Don't Miss Japan

I need you to imagine a house.  And this house strikes the eye, because from the first time your eyes touch its exterior, they intake an image of flawlessness.  Visually, the house is practical, never overbearing- yet in its simplicity, veins of beauty have been accentuated, not concealed.  A pristine garden borders this house; as the structure of the house itself, neither is the landscape gaudy or colorful, but rather impressionable by its undeniable detail.  The house is not simply ordered- it is designed, intentionally- someone's hands were plunged into its affairs and wrought a system, not just an ordered system, but the best system for unpunctuated existence that could be reached for.  

Unpunctuated existence?  What I mean is that it's been thought through.  There is a method, a design for every imaginable scenario- a design for how to best catch the scenario, and protect it if it is good, and amend and heal it if it is dangerous.  There is no sickness in the house.  There is no uncleanness.  There is no waste; and there is no question.  There is no question of insecurity, no doubt of safety, no sinking feeling of "what if."  Every "what if" has been rushed into, fearlessly... and those intentional hands plunged themselves into what could be done.  What could be done- was.  What could be begun- was finished.  If it could even be dreamed- it could be done; and it was brought forth into reality and completion.  

The house exists in serenity.  The serenity is unpunctuated by unnecessary mistakes.  Life is able to run along, uninterrupted, unhindered- no, instead of those things, life is ushered forward, faster and faster, every door opened before those rapid feet; the hands tireless to quicken the pace at which every last seam or bolt may accomplish what it has been designed to.  If something evil may happen, it has been thought of and prepared against.  If something good could possibly happen, the way has been paved, in intricate detail, that it will.

Okay.

Japan is not a house.  Japan is not even a city, as may be imagined.  Japan is a nation.  

And if you can imagine that one, dream house I just tried to put into words- if you can imagine that house once, please imagine it a million times.

Welcome to Japan.  The society is immersed in perfection.  By perfection, I mean . . . I mean the society lacks nothing.  The society is improving itself as we speak.  It is a living being; and it is feeding itself, healing itself, instructing itself- Japan is growing faster, not older.  

Japan is growing wiser, not slower.

The things I've been witness to in a recent lifetime of seventy-seven days, the orderly flow of imagery that has washed before my eyes in the span of eleven weeks- indescribable.

Let me go for a little of it, at least a few shards and fragments of a much fuller picture.

Crosswalks, with flashing instruction that is adhered to whether in the fullness of hundreds of men and women surging out from office hours, or in the loneliness of a midnight hour with not a bicycle on the backstreet.

Local transportation, which arrives not only within the sixty seconds it promised a week ago it would, but also exactly where its automated doors will open before you, and not six inches to the left or right.

Sidewalks, creeping through the labyrinth of the city in clean-cut fashion, detracted from neither by a touch of trash nor by unkempt foliage.

Honor, honor of oneself, shown by each one's cultured dress and temperate, motionless, veiled disposition towards the world around them, the world towering stories above them and shuttling past floors beneath them.

Honor, honor of the surrounding community, silence not for the dead of night- but silence in the very midday for the man walking past you at a pace that will deliver him to his destination precisely at the moment that he is required to be there.

Trust.  Trust in your neighbour, trust in your community, the trust for every party to fulfill whatever their commitment may be.  Trust for the worker to work, trust for the driver to drive, trust for the methods to be upheld to.  Trust that the right thing to be done- will be done.  Trust that what could be done that will endanger the community- won't be done.  Trust.

These are only the examples that jump to my mind in the first fifteen seconds.  It would take a lifetime to merely appreciate the excellence that has been poured out from the spirit of one people.  Japan.  Tried, true, undaunted, unyielding, deeply protective, dedicated, detailed.  Accountable.  Trustworthy.  Delighting in solidity.  Delighting in attaining the highest mark.  Delighting in what is beautiful.  Japan.

This is what I found in eleven weeks living and breathing in Japan- and it is safe to say it is what you also shall find when you come.  When you come, the system will only be faster and fuller than what I have even seen now.  

Here seems like the natural place to end, but I am not finished.  

I have discovered the sheer, undeniable, powerful lifestyle of this nation.  But there is another heartbeat you will miss, if you will not know it... if we will refuse to know it.  For if this, if this true and actual scene I have just described above is all I discover, and I miss the pulse inside all this- I miss Japan.

Don't miss Japan.  Don't miss Japan.

I want you to keep carrying all the words I just delivered about this nation- but you need to add to it. You need to add the heartbeat if you are not going to miss Japan.

And the heartbeat?  The heartbeat is broken.  In the fastest pace race of a city I have ever beheld- the heartbeat is lost!  In the most effective and fullest discovery and studies- the heartbeat of this people is empty.  Amongst those with no lack- hunger!  Amongst those who have provided for themselves- poverty.  Amongst those who have searched and known all the routes of the human existence- lostness.  Lostness...

Have you considered the lost in Japan?

The nation that has found beauty and brilliance and wisdom and strength and resolve and community- the nation that has found the secrets of the world is

lost.

Are we finished?

We cannot be finished with Japan.  There is not a cry of poverty; there is no cry of need- and it is a mask that distorts the deep, longing, broken heartbeat of this people. 

The need is there.  The need is as sheer and undeniable as the brilliance and power and excellence you meet upon arrival.  Will you consider, oh to consider, the need of Japan also?  Will you lift your eyes to look, oh to look, at the need curled up in the hearts of millions who have done it all, and lack the one thing no man can "do"?

Japan is rising.  

Japan is called to rise.

Let us rise side by side; let us be there as a living, breathing, thriving people tastes what it is to thrive from the inside out.

          "On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out,

          'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 
          Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 

          "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."'"

          John 7:37-38

Can you imagine this people... filled with the Spirit of God, and revitalized- living, living, in perfect purpose, living to worship the Lord?  

The worship lifted to the Lord by the Japanese is a powerful sound.  But the sound when the people's hearts continue to turn.. the sound of a nation's voice?  God's heart is burning for this!

 The world isn't ready for this.  But I believe we can be there to envision what God has designed.  We can be holding our breaths to see what God is doing in Japan.  Get ready.  Be ready.  Japan will rise.  

Don't miss Japan.