Washed by the Blood of a Listening Ear

Jesus told me a few weeks ago that Bulgaria needs one thing, a listener. I do not know how to listen properly. "But did you know," he said, "that you can breath life into a human being through sitting with them, looking intently into their soul, and not saying a word and thinking about nothing other than what they mean?" How often is it that we listen in that way? "And thinking about NOTHING other than what they mean..."

How many stories this place has to tell. Over 1,000 years of one invasion after another, one hated people group after another, one heart break after another. God had it right when he referred to Israel as a woman, calling the nation "her." A collective people works like a woman. We are emotional beings, we nations, we need to show our beauty, we need to nurture, we need to care for, and we need to be listened to, we need to express our individuality, and we need to lay at the feet of our Savior and pour out our jars of wealth. A nation fears the cage, just like a woman.

My job here, my truly meaningful job in Bulgaria besides all of my ministry activities and busy work is to go have coffee with women. We get coffee or ice cream, whatever it may be that day depending on the temperature, and I listen intently and SHUT MY MOUTH UNTIL THE SPIRIT MOVES ME to speak. "Shut up!" he tells me. I honestly love when he tells me that. So there I sit, at the cafe, drawing these beautiful women out from behind these walls they have created to keep people away.

And I discovered that under communism, people in the church were taught never to make close friends with others in the church because they might be a spy. This is their reality! Spies! So now, in freedom and safety, the women of Bulgaria have permission to free themselves! How do they become free? By being drawn out. Holy Spirit nudges his ear right up to their quivering mouths and says, "Speak to me, my love, I want to know you." And there I sit. And there I watch Him woo these women by nuzzling his hear close to them asking for their stories, asking for their hurts. And there I watch him saves lives. And there I sit falling more in love with him myself.

If you want to know a nation, listen to her women.

"You see and understand what is right but refuse to act on it. You hear, but you don't really listen."

-Isaiah 42:20