The VOICE Conference > the VOICE staff blog > faith

God is real. Die like it.

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Anna Petersheim

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” –John 17:3

Life. This is life –to know Him.

Our VOICE motto is “God is real. Live like it.” I read it often in the mirror when I wear one of my VOICE t-shirts. I look at the logo of the heartbeat beginning with a cross and I realize that true life starts with Christ. Isn’t it interesting that it is a symbol of death by which we, as believers, are recognized?

The cross is a symbol of a terribly cruel and painful death, yet we decorate our homes and buy diamond studded jewelry of it. I think perhaps many have grown a little too accustomed to seeing it, a little too familiar with its shape. So, lest it be trite and meaningless in our eyes, let’s take a moment to recognize what it means again.

Would you climb with me up to Golgotha, the hill on which Christ died? Let’s stand at his broken, bloodied feet. Let’s look up and see a dying Savior, bearing all the sin –all our sin. And, let’s hear him speak these words: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)

Do you want to have eternal life? You must know Him. Do you want to know Him? You must die.

The words Jesus spoke in Matthew 16 are significant. He said “take up your cross”. Don’t just wear a symbol of His death –take up YOUR cross! It’s time to die, if you would like to live.

“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” –John 12:24-25

I’m not talking about a future physical death. Right now, you can have eternal life flowing through you like a spring of water that cannot be stopped. How?

We must stop trying to do “right” things; we must stop living out the goodness of our own hearts. We cannot live for ourselves and also have eternal life.
We MUST let His Words abide in us and kill off the thoughts of self. We must quit thinking our own thoughts and let His Spirit speak His thoughts in us.

Will you die with me today? More importantly, will you die with Christ, and live?

Who’s in Control?

Posted on July 21, 2016 by Wes Dudley

Jesus asked his followers a startling question one day: “Why do you call me ‘Lord’ and not do the things that I say?” Jesus was essentially saying, “Why do you insinuate that I am your king but don’t do what I’ve asked you?”

This question should pierce the heart of everyone who calls themselves a disciple of Jesus. Who is Jesus to you? Is He real? Is He someone you turn to only when times are hard, or merely someone that you look to because you had parents that steered you in the direction of Christianity? There is no way that we can declare He is real, and the Lord of our life, and still consistently withhold a portion of the control of our lives.

Jesus wants a relationship with you so bad that He was willing to die to get it. But living up to the greatest potential of that relationship requires a shift on your part. A shift in your thinking and in your doing – living your life as though it isn’t yours at all. Realizing that your life belongs to Jesus and He is in control. The Lord is a friend to those who fear Him – shifting your entire life to be a faithful follower of the only One worth following.

Recently I had the privilege of getting to know a Christian man who had lived under an oppressive communist regime in Europe for many years. He shared many harrowing stories with me about various hardships and how he smuggled Bibles without the authorities catching him. Although communism has since dissipated in that country and everyone living there has experienced freedom for many years, he said something that really hit me. He stated how he has realized that the hardest thing for any Christian is to just be faithful to Jesus. The temptation is always there to take control of our own lives, but our responsibility as a follower of Christ is to be faithful in our freedom or in persecution.

Let it be said of us
That the Lord was our passion
That with gladness we bore
Every cross we were given
That we fought the good fight
That we finished our course
Knowing within us the power of the risen Lord

Let the cross be our glory
And the Lord be our song
By mercy made holy
By the Spirit made strong

Let the cross be our glory
And the Lord be our song
‘Till the likeness of Jesus
Be through us made known
Let the cross be our glory
And the Lord be our song

(Steve Fry)

Disappointment

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Luke Kallberg

I’ve been thinking a lot about disappointment. Our family was supposed to go on a camping trip with some friends today, but when we woke up this morning our youngest child had a fever, so together with some other factors it was the last straw to cause us to postpone the trip…again. On a completely different level, my sin through lust gives me frequent cause for disappointment with myself. Really, June is a month that seems particularly set up to disappoint me, with the structure of the school year gone and the structure of VOICE not yet upon me, yet lots of responsibilities and tasks needing to be done in an environment where I’m not sure how to prioritize or get things done. I need to do some logistical planning for VOICE, create a teaching syllabus for the Fall semester, revise philosophy papers and submit them to various places, fix our house and car, take advantage of the opportunity to spend more tiem with the family…etc. Meanwhile, since I’m home all the time now, Karen’s and the kids’ needs are much more immediate and pressing, so I feel more pressure than before to stop everything and help them with whatever the current crisis is (and there are many crises every hour, believe me). So I end up disappointed in myself for not getting more done or not reading that book to Isaac that he was begging me to read, or not getting out the door earlier in an attempt to get away and do some computer work…etc.

