Short and Sweet

Sometimes (almost every time) I get carried away writing on here, too bad that doesn't ever happen when I'm writing papers for school... Anyways, I just wanted to briefly hit on some thoughts I've had over the last 24 hours or so.

Several months ago now, I was living with a family in Japan. I was sort of just thrust into their daily routine.  On one of the first nights, we were sitting in the living room after dinner watching TV, and Die Hard was on.  I did not speak a word of Japanese at the time, but I sat and watched and listened as the Moriyama family discussed the plot lines of all 4 die hard movies, complete with pantomimes and onomatopoeia.  I understood exactly what they were saying to each other even though it was in a foreign language and they weren't necessarily directing their comments towards me. This highlighted two things that I have been taught my whole life; 1. People are always watching you, 2. It is possible to communicate certain things effectively even with a massive language barrier.

First, people are always watching you. My parents have been telling me this for AGES. People around you pay attention to the things you say and do, whether or not you want them to. This means that if you aren't 100% authentic at ALL TIMES, people are going to notice. I want to live in a way that is 100% authentic, all the time.

Second, Language is one of the least important factors in communication.  Don't be mistaken, this is not my attempt to say "Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words." Not at all. This is me expressing that I never want to let a language barrier get in the way of communicating God's story of redemption to those around me.

Moral of the story, I'm working to get to a point in my life where A) I don't have to be conscious of people watching me because I know that God reigns supreme in all I do. And B) I stop making lame excuses for not sharing the gospel with people like "They speak Japanese and I don't."

I guess that was more like medium length... my bad....