How the Blisses Saved Christmas

I got a slip in the mail yesterday telling me that I had a document to pick up at the local post office.  I had been waiting for this slip for weeks now.  I diligently checked the mailbox every day.  I even leafed through every flier to make sure the slip was not hidden inside it.  We were expecting a package and we wanted to be sure to pick it up promptly lest it be returned to the sender or we be forced to pay a fine.

I took the slip down to the post office after I dropped the kids off at school.  After waiting in line behind two other postal customers, I finally got my chance.  I presented the post office the slip and was in return given a second slip of paper telling me that that package was waiting for me a the Central Customs Agency.

It has been years since we have had to take a trip to the Customs Agency near the train station in Sofia.  For a while now we have been able to call the Agency and have them deliver packages directly to our door, so it came as a bit of an unpleasant surprise that this time there was no option for home delivery.

We wasted no time.  Sasha and I walked down to the subway station and rode the five stops to the train station.  We then walked two blocks to the Customs Agency.  As we walked there, Sasha reminded me that it was Friday and the slip of paper directed us to go to window number 13.  It’s a good thing we are not superstitious.

We entered the large hall of windows with a beautiful Christmas tree on display in the middle and a large glass-ceiling overhead.  We approached the window where again I found myself in line behind two people.  When it was my turn I handed over the slip of paper and my ID card.  I was then asked the question, “What’s in the package?”

Sasha and I had been expecting this question and had rehearsed several answers.  We were fairly certain that the package was from my folks back in Illinois, but we could not be totally sure yet as we had not seen the package.  The best answer we came up with while waiting was, “I don’t know.  Ask Santa.”

We did not give the lady this answer.  Instead I chickened out and just said, “I don’t know.  I think its gifts.”  This was probably a wise move as any sarcastic responses might have caused her to return the package to America.

She had me fill out a form and then handed me some documentation with the instructions, “Go to window 28 and pay a 4 Leva import tax.”

“Right!” I thought, “Go to window 24 and pay a 8 Leva import tax . . . or was it window 21?”

“Sasha, where were we supposed to go again?”  (It’s nice to have a Bulgarian with you in such circumstances.)

We wound our way through the bowels of the building until we found a wonderfully ancient set of yellow windows.  We were so happy that we had made it in just a few hours from the time we got the slip of paper to the time we got our package.  We went to window 28 to pay the 4 Leva tax.

Upon taking our money, the lady at window 28 handed us a new clump of documents and told me to go to window 30 to pick up our package.  Fortunately window 28 was just two windows down from window 30.  (Amazing concept, I know.)

We went to window 30 ready to pick up our package that we had hurried to get since we had received that slip of paper in the mail just a few hours before.  The lady at window 30 looked at our documents.  Then she looked at her book listing off the packages.  Then she looked at me.  Then she asked me my name.  I smiled and refrained from pointing out that it was on the slip of paper in front of her.  Instead I just said, “David Bliss.”  She found my name and had me sign the ledger.

She then informed me that there was a 2.10 Leva fine for being late picking it up.  I smiled and said, “No problem.”  As she left to get the package, I pulled out the three small coins necessary to pay the fine.  Meanwhile Sasha began to get a little ticked off.

“We just got the slip today!  How can we be late?”

I smiled through my teeth and said, “We don’t have the package yet.  You catch more flies with honey.  After we get it you can tell her off.”

Fortunately the lady took so long getting her package that Sasha and I were laughing by the time she came back.

Window lady 30 placed the package directly in front of me.  I reached out to grab it and she rather sharply declared, “Wait a moment!”  I smiled again as I withdrew my arm from the window.

Window lady 30 then went over to window 29 to get some important documents.  She then handed us our new wad of documents and our package.

We rejoiced at our success.  Package received!  It was Christmas presents from my Dad and Mom.  We had just saved Christmas!

Me with the package in the central customs building.  Mission accomplished!

Living at the Crossroads

One reason I love serving in Bulgaria is that we are not just serving Bulgaria.

We have worked with people from all over the world.  I have had the privilege of teaching the Bible to people from every inhabited continent.

The heart of what we are doing here in Bulgaria is discipleship.  We want to teach people who in turn can teach others.  We do this through small groups and mentoring.  The effects have spread throughout the world.  There are people in Africa, Europe, both Americas, and possibly Asia who have been a part of our small group ministry.

