discerning God’s voice

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Perhaps it is just Thunder

Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.” John 12:28-30

As a Christian, I believe without a doubt that God indeed spoke. Those who claimed that it was thunder were just closed minded or, at least, that’s what I thought. They were the ones that Jesus mentioned previously; they have ears and yet they do not hear. I believe those who heard the voice of the angels. However, if truth be known, it is only on paper. If someone came up to me and said that they heard God’s voice spoken in an audible manner, I am more inclined to believe that they are confused. I would think to myself that they are just mistaken and most likely it was just thunder. I am not sure if I can honestly believe anyone who claims to have heard God’s voice audibly. Besides the world is replete with people who claim to hear God’s voice and many times, they only heard “thunder” and made the rest up.

I think that I might have just opened up a can of worms.

After all, I talk about God’s actions among the children and teens every week. Maybe it is all just “thunder” and I am doing some spiritual acrobatics to make everything look like God’s actions. Do I have any guarantee if the things I write about are real or are they mere wishful thinking? I am not sure if I want to go into this journey of self-exploration. Alas, the gospel text is leading me there.

In a way, it was a perfect week to contemplate on this. We spent the initial few days just sitting and waiting and no one showed up. The children and teens were around. They were busy. They were trying to get enough money to buy paint thinner so that they could spend the night getting high from it. We cannot convince ourselves that they are not coming up to us because they were doing something good. It was all bad. However, we have been doing this long enough to know that this is just temporary. We have had seasons like these and it will pass. Nevertheless, I have to be honest. The text above made me wonder if we are truly making any difference in the lives of these children and teens. Perhaps I am reading too much into their limited interactions with us. Maybe it was just mere “thunder” and I thought it was God.

I am not doubting our ministry here. I am merely questioning it. There is a difference. I think that I have just created another problem. Now it is incumbent on me to explain the difference. For starters, I don’t think that we are doing a useless task. I don’t believe that all this is a waste of time. However, I am questioning whether I am seeing things as they are or am I just imagining things so that I can go on from day to day? I wonder if I am really seeing God’s presence being manifested or is my mind just creating these narratives? It is not a bad question to ask. We talk about the Truth and it is pertinent that we ask ourselves such questions. God is present here. I don’t doubt this. However, I don’t want make Him make appear according to my fancy. I want to testify the Truth but I want to know if I am seeing the Truth clearly. I hope all this sounds confusing because it should. We are not talking about something finite. We are talking about an infinite God using limited vocabulary. It is bound to be confusing. However, I believe that it is still something that you can grasp.

Two days, no children or teens, no meaningful conversations. We were sitting and waiting and nothing happened. There was some thunder and lighting literally. It started pouring and we had to take refuge in a subway station before making dash for our home. I came home and there was a message. It was from Aline. I haven’t mentioned her name for years. We haven’t seen her for almost two years. She moved to a different area, still living in the streets but in another part of the city. Her message was simple and straightforward. She said that she missed us and asked if we could meet her which we did the very next day.

Aline grew up in an orphanage. Like most children in the orphanage, if they don’t have a place to go before they turn 18, they take to the streets. Aline ran away to the streets when she was 15. She is 20 now. We have know her for a long time. She was only one that actually had her birthday celebration in our home. I remember the day clearly. We told her that Mary baked a cake for her but it was in our apartment. She was hesitant to go at first. She confessed that she felt intimidated whenever she went to someone’s house. At the same, she was curious and it got the better of her. We had a great time celebrating her birthday. She did not appear to be uncomfortable in our home. We did have a very strong bond with her.

She arrived early and we were late. This is something different. She looked the same and no one would guess that she is 20. She still looks like a scrawny teenager. Her face was full of life and light. She is staying in a homeless shelter now. She wants to find a job. It hasn’t been easy. We asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She is an honest young woman. She said that she has no clue but she likes to clean. Maybe she can find work as a domestic help. We went for a short walk and she said that she wanted to see us more often. Mary thought about teaching her to make earrings. It is something Mary does very well. She liked the idea. We set a date for her to come to our apartment. She was happy when she said goodbye. She knew that she still had a place in our lives. We were happy that she wanted to be part of our lives.

Our relationship with Aline grew stronger when we had days where no one came to talk to us. Aline would stop by always to spend some time with us. She never liked to leave us alone. It is funny that she got in touch with us at a time when I was wondering if all these godly connections are just figments of my imagination. For a sceptic, all this could still be just mere “thunder”, or coincidences. He or she wouldn’t be wrong. Jesus never corrected those who thought it was thunder. He did say that those who heard God’s voice was for their own benefit. I guess I am never going to convince the “thunder people” of anything. However, we don’t hear God speaking to convince others that He is real. We hear His voice so that we know that He is really present in our lives. His presence makes our life richer.

