His Voice Global Blog

I recently discovered this blog, Pete Muller Photography: Reports and Thoughts from Sudan and Beyond. He does a lot of journalistic reporting and photography from around Africa, specifically Sudan.  His most recent post includes some captivating photos from Juba, South Sudan as citizens gear up for the referendum on secession. Thought you might like to see them and read his brief article on the political condition there.

Read more and see photos here.

Pete Muller Photography

Sometimes it is. I guess it depends on what “being the best” looks like.

I just read an article on all the guys that were inducted in the football hall of fame yesterday. The quote that stood out to me the most was from Jerry Rice, the great wide receiver.

“My single regret about my career is I never took the time to enjoy it,” he said. “I was always working.”

“I was afraid to fail. The fear of failure is the engine that has driven me my entire life. The reason they never caught me from behind is because I ran scared. People always are surprised how insecure I was. The doubts, the struggles, is who I am. I wonder if I would have been as successful without them.”

So, my question is, “Do you think that having the fear of failure as your motivation, would be worth ‘being the best’ in what you are doing?”

I am just wondering (out loud, of course) if the stress would be worth all of it. I also need to confess that the fear of failure has been a huge motivation in my life. The problem for me is that it has also come at a steep cost of not enjoying life, in many instances.

I look at all the children in the orphanages in Sudan and the thing that amazes me is not that they do not have certain things, but it is that they possess so much! Their simplicity of life is clearly brilliant and in many times, filled with joy.

Makes you wonder who is truly successful. Yet, my great teachers (the orphans) have invited me into a life that values that which is of utmost importance. It would be wise for me to be a good student and absorb the teaching.

Love Truth
Vernon

I was reading the following quote from C.S. Lewis today on a twitter feed called, CSLewisDaily.

“Be Ye Perfect” isn’t a command to do the impossible. Christ is going to make us creatures that can obey that command.

This command has not only given me sleepless nights very often, but has been a plague of insecurity. Instead, of seeing that HE WILL ACCOMPLISH THIS IN ME, I have so often looked into the impossibility of this reality and turned to desperation.

Perfection in Him has been placed in me. Therefore, life must continue to be a matter of submitting to His perfection, not trying to conjure up my own. Impossibility is not a call to despondency, but a lifestyle of comforting submission in Him. He is in control and in His control is my freedom.

Love Truth
Vernon

I am reading a great book by Wayne Cordeiro called Leading on Empty.

As he is documenting his own experience with burnout, Wayne makes a profound statement on self expectations.

I knew others loved me, but living up to the expectations systematically ingrained into the fabric of who I was became the person I could not escape.

Have you ever been in this place? You know that many others love you, yet your own expectations are hounding you like a grizzly bear that has turned you into its prey.

Here is one of the warning signs that your own self expectations are driving you to the point burnout. If others can notice the work of the Lord in your life, yet your first reaction is, “If you only knew….,” or “Thanks, but…”

I not trying to say that you should try and become full or your self. In fact, it is the opposite. You need to cultivate a disposition of gratitude. Ask God to show you all the things to be grateful for. Ask Him to open your eyes to all of the blessing He has put in your life.

Again, I am not trying to have a “head in the clouds” mentality. What I am saying is that many times we can implode on ourselves, instead of focusing on the Lord and thanking Him for all He has done, is doing, and will do in our lives.