People come to Bulgaria for all kinds of reasons.  Some stay.  Most move on.  This can make our work here a bit sad as we are constantly saying good-bye to people.  Yet it is also fulfilling as we have the chance to invest in people who will make an impact around the world.

Could you be a part of this?  There is room on our team!

A small group that meets in our neighborhood.  There are four nations represented in this picture.

When Pieces Fall

I have heard a similar thought from several ministry leaders: “I pray that God would take me home before I sin in such a way that it dishonors the body of Christ.”

Usually this idea is spoken in the context of serious sexual immorality or theft or something that disqualifies someone from service in professional ministry.  It is a thought that resonates in my heart.  I am willing to die for the Church, and I would rather be dead than commit adultery or fraud or anything else that would disqualify me from service in ministry.  I have known people in leadership who have disqualified themselves from ministry in terrible ways.  In some cases I would have rather heard that they had died of a stroke in their sleep than that they had fallen.  Yet though this idea may be meant to demonstrate resolve and bravery, it also has a mark of convenient cowardice mixed with a touch of arrogance.

It sounds good.  Rather than sin, we die and cannot sin.  It is interesting that this sentiment only seems to be made in relation to the so-called serious sins.  In reality, every Christian on earth dishonors Jesus on a regular basis.  Most of us don’t commit terrible sexual sins.  Most of us don’t commit felonies or fraud.  But we gossip.  We look at things we should not look at.  We slander.  We throw hatred at each other.  We borrow money and conveniently “forget” to pay it back.  Why not ask God to take us home before we commit these sins.  For that matter, why not take matters into our own hands by physically preventing ourselves from dishonoring God?  Why not gouge out our eyes if they cause us to sin as Jesus suggested in Matthew 18:9?

On the one hand, perhaps we don’t think these kinds of sins are that big of a deal.  We don’t think about our gossip as dishonoring to God.  We don’t care when we take advantage of others.  We make excuses for lying and backstabbing.  We delude ourselves.  We think, “Surely preventing such minor infractions is not worth loss of life or limb.”  By excusing our “lesser” sins as acceptable, we rewrite the moral code.  In doing so, we put ourselves in the place of God.  What could be more dishonoring than this?  Yet it is in exactly this way that we dishonor God daily.

On the other hand, we don’t follow Jesus’ extreme suggestion because we know that the cause of our sin is not our physical bodies.  Sin comes from our heart.  It is merely manifested in our tongues, our eyes, and our hands.  Our heart is the engine that drives the wheels of our sinful nature.  Blaming our eyes for coveting or our tongue for lying is like blaming the wheels on the car for not changing gears rather than looking to repair the transmission.

Getting back to the original thought, when a pastor asks God to take him home rather than letting him commit a terrible sin, he somewhat puts the responsibility for these great sins on God.  After all, if God had just killed the pastor with a heart attack before he slept with the office assistant, there would have been no adultery and the church would never have split.  Why does God allowing these sins to happen?  Doesn’t he realize how important the pastor is?  Doesn’t He realize the damage He has caused to the church by not killing the pastor?

Any ministry leader who thinks that God cannot handle his sin thinks too highly of himself.  Look at the story of King David of Israel.  If he had gotten an infection (untreatable at the time) and died in chapter 10 of Second Samuel, there would have been no affair with Bathsheba.  There would have been no murder of Uriah.  There would have been no civil war with Absalom.  David’s sin caused much suffering, and surely God saw it coming.  Why didn’t God prevent it from happening?

Rather than overriding David’s free will with a illness that prevented the sin, God worked out of that sin and accomplished much good.  From David and Bathsheba came King Solomon the Wise, and from the line of King Solomon came Jesus.  God allowed David to act in a sinful way, yet God was not defeated by David’s sin.

Terrible things happened because of David’s choices.  In the same way terrible things happen when a Christian sins, especially a ministry leader.  Such sins should not happen.  Yet God is so great that He can work even our worst sins together for good above and beyond anything we can imagine.

We are not so important that we can destroy God’s plans by our folly.

Finally, asking for death rather than taking responsibility for our actions is taking the coward’s way out.  It is cowardly to give in to sin rather than fight it in the strength and grace of God, and when we fall it is cowardly to prefer death to confession and repentance.

Rather than ask God to take me home before I sin, I would ask Him to transform me into a man strong enough to resist temptation.  I would ask Him to use my time on Earth to transform me into the man He wants me to be.

