The Cana Testimony

Edited by Mr. Mike Brown

17th Feb. 2009

This is a testimony of my past as a workaholic businessman and a husband to my once lonely and frustrated wife. This was the situation until the day we finally found deliverance from our sins and peace in our marriage through Jesus Christ.

When Japan’s “Bubble Economy” collapsed in the early 1990’s, the banking industry was one of the hardest hit. Virtually everything that I had experienced and knew about banking and finance no longer worked. Every day unsolvable problems assailed me. I kept thinking to myself that no matter how good a plan and how well it is executed, human abilities have certain limits. I felt something was missing, perhaps something was lacking in our wisdom and logic and wondered if there might be an answer lying elsewhere, perhaps in religion. I remember the Bible that one of my Australian staff members had given me 10 years previously, challenging me to read it. Not having spent much time going through it before, I now reached for it again and began to find some amazing things.

In a short while, I encountered Jesus' words in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” This really surprised me. I was looking for some Truth to use as a foundation for rebuilding. I thought something might be here, but I couldn’t visualize how to get it into our life. I thought I should try to go to church and see if I could get some help there. I visited a church near my home and soon started going to a class of beginners to study the Bible.

I began to enjoy the acquaintanceship. About six months had passed since then, the Sunday that I collapsed with a high fever and barely got myself home had come. For the next three days and nights, I was in bed with the worst case of shingles. But I began to read the Bible eagerly. I was like a man lost and sitting in the middle of the desert who suddenly finds a gushing fountain of water. Jesus' words in Mark 2:17, hooked me: “It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” I finally realized that my real problem was my spiritual sickness rather than just my case of shingles.

As I read and thought, I began to slowly discern the difference between the “way that leads to death” (Prov. 14:12) and the “way that leads to life”. It finally dawned on me that believing in Jesus’ death and resurrection was the only way to be saved. The Holy Spirit began to work in me. I fasted and began to truly repent of my sin. At age 45, I became a captive of Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, I merely switched my allegiance from company to church, with little thought about my family’s needs. I never used the word “love” in regard to my family, like so many men of my generation. I completely believed that if I worked for a prestigious company and made a good salary, and, had a high standing as a member of society, my family would automatically be happy. The reality however was considerably different, especially for my wife Ryoko.

She thought, “All through our marriage, my husband was never home. He was busy at work, of course, but even on off-days or weekends, there was volleyball, golf, and hanging out with friends from junior high, high school, and college days. There was no time for us. It was like a bad TV drama. All I really wanted was for my husband to just come home and the three of us have a pleasant dinner around the table. Even with the birth of daughter, Masaha, nothing significantly changed in our lives and I became more and more frustrated with this ‘always-waiting-for-my-husband’ life. After 15 years of marriage, I knew that if things didn’t change for the better soon, I had wanted out of the relationship.

After he had become a Christian, my daughter and I thought we were living with a stranger. Almost everything that came out of his mouth was scripture. He’d say things like, ‘The Bible is first, the hymnal is second. The television is an evil influence, so no TV!’ I wanted my old husband back and I couldn’t stand getting constantly drenched with this ‘gospel shower’ that wouldn’t shut off! My cry for attention increased after he became a Christian. I was incredulous as to how he could switch his focus so easily from work to church and still not give any time to his family. When he started leaving home at 6:30 on Sunday morning and not coming home until 7:30 in the evening, I felt as if our married life was close to being over.”

I was locked out my own house! My wife had bolted and chained our front door, with seemingly no concern as to whether would ever return or not. As a new Christian, I had been excited about the changes I knew the Lord would be making in my family life, and this shocking development took me completely by surprise. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this event, in fact, became the turning point that completely changed my family forever.

That evening, after walking and praying for about two hours, I returned to the house and got my daughter to let me in. The seriousness of the incident prompted a “family meeting” where some honest and not-so-pleasant matters finally came out into the open. This was a “crossroad” crisis for my family for sure, but unknown to me, some behind-the-scenes work to prepare the outcome had already been going on inside of Ryoko’s heart.

“You know, I had always looked at myself as the victim,” Ryoko said. “But a God I didn’t know had begun to work in my heart. This crisis made me realize for the first time that I had never even once inquired about the heavy burdens that my husband had been carrying around from work. I began to see the depth of my own selfishness and that what was missing in me was the ‘forgiving heart’ that Jesus demonstrated even on the cross. I think the ‘gospel shower’ that I had so desperately been trying to get away from had actually begun to help me grow after all.”

A short time after this, I asked my wife if she would help me host a Christian meeting in our home once a month. The testimonies she heard from various guests that I invited to the meetings, the scriptures she read -- all these things began to keep her awake at night. Jesus was knocking on the door of Ryoko’s heart and she realized that for the first time, she said, that all that He had done was for her. She starting attending the church near our home and within six months, she asked to be baptized. And six years after this, our daughter, Masaha, became a believer.

I spend most of my time helping various financial institutions re-structure and revive their situation. I’m kind of like a surgeon performing delicate operations. Sometimes the “patient” and creditors are not so cooperative. Where I once would just give up when I had to deal with a particularly thorny situation, I now take it to the Lord in prayer. And I’ve seen the Lord give me the answer to intractable problems time after time -- huge mountains moved by the Holy Sprit’s power. I’m so thankful to God.

Ryoko, as well, can testify to the mountains moved in her own life. She said, “I feel like my journey with the Lord up until now has been very much like that of Jesus’ disciple, Thomas, who wouldn’t believe in Jesus’ resurrection unless he could see it with his own eyes. Jesus has been saying to me, like He said to Thomas, ‘Stop doubting and believe!’ (John 20:27)”.

We’re just so awed by how great God is!

In the Love of Jesus, Kazuo Kanamori.