Love Truth
Vernon

Phew. That last one was a little zany; I must admit. I am about to get on my third flight, but the last flight was fantastic! Only, of course because the Lord- oh man, sometimes I just can’t get over it-His goodness! How is it possible to live through the sensation of being weighed down in the most unbearable way by the most inconceivable love? “Surely,” I think, every time it comes over me, “I will not be able to endure such a feeling.” But alas, the Lord! He is such an ardent but gentle lover of the soul. It is like Ivan Fyodorovich in The Brothers Karamazov, who says, “I shall grow drunken on the tenderness of my own emotion. The sticky leaf-buds of spring, the blue sky- I love them, that’s what! Here there is no intellect, no logic, here it is a question of loving with one’s insides, one’s belly…”
You must forgive my inarticulate expression of spiritual ecstasy. I just feel so enlivened. I’m certain you would desire to know it’s root, and it is simply that once again the Lord gave me the opportunity to share the glorious Gospel of His son Christ Jesus on the plane ride. Almost every episode of travel on this trip I’ve gotten to talk about the One I love, and it always results in this terrible stretching of the chest, this catch in the throat, a near spasm of silly joy. I am sorry that now you, the reader, are victim to it, but also I am not sorry at all. Praise be to His glorious name!
If you will, lift up Martin, who had many questions about whether one can talk with God and, more importantly, whether God responds. I am on the edge of my seat just thinking about what could happen in the life of this man from Belgium. What great things He is doing in the air, on land, and on sea! Everywhere He is calling people to Himself for He has made known the “mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 2:9b-10). If you are one, like I still often do, has fear or timidity in sharing the Gospel, please know, it is one of the gladdest practices of the Christian life. I exhort you, share! It may be a petty and inadequate comparison, but I alway liken it to having a favorite movie. When you see a movie you really love (let’s say…Inception…let’s say hypothetically you saw it twice while you were in India), you naturally talk about it and share it with others encouraging them to go and see it as well. Evangelism doesn’t always have to be a big to-do. It doesn’t always have to have a plan or a method (although I am pro using amethod if it helps). So often it is merely an overflow. Try it! Tell someone about a great movie. Then tell them about a great God.
When I go back to writing to you about India, I’ll tell you about how there is some incredible ministry of evangelism and testimony sharing that is changing lives. That should get us stirred up!

Ok- getting kicked out of the internet lounge here in Hyderabad, but keep coming back!

Chilli

p.s. My favorite movie is not Inception. But. It. Was. Awesome. Twice.
p.p.s. I hope I am making a lot more sense than I feel like I am.

Dear His Voice Friends,

Forgive me for not being faithful to the blog these last few days. Internet access has been slightly more scarce and time to dedicate to writing literarily palatable material even scarcer. In three hours I will be leaving Kolkata to board six different flights to make it back home to Dallas, Texas. My mind is full from the week, and I must confess that there has been so much to process from meetings with organizations like FreeSet and Hope for Living that it’s almost as though I have been in a Bengali bakery, like the ones that are here, surrounded by thousands of sweetly unique morsels and I can hardly bear choosing only one to let you savor. Rest assured though, I have at least a handful of halfway written blogs to complete and give to you and I will do so as if in real time just for the fun of it.

For now just know that a great work is being done in Kolkata by the saints who are lifting you up faithfully as you should them.

Know also that this week I have clung to the wise words of a dear friend who happens to work as a preschool minister:

“Chilli, don’t worry. Pee is sterile.”

And so, I leave you.

Obviously delirious from lack of sleep and excitement for being home,

Chilli

p.s. I challenge you to do research on the word “Mishti.” If you do, you will probably like this blog entry even more than I’m sure you already do.

I have been thinking about this phrase from Jesus lately, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

Here are some of the differences.

1. Mercy is the receiving of an undeserved gift. Sacrifice comes from the disposition of being the Author of the gift.

2. Mercy lives out of gratitude. Sacrifice tries to earn a response of gratitude from another.

3. Mercy lives in grace. Sacrifice is rooted in legalism.

Do you have any other differences that you see between mercy and sacrifice?

Love Truth
Vernon

I am reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s, Life Together. Here is a great quote on the need for thanksgiving in Christian community.

If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is not great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.

How much time do you spend complaining about what you or your church does not have?

What are you thankful for in your community of believers?

