From success as our foundation to Scripture as our rock
A four-generation reversal — the story of how God traced a single seed of faith all the way back to us.
KaoruWe were a textbook entrepreneurial family, certain that visible success was the one and only way to keep our family safe and happy. We put results and efficiency above all else, and even at home I was hard on myself and on my family — always feeling we had to be strong, that we had to keep winning.
YoshitoI lived by the same code: a man just needs to get ahead, achieve, and hold firm to his own core. "Religion is a crutch for the weak," I decided — carving out life by my own strength was the right answer. Even when I heard verses from the Bible, I treated them as nothing more than handy advice for a richer life.
YoshitoThen one day our eldest son said he believed in Jesus Christ. Honestly, my heart sank. "Has he become so weak that he needs something to lean on?" I watched him with suspicion. But when I went to his baptism, our whole framework was overturned. The person standing there wasn't a weakened son — he was a strong young man, filled with a peace and hope I had never seen before.
KaoruAs I listened to our son's confession of faith, before I knew it the two of us couldn't stop crying. All the thirst in hearts that had been bluffing their way through the pursuit of success came pouring out at once, met by the love of God. That day, my husband and I received our Savior too.
YoshitoWatching us change, our second son came to faith not long after. From there, the foundation of our family shifted dramatically — from "individual ability" to "Scripture." We used to reach for verses only when convenient; now it's different. The Bible has become the foundation that holds up all of life.
KaoruGod's miracles spread beyond our family. When a large tumor was found in my younger sister, we prayed together and saw it healed. More miracles followed, and seeing them, my own parents — the children's grandparents — finally believed in Jesus and were saved.
KaoruIt was after our whole family had been saved. While my mother was praying earnestly, she suddenly remembered the belongings her late father-in-law had left behind — to me, my grandfather; to our children, their great-grandfather. "There was something important," she felt. Sorting through his old, dust-covered things, she found a single old Bible. Astonishingly, the records revealed that he had quietly been baptized as a Christian in his youth.
YoshitoWe had thought, "We were saved first, and we led our family." But the truth was the opposite. That great-grandfather's prayer reached across the decades to call us back — and our sons, his great-grandchildren, with us.
KaoruIt began with our son, then us his parents, then our parents. It looks as if salvation traveled backward, from child to elder. But in fact, from the very beginning, God had been guarding and growing the seed of our great-grandfather's faith across four generations.
Yoshito & KaoruToday, our home stands not on the sand of success, but on the solid rock of Scripture. We give thanks from our hearts for this wonderful plan of God.
This is what God is doing in Japan
Stories like this are happening across Osaka. You can be part of the next one.
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