Dan Schmitt

The Faithfulness Of Our God

One of the primary lessons I will take away from my time in Japan is that God is God. He gets His work done not because we ask Him to or because our sacrifices measure up, but only because He wants it that way. God’s character is the epitome of consistency. He will always love Japan and the Japanese people. They will be saved not because I took a month out of my life to serve them, but because it is His will that they not perish.
Serving in Japan in the summer of 2008 was my first mission trip. As surely as I had no experience, I made many mistakes. One of the most comforting realizations I had, though, is that God works apart from the mistakes. A praise song that we sang during the trip had the lyrics, “In the midst of the storm, through the wind and the waves, you’ll still be faithful.” It doesn’t matter that I failed to reach out to more people, or that I could’ve poured more into the relationships that I established. I don’t have to worry about the mistakes that I make because God doesn’t need my help to begin with; He is self-sufficient.
There is one girl in particular that I gave several English lessons to. I didn’t know her before our first lesson, so our meeting was rather abrupt. It’s almost as if God brought her to my doorstep and asked me if I was willing to reach out to her. All he needed was the first step, the smallest seed of faith, and He took off running with the rest. Immediately he seemed to go crazy with working on her heart. I’m not the judge of her faith, so I cannot be sure of the legitimacy of her acceptance of Christ. However, I stand witness to the fact that God works in the heart of the lost on His own. I didn’t feel like I did anything or said anything worthwhile; I just sat by while I watched God do His thing. As I contemplated afterward what had just happened, I had one of those times where I felt God speaking directly to me. It was if He was asking, “Do you finally see? I’m working in Japan.”
Long after the team leaves to return to America, God will remain. He still has a lot of work to accomplish, and He is constantly working toward the salvation of the Japanese people. We can rest assured that God knows of the spiritual depravity of Japan and that He’s in control. He will continue to work in their hearts because He is who He is. There is nothing I could ever hope to do that will stand alone in evoking the heart of God. I am nothing, and this summer He graciously allowed me to participate in the work He’s doing around the world. I’m thankful for the opportunity to so clearly learn such an elementary lesson. As the trip drew to a close, God wrote the words of John 15:5 on my heart, and I pray that I will always carry them with me.