Love Truth
Vernon

Feeling like sin is not only “crouching at your door (Gen. 4:7), but also all up in your bidness today? That has been me. If you are anything like me you can sometimes feel the attacks of the enemy all the way up your spine. This doesn’t seem to be a medal of honor to wear, but more of a confession.

As I have been sitting here and typing in this coffeehouse, one of my questions has been, “Why in the heck?”

Why does the hatred of sin seem to sometimes breed a pummeling feeling of suffocation? It seems like it controls my every thought so many times. Maybe I am not hating sin in the right way.

Why does the intensity of the war have to run so deep in my blood stream? This is not a “confession of a pious person,” but more of a “why in the heck?” statement.

Also, it seems so odd that I am typing away in this public place and pretty much not one person has a clue! How is it that I walk through the sea of humanity in life so oblivious, yet this same disposition haunts many others?

In fact, they may be like me. They can even disguise it with a smile!

Here is part of the reality of the situation. When the Bible refers to war, it is no joke! Eph. 6 is the way it is.

Here may be an encouragement, if you find your self in the same predicament today.

1. Imagine that you are on a battlefield with carnage everywhere. The General comes to you and says, “Well done! The battle is intense, yet we win. The pain is real, yet it is worth it.”

The battle is bigger than you, yet it includes you. There is purpose both personally and corporately.

2. Start asking God to show you how to use thanksgiving as a weapon against the condemning voices of uselessness. Therefore, all I am saying to take time and appreciate what He has given you. Many times the “smallest” blessings are the things that slip under our nose and thus we make a “god out of the big”. The problem is that it is all big. Ultimately, I am saying to take time and breathe in life. Become more aware. Don’t be fake about the thanksgiving, yet understand that you may have to start by confessing you are not thankful. Don’t let this stop you. Don’t be fake. Don’t wallow.

Have you ever had one of those days?

Love Truth
Vernon

One of my greatest challenges in college after I came to know the Lord was figuring out where God was in what I was learning.  As an economics major this proved to be difficult initially. However, after awhile, I realized that many of the theories that we studied were meant to assume how people would respond, with their money, to various changes.  We also spent a lot of time considering tastes, preferences and values of individuals and society as a whole.  This realization allowed make a connection… the fall of humanity influences our tastes, preferences and values as well as the way we view money and how we use it.

The other day while reading through 2 Chronicles I found an example of  “sunk costs” .  Sunk costs are essentially money already spent that cannot be recovered.  The thought is that sunk costs should not effect future decisions.  A common example of sunk costs is the purchasing of a movie ticket.  After sitting through 30 minutes of the movie you decide that you don’t like it and begin to debate whether or not to walk out.  According to the principle of sunk costs you should not take into consideration the price that you paid for the ticket but rather whether or not your time would be better spent doing something else for the duration of the movie.  This concept is difficult for me at times because it can feel as though I am being a bad steward if I don’t “get my moneys worth”.

The example of sunk costs that I found is in 2 Chronicles 25:5-13.  Amaziah, the king of Judah at the time, is assembling the amy  to fight against the men of Seir and in addition to his own men he hires 100,00 men from Israel to fight with him for 100 talents of silver.  He is then told by a man of God not to take these men into battle with him because the Lord is not with Israel.  Amaziah’s response to the man of God is “what about the 100 talents of silver?” to which the man of God responds “The LORD is able to give you much more than this.”  Amaziah proceeds to dismiss the men of Israel and the Lord grants him victory in the battle.

Although we are all charged with being good stewards of the money given to us I believe that what is most important is recognizing that stewardship of money itself is not the ultimate measure of success or failure, obedience to God is.  It was encouraging to me that even while making a mistake in where he, Amaziah, invested his money he was afforded the opportunity to “make it right” so to speak by recognizing his error and subsequently making correct choices.  Also encouraging was the reminder that God is not subject to money… he created it.  He is able to accomplish his purposes through whatever means he deems necessary.

What do you think?  How did you/are you finding God in your subjects of study or work.

Justin