Death is better than sin, but righteousness is better still.  Let us trust Him to deliver us from evil.  Let us not give up doing what is right.  Let us enjoy another day walking with Him in His beautiful creation.

What is Hell?

I was once asked how I could believe in Hell if I was a Christian.  On the surface of it, the very notion of a place like Hell seems to be contrary to the idea of a loving God.  Some today might try to argue around the doctrine of Hell by calling it out as an extra-biblical idea that the church has adopted over the centuries.  After all, the concept of a place of conscious eternal torment is only mentioned a few times in the Bible.  Perhaps we are reading too much into it.

The argument that Hell is an extra-Christian idea might hold weight if one of the principle biblical lecturers on the subject was not in fact Christ Himself.

There are several verses where Jesus describes this place of suffering.  From Jesus own words we learn that this place is eternal (Matthew 25:46), painful (Matthew 13:50), and comes as a consequence of sin (Mark 9:43).  It is a place of judgment where people get what they deserve.

There are however, many misconceptions about Hell.  Hell is not a place where the Devil is king.  That concept was adopted from Greek mythology where Hades is ruler of the underworld (a concept vastly different from the biblical idea of Hell).  In fact, Hell will be a punishment for Satan as well (Revelation 20:10).  Hell is not the Devil’s home base out of which he sends demons to pester the people of Earth.  Hell is nothing but a punishment.  Though it is the rightful destination of all evil, evil has no power there.

It is also a place of equitable punishment.  It seems from the Bible that not everyone will be punished equally in Hell, but will be punished according to what they have done and what they knew (see for example Luke 12:47-48).  It is a place of just punishment.  No more or less than we deserve.

The other interesting thing about Hell is that it appears that those in it never seem to repent.  Jesus told a story of a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus who died.  The rich man went to Hell, and the poor man went to heaven to be with Abraham.  In this story, the rich man is in agony.  Being a descendent of Abraham, he calls up to heaven and asks Abraham to send Lazarus to make him feel better.  I can think of nothing more self-centered than asking someone to join you in Hell just so that you can feel better, but that is just what the rich man does.  He doesn’t care if Lazarus suffers so long as he feels a little bit better.  To achieve his goal he attempts to appeal to Abraham’s nepotism even calling him “father.”  He doesn’t even bother to talk to Lazarus whom he is asking to sacrifice for him.

The Rich Man and Lazarus on Earth as illustrated by Gustave Dore

When the rich man doesn’t get what he wants he tries to have Lazarus sent back from the dead to warn his brothers.  At first this seems like a good idea, but if you read between the lines it is almost as if he was saying, “If only I had had the right miracle happen, I would have repented.”  Of course he wouldn’t have repented even if someone came back from the dead.  Even seeing the truth of Hell from the inside, he doesn’t repent.  At no time does the rich man ever say, “I’m sorry God! I messed up!  Please forgive me!”  In fact, he never addresses God at all from his agony.  Even in the face of Hell the rich man is still acting as he did his whole life, trampling over others to get what he desires.  Hell had no power to reform him.

The ironic thing is that it seems that those in Hell get what they are after their entire lives.  Many people want to get away from God.  Hell is the place where that is possible.  It may be that those in Hell get not only what they deserve, but what they sought their entire lives.  As C. S. Lewis once wrote, “All get what they want; they do not always like it.”

From this perspective, Hell seems to fit with God’s justice, but what about God’s mercy?  Why would God make a place from which no one can be rescued and no one can escape?

Well, He did make an escape.  We know there is a way out of Hell because someone went there and came back again.  That person is Jesus.  He took our punishment for us, and in doing so He made a way out of Hell.  He paid our debt, so that God’s justice can be satisfied and His mercy and grace can flow.  Perfect justice meets amazing grace in the person of Jesus.

But that’s not all God did to provide a way out of Hell.  He left a powerful siege weapon here on Earth to break down the gates of Hell and free the captives.  Jesus said about this weapon, “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”  That weapon is the Church.

The Church is everyone around the world who believes that Jesus Christ is God, that He took on flesh, that He died for our sins, and that He rose again.  It is those who are trusting Jesus alone for their salvation from Hell.  If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you are saved, and you need not fear Hell.  But more than that, you along with your fellow believers can storm the gates of Hell and rescue the lost.  We do this by telling others the message of the hope of salvation in Jesus.

