Reflection on 10 years in Japan - Part 2
In an unexpected plot twist, I found a bunch more fuel for reflection on my last decade in Japan.
After receiving a somewhat ominous official account email from Google Photos, I finally located the oldest saved photos from my Japan adventures. Praise God for account emails that he organizes at just the right time.
I’m not a huge picture taker, so fortunately I can scan through my 2015 to 2020 picture list in 20 minutes or so.
It’s through these older photos that I sensed most deeply the changes in myself with the ebb and flow of our world. God has been working on/in me.
The oldest saved photo I have from Japan is a generic shot taken on from the Kichijoji train platform. Must have been a test shot at my old home train station, on my new phone from that time, a Sony Xperia.
When I first arrived I was attempting to forgo a cellphone plan to save up for a phone. I navigated my commutes with downloaded instructions on my phone, sometime unsuccessfully those first few months of 2015. (In hindsight, I’m not sure why I considered this a good idea.)
My first picture is followed by a food photo from the 2015 opening of Taco Bell in Shibuya. Me and my church friends waited in line for almost an hour. The first church community I served with in Japan met in Shibuya, and it was a huge blessing to have those friendships in community right after I moved.
Looking through all the pictures reminded me of the changes, the moves, the communities. Pictures are a visual reminder of God shifting people, moving priorities, and adjusting lifestyles in his own timing.
I found shots of the old rooms that I rented, old clothes, old games, and good friends.
There's so many key people mixed into the selfies and group photos. That’s what’s most memorable when you look through old albums. People who went here and there. Memories we shared together.
It’s mixed with the remembered disappointments of things that didn’t work out. It’s fixed with remembered joys from things and people that truly brought life. Jesus is in the middle of it all.
A photo collection is a strange accumulation of God’s work in your life. Our digital footprints point to so much of what God was doing, and what he still has yet to accomplish.
We’re not the same person that we see in the photos. While we can vaguely remember the times, we have changed. Our brains have rewired and our spiritual wings have been tried. I pray that with the Holy Spirit’s help I’ve changed for the better.
As Pr. Tony has been sharing with us over the last few weeks, it’s not so much what we are doing for ministry. But rather, it’s who we are ministering to and with. We can get so caught up in the “what” that we forget the “who” right in front of us.
We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Our growing digital photo albums include timely snapshots of them.
Lord, please help us to keep growing in faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5–8 ESV