Disappointment, and disappointment in myself, isn’t necessarily bad. It just means that some expectation I have hasn’t been fulfilled or I haven’t achieved something I desire. There are some legitimate expectations that I should have, especially of myself, and there are some things that really are valuable and I should desire them. But disappointment is one of those emotions that can start to take over, making me feel like everything is going wrong. And that’s probably not true.

A realistic perspective can be hard to maintain – sometimes a lot of things are going wrong, sometimes a lot of things are legitimately disappointing, but for the Christian, that’s never the end of the story. There is a great good thing that we have, something that is just shocking and impossible, but true: God loves us! And no matter what else goes wrong, that’s really enough to overcome it all:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:28)

Further, there’s a very visible and pressing way that God puts that love into our lives: His people around us. I need to stay connected to the Church and God’s people, letting them see where I’m hurting so that their love (which is really God’s love) can touch me where I need it:

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal. 6:2)

So…I’m trying!

Three Little Kittens

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Anna Petersheim

This is a story of three little kittens.

Once upon a time, my brothers found some kittens in our backyard. They brought them inside, not realizing it was a death sentence for the little creatures who were only a few days old. We put them back out, but the mother cat never returned to feed the kittens. It’s quite normal for a mother cat to abandon her children if they are touched by humans.
After a day or so, I felt badly for the kittens that would surely die and I brought them back inside and tried to feed them and find them a better home. It was awful. One of the worst experiences ever. They always cried, because they needed their mother and I was an inadequate replacement. It was so heartbreaking for me to watch those little creatures slowly die. I lost sleep trying to feed them and even when I was not in the house I could hear their cries.

It was haunting.

Eventually, there was only one kitten left and I finally found someone with much more experience to care for him. It took a long while to recover from this awful experience. And it took a long time not to hear the kittens’ cry.
One night, a few weeks later, I had a dream about those kittens. In this dream, there was Jesus holding them while they cried.
I awoke and realized why I had been so utterly devastated by the crying. The kittens didn’t cry alone. They cried along with me. While I was desperately trying to save those tiny creatures’ lives, my brother was in a hospital far away fighting for life. I was crying for God to save him, but I didn’t know if He would save him or not. I was helpless, like an abandoned child.

Yesterday, I saw a picture of a Syrian refugee offering up his small baby to be saved from an overloaded raft. The refugees were all crowded together, their faces stricken by hopelessness. They are crying, because they have no safe place, no refuge for their children. And their cry of desperation mixes with mine.

Years ago, I was in a baby orphanage in Romania. There were three rooms filled with beds and a baby in each. The babies had no mother, no one to pick them up when they cried. And though I was only there a few hours, the cries of those motherless children are still with me today.

The kittens, the babies, the refugees, and me. Our cries go up to heaven and beg for hope. And there is Jesus, holding the dying kitten, and somehow as I think on that, I realize that He holds my heart too. And that’s enough.

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. ~Deuteronomy 32:39

The Day I Lost My iPhone

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Karen Kallberg

“Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly:
I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.” (John Newton)

I remember looking at my phone at the bottom of the stroller and thinking, “I’d better put that somewhere safe in case it falls out.”

And so I did. I pulled it out and took a picture of Elliot standing proudly on a chair. That’s when I looked over at Isaac who had a “I-think-I-need-to-go-to-the-bathroom” look on his face. After three months of potty training and accidents, the last thing I wanted was to have an accident in the middle of the public library. So I did what any normal “mom-in-the-middle-of-potty-training” would do—I hustled to the bathroom. Three kids, stroller, baby carrier, balance bike, library books, and all.

It was over an hour later before I realized that I had everything but my phone.

So I did what any normal “mom-who-just-lost-her-phone-ID-and-credit-card” would do: PANIC!

For the next few hours, Luke and I cancelled our credit card, called the police, filed a report, and followed my phone’s location on Find My iPhone.

Now a strange thing happened while I was tracking my phone—I found myself channeling all of my pent up anxiety, fears, and anger at that little dot that represented the thief. I could barely tear my eyes away from the website lest I lose my phone’s location and thereby the opportunity to bring that person to justice.

At some point, I began to realize that maybe this wasn’t how Jesus wanted me to respond. Sure what that person did was wrong and my anger was justifiable, but if the police really did help me track my phone (which they didn’t) and brought the thief to me, what then? How does one forgive a nameless, faceless offender?

Two things helped me that day: First, I realized that the thief hadn’t taken anything of lasting value to me. Eventually, that iPhone would become obsolete, and thankfully, we cancelled our card before they had made more than a couple of fraudulent charges. But it is likely that my greater treasures—my children—were in the library at the same time as the thief—and they are still safe. For that, I am extremely grateful.