We went the next day and sat and waited for the children and teens. They showed up and stayed with us for hours. As we got ready to leave, Wanderson said, “It is time for you to go already!” It was a good thing for him to say. It sounded like God’s voice to us or maybe it was just a “thunder”. It doesn’t matter. We know that it was for our benefit.

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Our Missionary Journey

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken…..Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.” Acts 2:4-13

When God poured His Holy Spirit upon all peoples, some mocked the disciples and said that they were drunk. This was not the only occasion that people failed to recognize His audible voice. Prior to the Passion, God spoke to Jesus in an audible manner. Some just heard thunder. Some thought an angel spoke. Only a few heard God’s voice (John 12:29). These were not special people. They were just people whose hearts were ready to listen to God. The Holy Spirit changed radically how the first disciples understood God and faith. God was no longer a property of a specific group or culture. He was, in a way, liberated to be who He is truly; a gracious and merciful God of all languages and peoples. He became truly impartial in the hearts and minds of the disciples. All languages contained the capability and concepts to express the divine mystery of God’s grace. In other words, God revealed that He was and is speaking and working among all peoples. Our missionary task is to discern His presence among them.

I have been a missionary in three different seasons of my life. I started out as a lone ranger missionary. It wasn’t because I thought that I did not need anybody. I just allowed my zeal and enthusiasm dominate my actions. I wasn’t necessarily foolish. Maybe I was a little impatient. I was only 23 then. I had an idealistic view of missions. I left for the missionary field thinking that it was a lifetime call and I was never going to return to my land of origin. This actually turned out to be true. I remember saying goodbye to my father at the airport. It was the last time I ever lived in the same place as he did.

In my first missionary experience, I went out with the intention to bring the gospel to people who have not heard the gospel message. I went to the Amazon first. It sounds cliché but I thought it would be a good place to start my missionary journey. It was a complete failure, at least from my perspective. However, it did help me realize that I am diehard urban citizen. I only felt truly at home in a concrete jungle. Any city under 4 million habitants was a small town for me. It became obvious that I should retry my missionary efforts in São Paulo. I left for São Paulo from the Amazon as I was turning 25 and started working with the homeless children and teens immediately. I loved it. It was like coming home to a place where I never knew existed. I always felt close to God where a normal human being would want to flee. Not because it was dangerous. It was the unforgiving stench. It would be obscene to try to describe it. We are still not immune to it but we won’t trade places for anything. It is the place where God meets us. He meets us in the strangest place. It was here where I met my wife and we became one unit in ministry. People now cannot imagine a time when we weren’t together. Things were going great until we had to leave against our will. It was an issue with our visa to stay in Brazil. We moved to the States and worked on returning to missions. We managed to do it but it was a failure. Well, perhaps at this point, it would be appropriate to mention that there is really no such thing as failure in God’s economy. It is all part of our personal maturity. A true failure would be giving up completely. We almost did this but something gave us the strength to move forward. Before we could do this, we needed to understand why the failures were pivotal in our understanding of missions.

During our first missionary experience in the streets, the Holy Spirit opened our eyes to see that these children needed to be connected with the church. Our second trip we tried to create this connection according to our own understanding and wisdom and thankfully, it was a disaster. This is our third return to missions to the same place. This time we realized that missionary work is not our task. We don’t make things happen. It starts and ends with the Holy Spirit. It started on the day when God poured His Spirit on all peoples. The gifts He bestowed upon His disciples were to help them discern and participate in His work. We don’t bring God to these places or peoples. God is already there, about a million steps ahead of us. He calls us to do something simple. He did say that His yoke is easy. He calls us to listen and testify to His Voice of Grace and Mercy that is always actively present wherever people are present.

His voice connects us with each other. The church is defined by those who listen and heed the voice of the Holy Spirit. We took us many years to realize that any effective ministry begins by listening to the Holy Spirit. We listened and listened. Then our eyes were opened to see what God is doing. However, we still can’t see the whole picture. It is not necessary. God does not burden us with all the details. He gives us what we can handle. There is injustice and violence and pain and suffering where we work. We don’t know the answer to all these problems. However, we can love despite not having the solutions. Then God showed us that love cannot be separated by space and language. He is able to connect those who listen to His voice even if they are thousands of miles apart. We testify to this truth. It is amazing that a boy who can hardly read or write can say complex foreign names like Nancy and Jenny or Kat perfectly when these names are usually difficult in his native tongue. It is because they are no longer strange names. They are people who have become part of their lives. We thought that it was up to us to connect the church with the children. In reality, God was already doing it. Sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers who write to these children were not inspired by us to do so. They are people whom God has prepared for this task. It doesn’t mean that those who do not do this aren’t listening to His Spirit. It only means that God has another project for them. He is doing something among all peoples. Mission work is learning to listen and discern God’s project in our midst

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