What is a Bulgaria? Part I

2015 has arrived, and we in the Bliss household are starting to make plans for our return to Bulgaria.  Our oldest daughter is frustrated by the fact that almost no one in America knows anything about Bulgaria.  She may be a bit hyperbolic in her commentary on American ignorance, but she does have a point in that the small country in southeastern Europe that we call home is not well known in America.  So I’ve decided to share a little something about Bulgaria every week for the next few months as we count down to our departure.

This week I’m going to start with where Bulgaria is.

This is Europe.

If you look at down to the lower right, you will see Turkey and Greece.  Bulgaria is just to the north of them.  (On this map it is brown.)

Here is a closer map.

As you can see, it borders 5 countries (Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey) and the Black Sea.  This put it on the communist side of the cold war in the 20^th century, and on the Ottoman side of Europe for most of the 500 years before that.

So now that you know where Bulgaria is, I can tell you more about it.

Next week.

Are you Happy?

The other day, Sasha and I were watching a show called Vikings.  The main character in the program is a Viking named Ragnar Loghbrok.  In this episode, he listened to his son complain about not being happy.  Ragnar used this moment to teach his son:

“I know it is hard for you to accept, but unhappiness is more common than happiness.  Who told you you should be happy?  You have come to an age where you must grow up and be responsible about such things.  When I was your age, I had many friends.  All are dead.  Their happiness is neither here nor there.”

Ragnar is a fictions portrayal of a typical Viking.  He is practically illiterate and is prone to acts of violence.  He is not exactly the picture of academia.  Yet his views on happiness display a wisdom that many highly educated men and women in the world today fail to understand.

In the western world, personal happiness is seen as one of the highest virtues.  According to the U.S. constitution, happiness is something that we all have the right to pursue.  There is nothing inherently wrong with trying to be happy, but too often in the world today we elevate happiness to such a point where we consider unhappiness to be wrong.

Happiness has been used as an excuse for all kinds of sins.  A boy pirates a video game because he hopes the game will make him happy.  A teenaged girl starves herself because she thinks it will make her beautiful and that will make her happy.  A woman has an adulterous affair with a man because it makes her happy.  When confronted by the man’s wife she justifies herself by saying, “He’s not happy with you!  He’s happy with me!”  Men marry men and women marry women all in an attempt to find happiness.  Happiness seems to be an explanation with such power that we assume the logic of it is unassailable.

I have even heard it used in religious terms.  “It is ok if I do such and such because God want me to be happy.”  I have met people who have caused much pain to their friends, families, children, and spouses because they have disregarded God’s commands in pursuit of their own dreams and declared that they were actually worshiping God by becoming the happy people He intended them to be.

Such people have confused the God of the Bible with a god made in their own image.  If my personal happiness is the means by which I determine morality, then I am the determiner of good and evil and my god is me.  I am not a theist.  I am a me-ist.

Yet even we in our lust for happiness recognize that happiness as an excuse has its limitations.  Most of us would never accept the theft of a car because it made the thief happy.  Nor would we accept the happiness of the plantation owner as an excuse for slavery.  We are quick to break moral laws when it makes us happy.  Yet, we are equally quick to condemn when someone else sins in a way we find unacceptable.  If happiness can excuse my actions, why doesn’t it excuse everyone else’s actions?

There is another problem with making happiness the highest objective.  It doesn’t work.  We make our happiness the alter on which we sacrifice everything else, yet we soon find that we have lost the very happiness we seek.  We focus so much on what we need to be happy, and when we get it we find that our happiness quickly fades.  We then sacrifice something else on happiness’s alter and again our happiness quickly fades.  Soon we have nothing left to sacrifice and our unhappiness is complete.

When we come to the end of our lives, we may tragically find that by worshiping the god of our own happiness, we have given up everything to gain what we wanted.  We may find our heart’s desire and find despair.

There is another road if you have the wisdom to take it.  It is a road where we pursue happiness, not using our own desires as guidance, but God’s will as guidance.  God has given us His moral law.  By following it, we can take a road that leads to something far beyond happiness.

