For the last few months, my physical condition hasn’t been well. Last week I went to see a doctor, but no particular problem was found yet. I’ve been constantly plagued by fatigue, lack of energy, drowsiness, and lethargy, and I’ve been unable to get around to do the work I need to do. How much longer will this situation last? It feels like I’ll never get back to that refreshing sense of vitality I used to have. Perhaps this is what people call “aging” or “decline.” It feels like I’ve lost some part of my physical strength and mental energy.

When we lose something we depended on, it feels as if we’ve lost our way to move on. And
then we try to regain that once again. However, when we realize we cannot regain it we fall into despair and eventually lose mentality and reason to move forward.

The Bible isn’t so negative about losing things. Rather, it seems positive. It teaches that the
more we lose what we depend on, the less we rely on ourselves, and when we try to rely more on Jesus, it manifests the power of Christ through us. To lose in this world means to help gain more of God.

Is this true? Will something like that really happen in our lives? I chose to live believing so.

I’ve experienced and tasted already, yet more I want to experience and taste—in both the
surface and beneath of my life—the truth revealed by Christ’s Cross that defeat transforms into a victory, death into resurrection, darkness into light, and hatred and disappointment into forgiveness and hope.

Job lost everything yet said in praise, “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job later, at the very end, received God’s amazing
blessings and finished his life on earth.

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Pastor Takeshi