My son in law Kyle killed a five point bull elk and brought it to our house to cut it up. We put a piece of plywood on the dining room table and gather round and whack away. We have done this a lot over the years with the kids and now the grandkids. It really is a lot of fun. We make steaks out of everything we can and then grind everything else  up for hamburger. We cut the steaks as thin as we can and then fry them very hot and quick and they are super tender. We cut out all the fat and mix pork fat and bacon bits with the ground meat and Whooeee it is so good. We did this when I was a kid on the farm with beef, pigs, and deer, and we have been doing it as well all of our married life. A total family effort with cutting, grinding, and wrapping, and then the eating!

I recently finished my goals for 2015 and I had 66 because I am 66 years old. I have physical fitness goals, ministry goals, financial goals, hunting and fishing goals, remodel the house goals. I believe that of all the different goals that I have set for this next year that my marriage goals are the most important. I ask myself the question, “what could I do to make my wife the happiest woman in the world”? The answers that I arrive at become my goals. One is to take her on a date at least twice each month that she would really enjoy. Another is to pray with her at least 3 times each week. Another is to never get angry at her, not even a little bit irritated. I make these a very high priority in my life. I read my goals every single day so I am reminded of the commitments I have made so I am careful to be faithful to my commitments. When Patty is happy it is amazing how happy I am as well.

My big goal for 2015 is to finish an “Ironman” triathlon which is a 2.5 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bicycle ride followed by running 26.2 miles, a full marathon. To be considered a finisher you need to do it in 17 hours or less. My goal is to do it in 15 hours; 2 hours swim time, 8 hours bike time, and 5 hours for the marathon. The Ironman that I am aiming for is in Tempe, Arizona on November 15th, 2015. Leading up to that event I will do a marathon the middle of May, a half Ironman event the last week of June, a half marathon run the end of October and then the Ironman November 15th. I have been running on my treadmill 5 nights a week for an hour, riding my stationary bike for 40 minutes 5 nights a week, running outside for 3 hours once each week and biking outside for 3 hours each week. I also am taking swimming lessons on Tuesday evening and swimming on most Saturday mornings.  The challenge for the year is not to get wimpy and let down on the training.  I am pretty sure this will be a bigger challenge than the bicycle trip across the USA because the effort will need to last a full year not just 60 days. A commitment to faithfulness to the disciplines is the key to finishing well. I will do that. I will faithfully do the swimming, biking, and running. I will do it.

Today I went to a prayer gathering from 8 am until noon of a bunch of pastors and people from churches from Albany, Lebanon, Corvallis, Jefferson, and the surrounding area. We worshiped together, prayed together, prayed for each other and just hung out as good friends. My hearing is so poor that I missed a bunch that was said and prayed, but I didn’t miss the very strong sense of unity and oneness that was part of the atmosphere. It was very real and strong and I left with a strong feeling of joy having been part of it. I think what I was actually doing was entering into the joy that the Lord felt as a result of our gathering. There is so much discord and fighting in our culture today, and today being Election Day is sort of the epitome of that culture. It is a super refreshing experience to spend half a day in the “oneness” that happened today.

It is funny how we have these emotional  highs and lows in our life where we feel happy, positive, up, energized on one day and then the next we are blue, lazy, unmotivated, cranky. For almos 40 years I am in various stages of depression on Mondays. In my head I quit my job almost every Monday. Some Monday’s I don’t get out of bed until 10 am because I don’t want to do anything or talk to anybody. It is sort of an emotional fatigue from the weekend of preaching, people, services, and busy. One of my life motto’s that I preached to my kids and most anybody else who would listen is “you don’t have to act the way you feel”. I made that a firm personal commitment so that I wouldn’t do things and say things and make decisions on Monday that would hurt others, mess up my relationships with people I love. It is a fact that I can act responsibly and lovingly even when I don’t feel like it because I make a firm commitment and decision to do so because it is right. I am thankful that tomorrow is Tuesday and Tuesday’s are almost always good days when it is easy to smile and be nice to everybody.

I had several people come up to me this weekend after the services and say “that is the best sermon I have ever heard”! Now if you are a “Preacher”, that is what you do, comments like that will absolutely make your day😄 and I certainly was on a high this afternoon as I thought about those responses. After a bit of time passed and I came down off of my high I got to thinking and wondered what it was about my sermon that evoked that response. If I could figure out what it was maybe I could do it again. As I was thinking along this line I thought, “why do you preach, anyway?” What is my purpose and goal as I study all week and then preach a 40 minute sermon 3 times. I wrote out my conclusion so I wouldn’t forget it.

1. I believe without a doubt that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. He inspired and supervised the writing of it over thousands of years so we could know Him and His will for our lives. When I preach I teach what the Bible means and how to make application of it to our lives. I work hard to make that teaching easy to understand and also easy to put into practice in our lives. That is a noble calling and I don’t want to blow it.

2. I believe without a doubt that the Bible is alive, living, supernatural, and that God speakes to our heart, our soul, and our spirit through the preaching of His Word. It is mind blowing to think that I have the responsibility and priviledge to teach the Word of God. I work hard as I study and write to preach and teach in a way that holds people’s attention. I want those who listen to be fully engaged and not bored. For me the ultimate sin would be to bore people with the Word of God.

3. I want people to have a genuine encounter with the living God when they listen to me preach His Word. They would not be hearing me but God and they would know it without a doubt that God is speaking to their innermost being through His Word as I teach it. As I read that back to myself it sounds a bit arrogant but it is still true. God speaks through people and I desperately want to be one of those people whom God is speaking through.

Today is the day after Halloween and there was lots of left over candy almost everywhere I looked. I lost 45 pounds on my bicycle trip and do not want to gain any of it back. I feel good and haven’t gotten this many compliments on how good I look in my entire life. But as much as I didn’t want to do it I found myself eating candy all day long. How is it that we can want one thing and do another! Paul put it this way in Romans, ” the things I want to do I don’t do and things I don’t want to I do”!? Strange isn’t it? Growing in character is growing in self control. When we talk about a strong person it is not the ability to lift heavy loads but the ability to do what is right in spite of our fleshly desires and the pull of the world. Sometimes I get so frustrated with my own weakness, but then I realize that I am getting stronger, more disciplined, even though it seems so slow. I will keep working at becoming a strong man who knows what it means to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

We had our Halloween event “Trunk or Treat” at JBC tonight. The weather turned out perfect for the evening and there were hundreds of kids and parents that came. I brought my 1949 pickup and sat next to it and handed out candy all evening to kids. It is funny how such a simple activity turned into so much fun for me. When I got home and sat down and thought about the evening it was a bit of a mystery in my mind why I was feeling so “up”. There is something about children who are happy that seems to make me happy especially if I am part of the reason they are happy. As we interact with other people we usually are having some impact or influence on them even if we don’t realize it. People are blessed by what we do and say or sometimes we irritate them or even hurt them, we seldom are neutral in our influence on them. Those who realize that we are all a factor in the invironment of those around us tend to be more proactive in the words they speak and the way they treat people. It is sort of like a Dentist working on a young persons teeth, you are needing to do what you are doing but you pay attention so that you are as gentle as possible so as not to hurt them any more than necessary. Choosing to say words and do things to give others as much joy as possible is so much fun. It is amazing how the Biblical principle of give and it will be given to you pressed down, shaken together, running over is so true. I will work hard at paying attention to people, their countenance, their words and body language and using as much wisdom as possible to bless them. Being a reason that others feel good is a great privilege.