Many people don’t like this road.    The road offered by the god of happiness seems too appealing in its simplicity.  I think this is because we don’t understand what God is actually offering.  C. S. Lewis put it well:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

If you want to get on the right path, now is the time.  Jesus is waiting for you with open arms and no condemnation.  He is ready to take you down the road that leads to something greater than happiness.  It leads to infinite joy.  And the good news is you don’t have to struggle to get it like you struggle for your happiness.  You need only surrender yourself to His will and let Him take you to the place you were made for.

Regardless of which path you chose, remember the words of Ragnar:

“Who told you you should be happy?  You have come to an age where you must grow up and be responsible about such things.”

The New Cradle of Civilization

It has long been held that Mesopotamia was the cradle of civilization.  Due to recent archaeological evidence though, history books may have to be rewritten.  There is now evidence of civilization in the Balkan Peninsula dating as far back as 7000 BC!

Modern day Bulgaria was once home to a civilization that existed thousands of years before the Egyptians built the pyramids.  These discoveries demonstrate that the people who once lived in the Balkans may have developed the first alphabet, been among the first to fashion gold, and much more.

Such discoveries are groundbreaking, and as an amateur historian who lives in Bulgaria, I’m very excited.  I already knew that Bulgaria was home to the oldest known settlement in Europe.  We now know that Bulgaria was home to what may be the first organized civilization in the world!

I love living in Bulgaria.  I do not need another reason to think it is one of the most interesting countries in the world, but I’ll take it anyway.

Some of the oldest signs in the world.
I'm pretty sure the one on the bottom says, "Ferb was here."

To read further on the discoveries in Bulgaria, click here.

The Logic of Jesus' Love

Those who know me well know that I'm a man who loves logic.  In college, my philosophy professor had me come back and guest teach a class on logic the semester after I took his course.  So, when I came across Jesus' words in John 15:10, my logic loving brain kicked in:

"If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commandments and remain in his love."  (New English Translation)

There is much debate in theological circles as to whether or not someone can earn God's love.  Some might think the verse above supports the position that God's love for us is based on our obedience of Him.  If you look at this verse and think that Jesus' love comes through our obedience, you have fallen into a very common logic trap.

This verse presents a typical “If . . . then . . .” logical statement.  These are common statements.  For example, I might say to you, “If you drive north from Iowa, you will arrive in Minnesota.”  My statement is very similar in its construction to Jesus’ statement in John 15:10.  Both have an antecedent clause, (“If you drive north from Iowa,” and “If you obey my commandments”) and both have a consequent clause (“you will arrive in Minnesota,” and “you will remain in my love”).

(For those of you getting confused, bear with me.  You will soon see why this is important.)

Now, some might look at Jesus words in John 15 and say, “You see!  If we want Jesus to love us we have to obey him.  Salvation is based on our works.  Our relationship with God is based on us.  If we don’t obey Jesus commands, He won’t love us.”

This is a logical fallacy called “denying the antecedent.”  To understand why it is wrong, let’s compare this statement to my statement.  “If you drive north from Iowa, you will arrive in Minnesota.”  Does this then mean that if you don’t drive north from Iowa that you cannot arrive in Minnesota?  Not at all.

It is entirely possible to fly north from Iowa and arrive in Minnesota.  It is also entirely possible to arrive in Minnesota by driving west from Wisconsin.  There are many ways to get to Minnesota.  Driving north from Iowa is just one of them.

Now let’s apply this to Jesus words.  Jesus is saying that if we obey his commands, we remain in His love.  He is not saying that if we disobey His commands that He will stop loving us any more than I am saying that driving north from Iowa is the only way to get to Minnesota.

Thus, we cannot use this verse to support a works based salvation or even use it as a means to show that we can earn a greater portion of God’s favor by obeying Jesus.  However, this is not the only mistake some might make with these verses.

Some might say, “I know that I remain in Jesus’ love.  Therefore, I am automatically obeying him.  All I have to do is feel God’s love and obedience comes naturally.  Jesus is more interested in our feelings than our actions.”

This is the opposite argument to the first one, and it is also a logical fallacy.  This mistake is known as “affirming the consequent.”  This fallacy holds that if the consequent of the “If . . . than . . .” statement happens, the antecedent must have happened as well.

Applied to my statement about driving north from Iowa, it would be like saying, “I arrived in Minnesota.  Therefore, I must have driven north from Iowa.”