Can evil hold this message back?  Not a chance in . . . you get the idea.

Is This Heaven?

Earlier this year, I was driving my father-in-law from Sofia back to his hometown of Kostenets.  As we drove over the Vakarel pass the beautiful Ihtiman valley spread out before us with the massive snow capped Rilla mountain to our right.  As we gazed at this breathtaking site I mentioned how beautiful Bulgaria is.  My father-in-law responded by saying, “It’s a piece of heaven.”

Bulgaria certainly seems like a piece of heaven to me.  I love it here.  I think it’s beautiful, and I love the people and culture.  I have close friends and family in Bulgaria.  This place is my home.

Yet there are many people who don’t think that highly of Bulgaria.  Part of the reason for this is that we get some bad press.  Generally speaking, the only news westerners hear about Bulgaria is bad news.  “Bulgaria is one of the European Union’s poorest country.”  “Bulgarian immigrants are taking Western jobs.”  “Bulgaria is overcrowded with refugees.”  These are not exactly the most flattering headlines.

Often times, this hidden little gem of a country gets overlooked or scoffed at as a sort of backwoods place with poorly educated people.  It is not a fair view of Bulgaria, but it is a common one.

Back in the first century there was a tiny little town that people viewed in a similar way to how they might view Bulgaria today.  It was so decidedly below average that one first century leader once asked if anything good could come from there.  In this town there once lived a man who had a very common name that today would be translated as “Joshua.”  Joshua was of a minority people group in his country and a member of a minority religion.  When he grew up he went into ministry.  His ministry lasted for just three years when he was condemned by the religious and academic elites of the time and executed by the local Roman governor.

But Joshua’s story did not end there.  You see the town in question was Nazareth, and the name "Joshua," when referring to Him, is more commonly translated as "Jesus."  Out of this little town of Nazareth, pathetic in every way, came a man who would transform the world.  Nazareth was so much a part of who Jesus was, that one of the early names for Christianity was “The Nazarene Sect” (Acts 24:5).

Just as Heaven came to Nazareth, and transformed the world, I believe God can take this little piece of Heaven called Bulgaria and transform the world.  We are strategically placed between Europe and Asia, and not to far from Africa.  People from all over the world come through here.  We merely need the right people who are willing to give everything for God that the light of Jesus might shine around the world out of Bulgaria.

Sometimes I look around Bulgaria and ask, “Is this heaven?”

No.  It’s Nazareth.

My Chariot of Fire

Tonight I went out to meet with a group of young men and women as I do every Thursday night.  It’s a great group of young people from around Europe led by three middle aged American missionaries of whom I am one.  We teach the Bible and are trying, by God’s grace, to help them grow into the future leaders of the Church in Europe.

Tonight it was my night to teach.  I love teaching.  I especially love teaching about the Bible.  I have heard that where passion meets talent is where one finds his sweet spot in life.  My talent is teaching, my passion is God’s word.  Bible teaching is fun for me.

Fun may not be the best word to describe it actually.  Fun is watching a baseball game.  Fun is playing a board game with my daughters.  Fun is bowling with my wife.  For me, teaching the Bible gives me a sort of high.

This is not like a drug high, or an endorphin high that one might get from a good run in the morning.  It’s not an emotional high like the one I had the day I asked Sasha to marry me or when my daughters were born.  It’s a sweet spot high.  It comes from being right where God made me to be and doing what He wants me to do.

Eric Liddell was a very famous and very fast runner.  The movie "Chariots of Fire" was largely about him.  He was once quoted as saying, “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

God did not make me fast.  He made me to teach His word, and when I do, I feel His pleasure.

You who are reading this, I don’t know what your purpose is.  I don’t know what in your life will be like running for Eric Liddell or teaching for me, but I encourage you to find what in your life gives God pleasure.  When you do, you might just find out what Eric felt when he ran and what keeps me awake in the middle of the night writing this blog.

May you find what in your life gives God pleasure, and may it bring you the joy you were made to have in Him.

Eric Liddell Running on July 19, 1924

The First Decade

On October 16, 2006 our family of 4 landed in Berlin, boarded a van, and drove across the border to Szczecin, Poland.  This was day one for us, and it was a day we had worked hard to get to.

