Spiritual Virtigo...Snow globe theology?

"Vertigo (from the Latin vertigin-, vertigo, "dizziness," originally "a whirling or spinning movement," from vertō "I turn"[1]) is a specific type of dizziness, a major symptom of a balance disorder. It is the sensation of spinning or swaying while the body is actually stationary with respect to the surroundings.The effects of vertigo may be slight. It can cause nausea and vomiting and, in severe cases, it may give rise to difficulties with standing and walking." Wikipedia


My Brother-in-Law has vertigo. He was just riding his bicycle down the street (Okay I'll make it sound cooler) He was road racing down a fierce mountain... when all of a sudden he get's dizzy not just a little but like real wacky having to take all strength and stability to manage getting back home to call 911. He did not do anything to contract the inner ear virus but it just happened. It runs it's course in 10 days or so and he should be back in action road racing or bicycling to the doughnut shop whichever really transpired. Sorry Bro in advance.


This got me thinking about Christians who are impacted by a series of life's intrusions that cause extreme confusion. Like Job who looses all his livelihood and family and possessions then to have friends spend several days accusing him of some erroneous sin that he has never committed. So we then see in Chapter 38 that the first verse says, "Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said."

Whirlwind? What is that all about? Is it a dust devil or tornado. In Japanese it is a storm. But in light of the definition of vertigo I thought that this might be the case "a whirling or spinning movement," the definition says which causes "a specific type of dizziness, a major symptom of a balance disorder. It is the sensation of spinning or swaying." Can this inner turmoil actually be a whirlwind within the mind a spiritual vertigo. Can we loose our sense of reality and balanced lifestyle and be thrust into chaos for God's glory? Perhaps?

I have a daughter who went through a heart transplant. It was a genetic disease or so we believe but the answers remain unanswered. We don't know why this all happened and what it means for the future but as we went through the wringer of emotions I came to a point of wanting to get off the craziness.

There comes that point in all our trials that we just want it to stop and we want off. We may even scream physically loud, "God get me off this roller coaster! NOW!" I did. It was at that time that the Lord spoke to me and revealed some special things about his character and nature. When we are out of control He is in control. Peter sinking in the water..."LORD HELP!" Jesus was in control. Job sitting in dust and ashes scrapping oozing sores with pottery...God speaks.

How about you? Are you in a trial? Great! That is wonderful. Now you can stop and listen and you will hear him tell you things you never knew. You may get angry with me and say, "What? you say I am suffering just to hear God? That's crazy?" Let me ask if you were listening before as intently as you are able to now?

My son sometimes will not look at me when I speak to him instructions about an activity that is a serious event. He must do these things for safety to others. He'll do the, "Yea Yea got it dad..." But but I will once in a while just grab him and look into his eyes and express the seriousness of the issue at hand. It seems in our most violent times of life the Lord is with us and comforting us even as we are loosing lunch and dinner and everything else... the Lord is with us and comforting us. Paul never thought a 10 pound boulder upside his head would be neat to try out some day. Come on Barny hit me with that boulder I want to...doiggggg. But we know Paul did suffer some severe afflictions and then considered it joy to suffer these things for our sake. What...that rock must have hit some sensitive stuff. Yet he did see heaven.

But as he goes on in his letter to the Corinthians we find there is now a ministerial call to share comfort with others. In 2 Corinthians 1 we find Paul saying, "Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."


In 2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. The treasure in us is God. I am now wondering if we are not a snow globe and all the junk settles in our life and God must shake it up again to get people to look and go Ohh...Ahh Wow God is wonderful... Just a thought?

I know God loves each of us very much but we must remember God is God and he is sovereign and will do what it takes to bring himself the greatest glory. He did in Job's life...He did in Pauls life...I know he did in my life... How about your life? Is God at work? If he is then you can expect a shake up or two from time to time. Give him the glory great things he has done.

Note: My Brother-in-law was a great object lesson for me to write this but he is not the intended recipient nor is this in any way a commentary on my philosophy of why he is on a couch with vertigo. He was just food for thought that led me to think about food for faith...Nahum 1:3 "...the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds [are] the dust of his feet."

The Lord has his way...and the clouds of dust are the witness of his activity... Hebrews 12:1 "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us."