Secondly, I had to come to grips with the fact that I am also a thief—someone who has robbed God of the honor, glory, time, and money He deserves, and yet He has freely forgiven and pardoned me. If He has forgiven me so great a debt, how can I not forgive someone for taking something as insignificant as a phone?

goodbye, VOICE…

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Karen Kallberg

I once had the opportunity to ask well-known missionary and author Elisabeth Elliot one question: “What do I do when I have feelings for someone that won’t go away?”

“The things we love best,” she replied, “are substance for sacrifice.”

That two-minute conversation encapsulates a lesson that God has been teaching me throughout my life.

pitcher illustration

Many of you have heard me share my testimony at VOICE about how God asked me to give Him my love for volleyball, my hopes for education, my security at home in America, my feelings for someone I thought I’d marry… And now, God is asking me to give up one of my greatest passions: VOICE.

I spent the last twelve years developing VOICE into what I thought might be my life work. I made a lot of mistakes, but I got to see God do incredible things in your lives and mine. A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to take care of my sick family and get ready for this conference when God used a book I was reading to ask if I would be willing to give it up for Him.

“What?! Give up VOICE? How? Why?”

I write this with tears in my eyes. I wrestled with this decision as one can only wrestle with an idea that seems completely contrary to reality, but at the same time, it felt so familiar because I had been in this situation before. So I cried. I prayed. And I asked Him to confirm it to me through my personal devotions the next morning, and He did. In the words of a song, “Everything I once held dear, I count it all as loss…”

So what does this mean for VOICE? It means that #VOICE2016 may be our last conference. We hope you’ll pray with us that God will bring the people He wants to grow from the VOICE experience. If you have family or friends who have been thinking about attending “some day,” tell them this is the year they should go. If you’ve been wanting to come for V2, let me know.

Lastly, remember, VOICE is just a tiny chapter in God’s story of the world. We did everything we could to help you understand the Gospel and develop a personal relationship with Jesus. So now it’s your turn.

God is real. Live like it.

Your Real Dad

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Wes Dudley

Dad. The word probably means something different to each of us. Recently, I’ve encountered many who have no attachment to that word whatsoever. “Dad” means nothing to them because simply, well, they’ve never had one. Now, obviously there was a sperm donor and from a biological perspective they have a dad. But from a nurturing, relational, and emotional attachment perspective, they feel fatherless.

I really believe that’s why Jesus spent his time on earth trying to help us understand what God is like and who he is. Many times throughout the Bible God is referred to as a dad, and that’s a good thing, but Jesus took it a step further. It’s one thing to say “You care for us like a dad” or “You are our dad,” but to say “Good morning, Dad” takes on a whole new meaning. Jesus wasn’t just describing what God is like, but Jesus also was telling us to relate to God as our dad!

If you want to dig in a little deeper, many scholars teach that when Jesus taught us how to pray in Matthew 6:9-13, and say “Our Father, who is in heaven…” that he was using the word “Abba” – the first word that a young child learns in the Middle East – “Daddy.” Think about what this implies. Even those who have had the best example of an earthly dad have been misunderstood and discouraged because of them. Your Dad in heaven knows you better than anyone else and he is the real Dad to those who have never had one. Not only are you very valuable to him, but he also knows what things you are in need of before you even ask!

Can you imagine the love your heavenly Dad has for you? If God delighted in his plan before he spoke the world into being, how much greater is his delight to witness the full fruition of his labor – a believing son or daughter. That’s why he longs for us to see him as he really is: our Dad. Once we make that connection our entire approach to our Creator should shift – which I believe was Jesus’ intention all along.

Masterpiece

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Camara Fedoriw

When I originally finished my degree and earned my teaching license, I assumed I would be teaching nothing but ESL as long as I worked in Taiwan. However, this year my school started making big plans to become a bilingual school, where the American teachers will be co-teaching anything from math to art with a Taiwanese teacher. Last semester I started co-teaching art for the first time.

All of the memories of the art class I had at a homeschool co-op when I was a teenager resurfaced. At that time, I loved to create things. I just didn’t want to create what my art teacher wanted me to create. Who wants to draw a bunch of fruit when you could be sewing doll clothes at home? Who wants to draw a color wheel when you could be doing anything else? But I found out that I actually love art–I love the act of creating. I love being an art teacher where I’m allowed to do the two things I love the most: plan and create.

The problem is, I often think very poorly of myself, especially about planning. I call myself “stupid” for writing everything down, or a “worrier” for planning ahead. In the Christian life, it’s pretty common for us to say the words “I’m worthless” because we’re often thinking about what our role is in gaining salvation. Sometimes that affects the way we look at every personality trait of ours, even the good ones.

How do we reorient our lives to believe that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”? That He did nothing wrong when He created us with our unique personalities? The truth is, God made us to look like Himself with His traits. A very familiar verse which we all memorized at VOICE comes to mind: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10, NLT) I used a different translation than what we memorized because of the word “masterpiece.” Just the word masterpiece evokes a flood of emotions that is sometimes present when we look at a famous piece of art or hear a famous piece of music. When God made us, He took time. He chose specific materials, mixed the perfect colors, and then intricately designed every detail of our being. Not only that but because of creating us anew in Christ we leave off the title “worthless”. We get a new title “worthwhile”.

