“Only God knows our Life: Who knew such a future was waiting for me”
I was born in a rural area of Gotsu City, Shimane Prefecture, in a family environment that had no connection to Christianity. In high school, I performed at the school festival for the first time and became popular. However, my father was a dentist, and so I entered dental school. When I was in my second year of college, my father unexpectedly became depressed and stopped working. I continued to play music after entering college, but I was torn between continuing the path of a dentist or devoting my life to music. A combination of timing and various factors led me to drop out of college, work part-time for a year to save money, and move to Tokyo to pursue my dream of becoming a musician. I started my life in Tokyo with almost no friends, and for the first time, I found myself lonely. Although I had a dream, I was always anxious and thought that if I did not achieve my dream, I might end up homeless, and I struggled day after day. Then I passed an audition for a live music club and was invited to perform there every month, During my second performance, for the first time in my life, I met a Christian who believed in God. She was an aspiring musician like me, but I felt something different about her when I saw her standing on stage with no pretenses, just being herself. It was something that I didn't feel. When I talked to her backstage, she told me that her father was a pastor and that she herself was a Christian. I became friends with her and was eventually led to go to church. However, I could not understand the pastor's message because it was too difficult to understand, and the only thing that stuck with me was the Bible phrase "God is love" that was posted behind the pulpit. At the time, I was working part-time as a cashier at a convenience store while working as a musician. I grew up listening to rock music and always went on stage with love and peace in my heart, and I thought I would do my part-time job with that kind of attitude. But in fact, the love and peace in my heart could barely last 2 hours, and everyday I would go to the bathroom and just wish that my shift would end. At that time, I heard the lyrics of the music that came from the radio saying, "Where does love come from, I asked myself," and I thought that love was in my heart, but the love in me was not much, and then I remembered that when I went to church, it was written that God is love.
Eventually, I began to attend church services every week so I could be refueled with love, like a car refueling with gasoline. The words that made me decide to become a Christian were, " And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
I was still doubting about Christianity when I came across these words. If I had been told that “the greatest of these is faith,” I might not have become a believer. I was shocked that the Bible says that the greatest thing is love, and I had no more room for doubt, and I became a believer.
I believe that the concept of love transforms our values which are often centered on what we stand to lose or gain.
Christ was God, but he didn't cling to that position. He was born on earth as a human being to save humanity who are suffering in a mire of sin. At the end, He took upon Himself the sins of mankind and died on the cross. He died on the cross so that we might live.
No one else has such great love. Trusting in this love of Christ, I am now walking with peace in my life. As my band activities expanded to Brazil and the U.S., I experienced God's miracle of singing in front of a huge audience of 320,000 people in Brazil.
I was able to experience the "living and working God.