Here we are ten years later still serving in ministry in Europe (though now in Sofia, Bulgaria).  We have lived in four homes, in three cities, and in two countries.  We have had 5 wonderful teammates, two of whom are still serving in Europe with us.  We both learned Polish, and I learned Bulgarian.  We have worked with people from every inhabited continent, and made what we hope was lasting impact in people’s lives around Europe.

None of this was accomplished by our own power.  Everything we have accomplished came through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  God has changed lives for the better.  We have been privileged to see people from around the world come to Christ, grow in Him, and go out to reach others.  There are people we have worked with now serving God on at least 4 other continents.

Thousands of years ago a servant of the Lord named Zerubbable was responsible for rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem to reestablish praise and worship there.  God sent a message to him:

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.”  (Zechariah 4:6)

It is the same for us.  Everything we have accomplished, and have yet to accomplish is not by our might, our power, our planning, our intelligence, or our character, but by God’s Spirit working through us.

We are privileged to be used by God here in Europe.  We plan on being here for years to come, and look forward to seeing how God will use us to His glory.

It has been a good first decade.

What I've lost and What I've Gained

I’ve been living in Europe for about a decade now.  It’s interesting every time I go back to the U.S.  One would think that in this digital age people would stay up to date on the goings on around the world, but I never cease to be surprised by the things I miss out on by living thousands of miles from the place I grew up.

The first time I went back to the U.S. I had a conversation with my brother.  He told me how he would soon be getting his first iPhone.  He was quite excited.  I smiled and nodded at his excitement, but inside I was thinking, “What’s an iPhone?  I think I remember hearing about that once.”  They have iPhones in Europe now of course, but at the time, they were seldom seen in Eastern Europe.  I wasn’t sure what they were, but apparently they were important.

Another time, I heard a lot of buzz about these people called the Kardashians.  I had no idea who they were or why they were so important.  (I’m still not sure to be honest.)  They were not actors, or musicians.  They did not produce anything important, and when I finally saw a picture of them I realized that they really weren't even that good looking, but they seemed to be a big deal in the U.S.  I had no idea why.

Politics are a hit and miss thing.  I am up to date on the presidential election (more so than I would like to be), but I couldn’t tell you what the most recent thing is that Trump blamed Clinton for or vice versa.  I could probably name the Senators from my home state, but I’m not sure who my representative is.  Yet, I am surprisingly well informed on the scandal in the Stillwater, Minnesota school district thanks to a couple of Facebook friends.  (You know who you are.)

I am also disconnected from the Christian subculture.  Just today I realized that I have no idea who the big names are in Christian music.  I wanted to buy a praise album to listen to on my road trip tomorrow, and I had no idea what to get.  (My non-Christian readers will understand where I’m coming from.)

The last time I was in the States I was paying for gas at a station.  The cashier saw my phone and said, “A flip phone.  Old school.  Nice.”  This was about two years ago, and I still hadn’t gotten a smart phone because they are expensive, and I’m not someone with a lot of spare cash.  Apparently I had even fallen behind gas station attendants in my technological advancement.

Though I have fallen into much social and technological ineptness in my time abroad, I have also gained much.

For one thing, I’m not afraid of people from other cultures.  (I never really was, but I'm more comfortable around them now.)  I know that many of my brothers and sisters in America are concerned about refugees from the Middle-East.  I’m concerned for them, not about them.  I see them as people in need, not a threat to my way of life.  This is largely because I've already surrendered my way of life to God's will.

I’ve also found that there is a lot to learn from different cultures.  For example, I grew up in a loving family, but I never realized how close knit and supportive a family could be until I came to Eastern Europe.

By far, the best part of my time in Europe has been the friendships I have forged.

Actually, friendship is a mild term.  Family-ship is probably a better word.  There are people here that I am closer to than many of the people I grew up with.  I can’t explain why this happens psychologically, though I have my theories.  The best answer I can offer comes from Jesus:

“Truly I tell you, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and in the age to come eternal life.” (Luke 18:29-30)

I’ve gained a lot living here.  Perhaps many who read this will not understand what I mean by this.  I left my comfort zone.  I have much less money than I would have had if I had stayed and worked just about any other job.  I also have fewer rights here than I do in America.  I even have less security.  How can I think I have gained from such a venture?

I don’t know that I can explain it to you.  If you want to find out just how much you can gain by packing up and leaving your home, then I suggest you try it.  If you are doing it for the sake of the kingdom of God, you will be surprised just how much you gain.

Come and see.