Category: Lives

Anything having to do with our lives

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Lives

Living Refreshed

It’s really kind of crazy — we’ve lived here over six years, right along the banks of the Tama River, and never once enjoyed a dip in the water until this year. We heard that the river wasn’t a clean river, and so we avoided entering it. But looking at it, it looked so inviting and refreshing. We saw other people kayaking, other people swimming, still others barbecuing nearby. We would admire it from afar, but never enter in ourselves.

Then this year came. Pools and beaches are at limited capacity. Restrictions in place that keep us from enjoying the water like we would like. Couple that with the extraordinary heat of the last couple of weeks and the shortened summer vacation, and we were needing a place close by to go to and cool off.

One of our friends researched the Tama River and found, to our delight, that the water is not only swimmable, but it has a high grade “A” ranking right by where we live, which is the ranking just under drinkable water at AA. What a discovery! So we found a nice shady spot where the water was safe, the current calm and we waded on in with our family. Wow! What a refreshing thing to do — and so close to us! Our experience with the Tama River just improved a hundred times over this Summer, and we would have never discovered it unless everything else was limited as an option. Funny how life’s limitations can lead to the greatest breakthroughs.

God’s Presence is Like a Refreshing River in the Hot Summer

As I was making this video, I realized it is a perfect analogy to God and His presence in our lives. God’s presence is there for each and every one of us — we can see His handiwork all over creation (it’s His very own work, after all). God’s presence is described in the Bible as a River of Living Water, a perfectly pure river which you can drink from and never be thirsty again, a river you can enter and go deeper and deeper until you float away in God’s great current. It is a place of refreshing for the weary and restoration for the tired.

God’s presence is with you now. Maybe you’ve seen it expressed in our lives or in the lives of others who are full of His joy. But have you ever experienced God’s presence in such a way that it refreshes and revitalizes you?

Experiencing God’s presence is the difference between religion (trying to be good to earn God’s favor) and true Christianity, which is receiving God’s love for you through Jesus Christ and trusting him to make you clean. It’s when you stop trying to do life by your own strength. God graciously gives His Spirit to everyone who believes in Him, and His Spirit is like a river of living water that flows from our very hearts. This is a spring of refreshing like no other, and it only belongs to those who have given their hearts over fully to Jesus.

I could have no greater hope and prayer for you that you would discover this source of refreshing that brings life in the midst of so much restriction and that the heat of summer that would dry up all your joy would in fact become a source of joy as you enter in God’s goodness in His river of life.

My only regret in living close to the Tama River all these years is that I didn’t actually enter it until this year. All those hot summers gone by in the stifling heat, and I could have been swimming all along! All of those days with not enough time to go somewhere far, but all I needed was close by and I didn’t even realize it. It was staring me in the face the whole time!

Don’t make the same mistake with God. Don’t wait longer to look into who Jesus is, to believe on Him and receive the Holy Spirit. You can be refreshed right where you are, right now. You too will wish you would have tried it sooner in life!

Imagine if you could say 2020 was the best year of your life so far because it was the year, through all the difficulties, that you found the greatest treasure of all that was so close all along: God’s sweet river of refreshing in Jesus.

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LIJ Episode Lives Videos

Living in the Garden of Eden

All of you who follow us and watch us, you’re a special part of our extended online family. We’re glad to bring you joy as we continue to enjoy the relationships God gave us to nurture with Him and with each other. These relationships give a solid base for difficult times, and without them I would not be the person that I am — and we wouldn’t be the family that we are!

These relationships do not happen naturally — in fact for any good relationship to work well, there has to be loving commitment to each other. The closer you get to people, the more you see all their faults. The better they can see your faults too! This is where true love comes in. The feelings of love for others often fade over time, but a strong commitment to love one another can strengthen relationship ties even in the seasons when the feelings are not there. The fruit of healthy relationships is a joy for everyone — and it makes for great videos too!

The 3 Stages of Healthy Relationships

Recently I officiated a small ceremony to celebrate 30 years of marriage of good friends of our Side and Jaquie. They asked me to lead a ceremony and share a word about marriage so that they could invite their close friends and family and renew their wedding vows. I shared about the 3 stages of a healthy relationship, of which they exhibited.

Relationships (especially marriages) go through three major life-phases. There’s the Honeymoon phase — the one everyone loves and often thinks is the best phase (but there’s a better one). Everything’s new and the relationship is fun and personal. Everyday is like walking on sunshine and even if everything’s wrong in the world, you’re doing alright. You’re always thinking of the other person, meeting their needs and being considerate of them. Passion is hot. We all feel like we’d like to stay here, especially when we see the next phase.

The next phase is what I call the Desert of Normality where all the passionate feelings you had for each other cool off as years and years of everyday life wears you down. Throw kids into the mix and you often reach a point where you’re not even sure if you “love” the person anymore. Yes — this is normal, and actually an essential phase for building a true loving relationship that goes deeper than feelings.

God did not intend this phase as your final destination as a married couple, but unfortunately way too many people bail out on their spouse at this particular phase, before they can even make it to the best phase. They think somethings wrong with them, with their spouse, or perhaps they married wrong. They look for fulfillment in other places (food, work, pleasure, other relationships). Anyway you cut it, eventually they think that the best phase of marriage is gone and the only way to reclaim it is to strike up something with someone new and get back to that honeymoon stage. Unfortunately this is only ever a huge step backwards and will still lead you to this second stage with the new person you married.