I plan because I love to plan, because God loves to plan. When He created the world it was a part of this huge grand plan that each of us take part in every day. When I’m planning and creating I’m taking part in what God has been doing from the beginning and doing exactly what He created me to do.

Inconvenient Intimacy

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Camellia Chan

Last semester, I read my Bible fewer than 10 times.

I don’t know how many people get up at 5am and holler “oh boy, I’m so excited to read Leviticus today,” but I sure don’t. In addition to natural lethargy, I layer excuses for skipping devotionals:

I want to use my time to its full capacity, and I can’t do stuff and read the Bible at the same time, so I’ll talk to people about Jesus, listen to lots of Christian music, pray as I drive from here to there, and fall asleep to an audio Bible.

And God didn’t strike me dead. I didn’t sustain injuries for each day I put my Bible aside. I did some stupid things, sure, but nothing illegal or death-inducing. At the end of the day, life remained beautiful and satisfying.

A few days after 2016 began, I asked some friends to text me each morning and ask if I had done my devotionals yet. After a few weeks of being held to my word, I realized what I had been missing: talking about Jesus’ goodness over a meal, jamming to Steffany Gretzinger, and praying on Central Expressway are all little bits of getting Jesus, BUT reading His word, spending time with Him, and dwelling on what He has to say — that is a crash course on God’s glory.

When I chose not to read the Bible, I didn’t lose my life, my faith, or my salvation, but I lost an intimacy with my Father. I remained a beloved child of God, but ignoring an opportunity to strengthen our relationship showed me how little I was willing to give to Him Who gave His all for me.

We’re all busy in one way or another, but we have the same 24 hours. I don’t wake up at 5 to crack open my Bible. I don’t even wake up at 5. But you and I have no room to say “I don’t have time”. We all have time — but do we make time?

I still write “devotionals” on my to-do lists because I need to remind myself of His place.

I’ve missed a few days here and there, and I don’t exactly cry about it.

I’m frustrated that reading the Bible means some items on my list don’t get done.

And that’s where we make our choice: what do we value more – our tasks, or our relationship with God?

I challenge you to examine your approach to reading the Bible. Do you choose to immerse yourself in God’s Word, or do you limit His presence to when it’s convenient? Determine what you need in order to make time for Him, and then do it.

Here’s to knowing Him, His Will, and His Word.

what we have

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Karen Kallberg

For thirty years, I didn’t have a Valentine. Guys had to ask my father for permission to date me. Dad was strict, few guys tried, so I gave up hope that I would ever have a Valentine.

Then when I was 31, I received a Starbucks mug with hearts all over it. The box read “To Karen” and that was it. Little did I know that was Luke’s first Valentine’s gift to me.

But this post isn’t about what you may not have. This Valentine’s Day, I want to remind us all of what we do have.

Ephesians 5:31 is a verse we commonly hear at weddings: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Now why would the passage talk about the man leaving his father and mother, when in most cultures, the woman leaves her family? To answer this question, I’d like to share a story.

When Arianna was two, she started having nightmares. One night, she woke up crying that a fox was out to get her. After several nights of her crying for us in the middle of the night, we decided to set up a little bed for her in our room. It was easier.

One night, I woke up hearing her whimpering. I went to comfort her, only to discover that she was still asleep. She was having another nightmare. Even though I was exhausted, my mother’s heart hurt for her. I wanted her to keep sleeping, but I also wanted to wake her up and assure her that everything was going to be ok—that her dream wasn’t real.

That is what Christ did for us. Ephesians 5:32 says, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Marriage is a picture of God’s love for us. Jesus left His home in Heaven, His Father who loved Him, and all His glory to enter into our world—to assure us that our nightmare will one day pass away.

That’s not all. When it says that a man will hold fast to his wife, it’s telling us that Jesus came to pursue people who not only didn’t love Him in return but instead sought after other gods. We love romantic love, because it’s the feeling of being completely known and accepted by another person—but Jesus came to love people who ultimately rejected and crucified Him. I can’t fathom a love like that.

The last part talks about the two becoming one flesh—because Jesus loves us, He lived for us, suffered for us, died and rose again for us—He joined Himself to us, so that when God looks at us, He sees His beloved Son, so that we who were doomed to death might be saved and loved and accepted and completely known. This is the love of God—He became poor so that we might be rich. He took on our sickness that we might be healed. He bore all of our sorrows so that we might have joy. And the Bible tells us that not even death can separate us from the love of Christ.

So this Valentine’s Day, remember what you have—the extravagant love of God.