Again, this is not necessarily the case.  Perhaps you drove south from Manitoba.  Perhaps you took a boat from Iowa up the Mississippi.  The fact that you arrived in Minnesota in no way indicated that you must have driven north from Iowa.  In fact, you can get to Minnesota without ever having been to Iowa.  In the same way, the fact that Jesus loves you in no way means that you are living in obedience to Him.

There is an interesting conclusion that we can derive from Jesus’ words in John, and these words are shocking when we think about them.  Let’s start with the reverse of my driving to Minnesota statement:

If you have not arrived in Minnesota, then you did not drive north from Iowa.

There are many ways to get to Minnesota.  Driving north from Iowa is one of them.  If you have not arrived in Minnesota then there is no way that you drove north from Iowa.  Of all the possible ways to arrive in Minnesota, you used none of them, including the Iowa route.

This is called denying the consequent.  If the consequent clause of an “If . . . than . . .” statement did not take place, then the antecedent clause did not take place either.

Now, let’s apply this to the reverse of Jesus’ words:

If you do not remain in Jesus love, you are not obeying His commandments.

If we take Jesus at His word, and apply the rules of logic to His statement, then there is no way that we can even obey Him without Him loving us.

Why is this important?

Because it means that if you are trying to earn Jesus’ love by obeying a set of rules, you are failing.  You cannot even begin to obey His commandments until He loves you.  If He loves you already, why are you trying to earn His love?

This is why I wrote this in the first place.  It is vitally important that we understand this point.  We need to know that it is not even possible to become a good person without Jesus’ love.

It is the work of Jesus in you that allows you to obey Him.  You are helpless without Him.  It was His love that caused Him to come to earth as a man, die for you, and rise again.  It is a love given to you freely and without limit and it is only out of that love that you can be transformed into the person you were meant to be.

Will you accept His love for you?

Will you remain in His love?

Striving vs Abiding

I just got back from my annual retreat.  This sounds a lot fancier than it is.  Pretty much what I do is find an inexpensive motel room near-by and spend a day alone praying, listening to God, and reflecting on the past year.

During this time, I usually read through my prayer journal and scripture notes from the past year.  It is great to see some prayer requests that I completely forgot about that God answered months later.  It is also interesting to see what prayer requests have not been answered.  It is even more interesting to see what prayer requests I am glad were not answered.  Reading the journal is a reminder of who I am, who I was, and who I may become.

This year, I was especially convicted by my entry on May 7th.  I was in Berlin, Germany on that day, and my notes came from a seminar given by one of the ReachGlobal Europe Division leaders, Don Reynard.  He was teaching out of John 15:1-17, and he talked about the difference between abiding and striving.

This struck me to the heart because I almost postponed my retreat due to the fact that I was too busy.  I changed my mind because I remembered how Jesus would often back off from ministry to spend time in prayer when He was busiest.  But it is safe to say that my heart went kicking and screaming into that hotel room.  Don's words, spoken to me in May when I was getting ready for our move back to America at a time when I was far busier than I am now, reminded me that God want's me, not my busyness.  He wants me to abide in Him, not strive on my own.

What is the difference between abiding and striving?

When you are striving:
- You are worried about time.
- You focus on results.
- You have a strong desire to prove yourself.
- You are easily distracted.
- Life enjoyment is dependent on circumstances.

When you are abiding:
- Time doesn't matter so much.
- Results come from God.  You are focused on Him.
- Your identity is in Christ.
- You are focused on what matters most.
- Life is enjoyable regardless of circumstances.

America is a great place with lots of wonderful aspects to our culture.  We love independence and place a strong value on the individual.  Yet, one of the flaws this can lead to is the belief that our individual efforts are the most important thing in our lives.  As Christians, this can translate to us thinking that it is our responsibility to bring glory to God, as if God needs us in some way.  Biblically speaking, this is flawed thinking.

Psalm 46:10 reads:  He says, "Be still and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations.  I will be exalted in the earth."

God will glorify Himself.  Be still.

Of course, we do need to press forward in life, but we must not do so with our own energy.  As Colossians 1:29 reads: To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

If we abide in Christ, we will bear much fruit just as the branch bears much fruit because it abides in the vine.  Branches don't strive to produce grapes.  They just do because they are attached to the vine.  In the same way, we as believers don't need to strive to produce results for God.  We need only be attached to Jesus our vine.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth [Lord of Rest], His name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
-Martin Luther