Research shows it takes 10-15 years for a married couple to start thinking collectively, as a couple, instead of as individuals. If you stick out the difficult phase, learning how to make your relationship work and learning how to prioritize one another even with all of life’s challenges, you eventually arrive at the 3rd phase I like to call The Garden of Eden.

The Garden of Eden was the perfect place God made when He created mankind and there was no sin, sickness, curse or sin in the world. While it is impossible to escape all of the negative aspects of this current world, we can enjoy marriage as God intended it — to be so well unified as “one” that we have a little piece of heaven in our homes. Many couples married more than 30, 40 even 50 years say that their marriages have more passion, fulfillment, purpose and fun than ever before. This is possible because they have become one.

Ruth and I are moving into this 3rd phase, and it is really wonderful. There are still plenty of moments in that 2nd phase that we have to work out, but dealing with those things properly is what sets you up for a win in the 3rd phase. You can ignore the 2nd phase altogether, but that will only leave you with a passionless and stagnate marriage, or worse yet end in divorce.

No one enters marriage thinking it will end in divorce. Everyone would like to stay at the Honeymoon stage, but that’s not possible either. But the good news is that when we do marriage God’s way, we have a promise that the end will be even better than the beginning, and that’s something to celebrate.

If your marriage fell apart, my heart goes out to you. If your marriage is stuck and you think you might not survive, know that God is for you and wants to help you throw it. God is a God of second chances, Jesus proved that as He died on the cross on our behalf, so that we could have the ultimate 2nd chance. And although you may not be able to fix past, God can give you a better future when your life is in His hands, directed by his Holy Spirit and Word (the Bible). There is always hope with God.

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LIJ Episode Lives Videos

Not Your Normal Summer

I’ve always loved summer — especially summer break. It was time off school for playing, vacation and time with friends and family. This year summer vacation is very different, it is not your normal summer. It takes extra work and effort to do the same things we did just a year ago.

So how do we stay focused and positive through all of this? First of all, we are not always perfect. We have our bad days. We have our upset and irritated days. Sometimes by sure willpower you can force yourself to be positive. But the longer you have to force yourself to be positive, the sooner it will be before something snaps, and all that pent up frustration comes out. Look out when that happens!

To be truly happy, there has to be source of joy and peace inside that isn’t dependent on outside circumstances that ebb and flow. I have heard of more marriages breaking up than ever before, because the circumstances of 2020 have pushed people to their breaking points and past them! This is not what God wants for you or your family! How do you stay encouraged during this time? Read this verse and then listen to this video for our secret on how we do it.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible: Letter of Romans 15:13

My prayer for you is that you can also enjoy this beautiful fountain of hope, joy and peace that is only found in Jesus Christ. We need it for 2020. Our families need it. Our countries need it.

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LIJ Episode Lives Videos

Behind the Scenes of LIJ

Time for something completely different — a look behind the scenes of how we produce Life in Japan! I’ve always been a huge fan of technology (A.K.A. nerd). In this episode some of that leeks out as I talk about how everything from cameras to computers come together for each episode of Life in Japan.

If you’ve ever made a video, then you have an idea of the amount of time, energy and focus that is required to actually make one. Dedication and passion are required to keep consistently producing and it’s a discipline that few can truly appreciate. Even though I’ve been producing movies and music for years, I have learned so much in the last two years due to the amount that I have been producing.

While there are certainly days I feel like I’m crazy for all this, I feel so richly rewarded to know that we are being a blessing for everyone who’s watching on YouTube, listening to our music and coming to Paz Coffee Shop and Paz Church. And our whole point of living in Japan is to bring the love of Jesus in all kinds of ways and styles. Thank you for watching and being a part of this journey of our Life in Japan!

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Lives

Summer Weekends in 2020

Today the 2020 Olympic Games begin! Or, at least, they would have until corona happened. This year has been a year of learning to adapt and adjust, to make do with what we have and to make the best of every situation. The olympics aren’t happening now and things look very different than they did just 6 months ago. But one thing hasn’t changed in 2020: the weekends are still a time of resting from everyday work and recharging our batteries. It’s just the things we do that has changed a bit.

What refreshes or renews you is different from person to person — some like to sleep in (like Ruth), others like playing games, going places, hanging out with friends or just reading a good book. All of these things are good, but one of the things that 2020 has proved to us is the importance of healthy relationships with God and others. Any substitute for these things will result in an unbalanced life that quickly topples with all life’s current challenges.

For us, church has always been a big part of our weekends. Rarely do we miss a Sunday at church, but when we do, the rest of the week just feels “off.” It’s one of those habits that I recommend to anyone wanting to establish healthy weekly life patterns. It’s been proven that the most powerful tool that a psychologist has to help their patient is not their knowledge but their relationship with the patient. In the same way, our relationships to others in the church allow us to flourish even when life around us is hard. It’s in those healthy relationships that we discover more clearly who God is and how He loves us. Do you have this in your life? If not, I couldn’t recommend it more! Find a good church near you and start attending, if even online at first. See how it lifts your weekend up and sets you up for a good week.