'd play till tears roll down your cheek and chin.

And if you sang along,

We could write the saddest song.

Sometimes I indulge my every whim

And piece by piece, I build the cell I'm in.

But I only stay here long

Enough to write the saddest song.

Chorus:

I dreamt I stood on a hill that I wish was a mountain

To look back on all my accomplishments,

Well they must have been small because I couldn't seem to find them

So I took a leap off of the precipice.

I wish I could play piano well.

I'd hit the keys that make your spirit swell

And if you sang along,

We could write the saddest song.

Bridge:

Whatever the cost

Whether it works out or not

Whatever the cost

Whether it works out or not

I'll follow you

I'll follow you

I'll follow you with all of my heart

The chorus and bridge particularly hit home as they express the artist's desire to follow the Lord's will, a desire I believe all us Christians express daily ("...Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..." -Mat 6) and will wrestle with at multiple points in our lives. "Am I in the Lord's will right now?" "What is His plan for me?" "Among several life paths, which one does God want me to take?" As I sung the lyrics for myself, I couldn't help but make it my own prayer.

In the chorus, the artist struggles with the meaninglessness of all our personal achievements; so in his quest for purpose and significance, he takes 'a leap off of the precipice'. In other words, he gives everything away in hopes of gaining something of actual/eternal worth - just as Christ describes in the parable of the man who finds a treasure in a field and sells all his possessions to buy that field (Mat 13:44-46). This last line of the chorus poetically describes what we are called to do every day when we take up our crosses and follow our Lord (Luk 9:23). By our living lives of surrender, we unite ourselves to the One who is our purpose, to the One who tells us that His will is "to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." (Eph 1:10)
So what is God's will for us? Unity. With Himself. And with others. We might stress ourselves with questions of the Lord's will: What will my next job be? What school should I go to? Who should I marry? While these are important life decisions, the results of them are many orders smaller in importance compared to our daily decision to follow Christ. The questions we should be asking are: Are we studying His Word with all our heart? Are we praying like our lives depend on it? Are we caring for those who can't help themselves, just as Christ did? Are we sharing the gospel like we believe Hell really exists?
I don't mean to belittle our big life decisions. Our life decisions still carry significance to God because He cares very much about the details of our lives - He doesn't create things He doesn't care about - but our daily commitment to His Word and His commandments has an eternal impact on our own souls and on the souls around us. This is His will. Our other big life decisions will simply become a manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit being worked out in our lives as we daily draw from His living water.

Now the bridge of the song explains what it's like to follow God's will; and the artist's prayer reminds me of my own. There have been times in my life where I'm so convinced that I'm acting out of God's spoken will for me that when the plans crumbled and failed, I questioned God's goodness instead of questioning my own intentions and assumptions. On a specific occasion, I pursued a certain path with the full confidence in my feelings of peace during my prayers and fasting, in the confirmation of God's Word, and in the validation of my close friends. And then it all fell apart. It was over a year later that I discovered my confidence was misplaced in the formula I created for determining God's will. I was confident in my knowledge. I was confident in my spirituality. I was confident in my heart's desires. I had a confidence that produced only pride and legalism.

I still don't know how to determine God's will in these life decisions, but I don't think it's a puzzle or a riddle that God expects us to figure out. And I think my accepted ignorance puts me in a good place. All I know now is that if I choose to follow God every day, He promises to always be with me in whatever I do and wherever I go (Rom 8:28). Because God has been faithful up to this point, I am confident that He'll let me know if I am acting outside of His plans for me. And while He may not speak to me face-to-face like He did with Moses, or give me dreams like He gave Joseph, God will align my desires to His desires as I pursue Him, and not His will.

I leave tomorrow for Japan and, more than anything, I'm excited for my new adventure. I have no idea what my life will be like a few months from now or even a week from now, but "whatever the cost" and "whether [my plans] work out or not", my choice will always be "to follow You with all of my heart."

This blog, more than it is about time spent abroad, is about the Precipice - that choice I make every day.