The clouds here are the saints of all the Christians who all went through struggles and trying times. We will all experience a shake up from time to time...expect it and then when it comes give him the glory no matter how bad you feel. Job said though he slay me yet will I trust him. Job 13:15. I want to do the same won't you? God bless

Genkan Christianity

Are there Genkan Christians who go into God's house only to stay in the Genkan and not experience anything God has for them? Genkan is the entry way in a Japanese home where you greet someone and remove and put on shoes. Some people don't want to bother you or take off their shoes and they will resist the pleas to enter in and will be content to just remain in the Genkan. I have seen personally on many occasions where two ladies will talk for hours in the Genkan. I wish that Christians would fully enter in to the Lords house to experience all that he has for us. Why settle for stinky shoe storage. There is a whole kitchen and living room to explore and places for special rest and peace. Places for exercising faith and worship. There are places in God's house for intimacy with him. Yea God rocks and I want all that he has for me and also to see others live the life of a Christian to the fullest.




A side note these are not my genkan. Mine is a mess and I can never find my flip flops. I like it that way to prevent genkan lethargy. Just come on in.

English is Fun in Japan

It is not my desire to poke fun at the mistakes but they just make me laugh when I see them and it's cute. Some of these photos are ones I took traveling around or shopping. See if you can catch the humor. Some are obvious others are subtle. Hope you get a chuckle out of them too.

I love my ESL class

My Birthday was a week ago but my kids and their moms got me a birthday cake. It was a blessing. So yummy. Thank you guys for a great memory. We are really becoming like a family sharing in many things and ways. I do pray that I can share more of Jesus with them. They know the gospel and seeds are being sown. Pray for their faith to grow. It was a great time.

Piece of Mind Carry?

On the way to Ikea I got a chuckle out of the name of the carrier truck company. It said Piece of Mind Carry. We could wonder are they carrying my mom's piece of mind that she always had a desire to give to someone so now they are shipping it over seas? Is this a new cuisine of Japan like a piece of cake now we have a piece of mind. What does that taste like? Next we will have sushi and piece of mind pizza toppings...

Ikea is in Japan only 1.5 to 2 hours away

We took the time while the kids are on Summer vacation to take a road trip to Ikea. It was fun. The trip was long while going because I used my great navigational skills to take main highways which are convenient and simplistic but the traffic can extend the trip. On the way back I listened to my wife and took another 5 or 6 different streets and we shaved off 30+ minutes on the trip. We could have taken the toll roads but that would have been about $60 dollars US round trip.


The facility is just like the Costa Mesa store which means there are hundreds of similar stores around the globe. It was very much a treat as we used to spend a lot of time just putting the kids in the day care center and sipping coffee and talking in the Cafeteria. We did stumble upon a bargain day where the 10 meatball dish was 1/2 price so we chowed down. The kids enjoyed the fun and we were lounge lizards trying out all the soft chairs. We don't have a lot of chairs here so it was nostalgic to hang out.

Visioneering interesting read

As Christians we are always to endeavor to gain wisdom and knowledge. I am still reading, "The Jesus Way" but I had been reading this book by Andy Stanley whose dad is the famous preacher Charles Stanley you might have heard on KKLA for those of you in California. Andy his son is an accomplished writer, pastor, and church planter. He challenges me in an area I am very sensitive about. The term Vision versus Visualization. They are diffeent. Visualization is the New Age term for worship. You want it visualize it. The Faith teachers use the "Name-it-and-claim-it" technique. This is neither of those. Andy's book is looking at the life of Nehemiah and discover how having a vision is important to the strength and fruitfulness of a Spirit-led life. The Bible says, "Where [there is] no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy [is] he. Prov. 29:18" Andy is clever in his very positive encouragement and analysis of Nehemiah and the vision he was given by God and then he acted upon it. So many men have vision while in College or seminary and then it vanishes when they get out. Why? They lack the means and steps whereby to emplore the Lord for leading and direction to fulfill the vision. I am not even half way so my analysis is going to have to be tabled until then. It is a good read so far. Below is the Amazon explanantion of the book.

