Yesterday my team and I prayer-walked Nichi-dai, Nihon University, or 日本大学 for those of you who read Japanese. This is one of the three campuses I will be doing ministry on this year. It is the largest university in Japan, boasting almost 70,000 undergrad students alone.
Albert and I went into the Economics building to explore and pray over it. Now Nichi-dai is interesting because each department has its own building, and the buildings are set throughout Tokyo. We had a little confusion in figuring this out, so I entered our prayer time a little frazzled and discombobulated. The feel in the Economics building was very isolating, with lots of closed doors and small rooms. There were no public areas of gathering so I was not feeling very encouraged about doing ministry there.
I did pray against those feelings and Albert prayed that all the little nooks and rooms we saw would one day house student-led bible studies. How cool that would be!
Leaving the building I definitely had a poor attitude. I was not feeling excited about ministry, and was dreading our first day of sharing. As always, God totally humbled me within minutes.
We met with a past STInter, Ariel, who had done ministry on Nichi-dai's campus in the past. While we were with him we ran into two students with whom he had formed relationships. They were both really excited to see him again and to meet us. After they left he said they were two of his team's best contacts. And we ran into both within the span of half an hour. Coincidence? I think not!
That was God's first reminder that he was in control and I was not trusting him. The second came from our team time sharing about what we had seen. Everyone else had had a much more positive experience, finding really good meeting areas and neat sights around the different campus buildings. And then Ariel told us about an English professor who had invited Ariel's team to come to his English class. Basically it was an open invitation to meet with students and talk with them. And as someone semi-familiar with campus ministry, these invitations are golden opportunities to share the gospel and very hard to come by. The icing on the cake of my lesson in faith was this professor was a graduate of UCLA, MY alma-mater.
I mean, really? I think I get the point now.
All this brought to mind Hebrews 11, titled "Faith in Action" in the NIV. It shares story upon story of people of faith in the Bible. And "these were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." This verse stood out in particular because it is exactly what I was not doing at Nichi-dai.
I was not believing that God could use me to share his Gospel on this campus because so many obstacles seemed to be standing in my way. I did not believe He was big enough to overcome said obstacles and, by His spirit, transform students' lives forever. I was so fearful of what I was seeing in the present I didn't stop to think about God's promises, his faithfulness time and time again in my own life, to believe his perfect plan could prevail amidst the challenges.
God really humbled me yesterday. He's going to need to humble me a lot more before this year is up. But I'm excited for those lessons because they mean drawing nearer to his will, gaining a greater compassion for his people, and a greater desire to truly follow after Jesus.
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