Book Description
God has crafted a unique vision for each of our lives, a voyage of great discovery filled with fantastic riches that are imbedded in the very journey itself. Yet few know where to begin this journey and fewer still know the questions to ask to get them on their way. With warm, down-to-earth practicality, Andy Stanley explores the ordinary life of Nehemiah and his vision for accomplishing the extraordinary. The astonishing concepts learned from Nehemiah are described in this practical guide that provides the direction, motivation, and encouragement for rising above the ordinary and realizing the unique vision that God has for you and you alone.

The Chichibu Hebi Slide/ The snake slide

Hey we went to Chichibu yesterday and had a blast just playing at a park with an amazing roller slide. It was very long and when I used to work as Kodak they had these roller slides for packages and I thought it would be fun to ride on them but it was not safe and we'd get fired for doing it. Well, here in Japan there is no OSHA and they have left this slide open to the public and it is free. I even rode it and boy was it fun.

The Jesus Way

I was just given a book to read called the way of Jesus by Eugene H. Peterson. It comes out of the starting blocks swinging at the modern current Madison avenue techniques churches employ to do church. He focuses on, "The Jesus way is wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life." (p4) So much of the church today is focused on the truth of Jesus yet when it comes to the way of Jesus there is a total disconnect and thus we have churches without the life of Jesus even though they teach the truth but they lack the way. Corporate ideology in the church quenches the way and Mr. Peterson says it is wrong in his view.


Here is a long quote from pages 6-7
"The great American innovation in congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise. We Americans have developed a culture of acquisition, an economy that is dependent on wanting more, requiring more. We have a huge advertising industry designed to stir up appetites we didn't even know we had. We are insatiable.
It didn't take long for some of our Christian brothers and sisters to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our congregations is to identify what they want and offer it to them, satisfy their fantasies, promise them the moon, recast the gospel in consumer terms; entertainment, satisfaction, excitement, adventure, problem solving, whatever. This is the language we Americans grow up on, the language we understand. We are the world's champion consumers, so why shouldn't we have state-of-the-art consumer churches?
Given the conditions prevailing in our culture, this is the best and most effective way that has ever been devised for gathering large and prosperous congregations. Americans lead the world in showing how to do it. There is only one thing wrong: this is not the way in which God brings us into conformity with the life of Jesus and sets us on the way of Jesus' salvation. This is not the way in which we become less and Jesus becomes more....We can't gather a God-fearing, God-worshiping congregation by cultivating a consumer pleasing, commodity-oriented congregation...The Jesus way and the Jesus truth must be congruent. Only when the Jesus way is organically joined with the Jesus truth do we get the Jesus life."

In planting a church in Japan clearly the Japanese are on the heals of America in consumerism. I might argue they are slightly ahead. It would be easy to give them a consumerism church and there are big works in progress with flash and lights and lots of pizazz. But they are lacking the simplicity of just a simple walk with Jesus. We walk with him in the good times and the bad, in the happy and the sad, we walk with Jesus when he blesses and when he disciplines. We are married to Jesus and need to become intimate with him on our own. We need to be still and know that he is God. To jump in a congregation for an hour singing praise songs to Jesus can be a exhilarating experience but you haven't learned the Jesus life.

The Japanese need love and grace. They have so many laws and restrictions and there is so much duality of persons that you can't trust anyone. The Japanese just need a simple loving relationship with Jesus. Not another God with millions of rules in order to obtain blessings. But a God of Love that blesses because that is his character and nature.

I have not but read the introduction and begun the first chapter so when I finish I will give a more complete report.

My latest attempt at a new sign

What'd ya think?

Grace Christian Fellowship VBS WOW!!

WOW is all I can say...The GCF crew had at least 100 kids rocking and dancing and doing motions to music that was way cool and bilingual. They really put a lot of work into preparing for these kids. They had the Crock Dock VBS material and took even the DVD's and did voice overs in Japanese. The kids went crazy. My kids Nathan, and Rachel, and Jane were loving it. All 5 days of insanity went well with many kids giving their lives to Jesus. Pray that their parents will too. Pray that the kids can come back for Sunday School. Pray for the GCF crew to recover after all that. My kids are still wanting the CD of the music in Japanese to listen to in the car. Thank you GCF guys for a wonderful time.