Spent several hours today getting my sprinkler system in my little orchard working. I got it going and adjusted all the sprinkler heads and it looked really good with water flying everywhere. With water, all my fruit trees will do good and have lots of big fat apples and my lawn will stay nice and green as well. As I stood and admired my work I thought of one of my memory verses, Psalms 1:2-3, “his delight is in the Law of the Lord, and in His Law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields it’s fruit in it’s season, it’s leaf doesn’t wither and in whatever he does, he prospers.” I delight in God’s Word. I read it every day for at least 30 minutes and spend another 30 minutes memorizing verses. Whenever I start thinking in a way that I know is not healthy I choose to replace those thoughts with a Bible verse. I recite the verses or verses in my head and then begin thinking about what it means and how to live it. I am believing and claiming the promise in Psalms 1:2-3 that as a result of delighting in God’s Word and mediating on it often that I will bear much fruit and that I will prosper which means that I will be succesful at what I do.

Got up this morning at 6 am and started packing all the camping and fishing stuff, and putting it on the boat. A lot of stuff! Seemed like it all had babies from when we packed it at home. We also had two coolers of fish added to the load!! We got it all loaded and on tha road by 9:30 am, wow!!! Even with all the kids helping😄 Very fun, enjoyable, and relaxing time camping and fishing with 4 grandkids and their parents. I am mostly sleeping while son-in-law Mike drives. I stayed up until 2 am a number of nights fishing for catfish and was up around 6 am most mornings anxious to get to fishing. I spent many hours fishing and just about as many hours cleaning fish. I get really tired with the schedule and activity, but it is easy to push through it with the enjoyment of fishing as the motivator, but now that we are headed home I am totally relaxed and enjoying the sleep and rest. One of the skills that I have acquired in the last couple of years is the ability to steward my energy. I have way less energy than I used to have, but I use it with much greater wisdom, and I have learned to read my personal gas tank accurately, and have learned how to fill it up well before it is on empty. The number one source of energy is spending quality and quantity time with the Lord in prayer and reading, memorizing and meditating in His Word. Second is spending time with Patty and my family. And third is fishing, especially for a number of days in a row, and doubly especially when it is with family or good friends. So tomorrow I will be back to ministry with a full gas tank hoping and praying that God will use me to bear much fruit for Him.

“The Disciplines” as the early church fathers called them are those activities that our “flesh” hates to do but are critically important to our relationship with God and our own spiritual and character growth. Bible reading, and prayer are the two most basic and most important of “The Disciplines”. The key for me to being faithful to these disciplines is establishing routines in my life that I keep. For the last four days and for the next three we have been camping and fishing at the Brownlee Resevior East of Baker City. It is really a struggle to stay faithful to the basic disciplines when your normal routines get all changed. It is easy to say, “oh well,it is just one week, it won’t matter if I read my Bible and pray for just a week”. As soon as I get back I will get right back at it. I know how easy it is to drift away from the Lord and to lose your momentum in growing in just a week and then never to regain what is lost. Most say,”won’t happen to me”, but it does. I want to finish my life well and not to coast even for a day. I fear losing my growth momentum because I see it happen to others all the time, especially during the summer when routines get out of whack because of vacations. So here I sit in a lawn chair at our campground after Midnight reading my Bible, praying for those at JBC and family, and writing this blog. Don’t mess up now Duke, you are to close to the finish line.

We are at the Brownlee Resevior fishing with family. Thomas went out on the boat today in his wheel chair. It took a little man power to get him on the boat in his wheel chair and once on we tied the chair down real good. He has a Velcro band that holds a fishing pole to his left arm and he can use his palm on his right hand to operate the reel. He can’t cast but we got the boat over a very good school of crappie and he was able to open the bail and let the jig fall to the bottom of the water about 20 ft deep and then real it back up slowly and he caught a bunch of crappie. Grandson Josiah had a great time netting Thomas’s fish and unhooking them and then Thomas was dropping the jig back down for another fish. He even got into a little trash talking with his father in law. Today is the second anniversary of Thomas’s farming accident that broke his neck and paralyzed him. He and Sherri are doing very well not only managing this crisis, but turning it into an oportunity to glorify and serve God. I can’t think of a better way to conquer a trial and declare yourself a winner over it then to go fishing. Yeh Thomas!!

Patty and I are at the Brownlee Resevoir with two daughters, two son in laws and 4 grandkids. Caught 75 crappie in about two hours fishing and the kids caught a bunch of them. They had a blast. There a lot of other people here for the weekend fishing as well and lots of kids. A lot of the kids running around the docks and the camp ground are brats. Very loud, obnoxious, and rude. Camping and fishing with my grandkids has been very enjoyable because their parents are doing a good job raising them to be well behaved. They have good manners, look for opportunities to help and serve, and they know how to treat and talk to adults in an honoring way, especially their grandpa 😄Most jobs are very doable if you have the right tools. One of our tools in raising our kids was camping. When you go camping everything that can go wrong will, and then you teach your kids how to respond and deal with it in a positive way and when you include fishing with a boat the problems double. In the midst of the unexpected teaching the kids not to get upset, stay happy, talk to each other graciously, and enjoy the challenge teaches them how to deal with life.

Patty and I went out to dinner tonight with some old friends that we hadn’t seen in a long time. As we visited it seemed 35 years ago was like yesterday. Old hunting stories and jokes popped into my head with great clarity. It was really fun. The Bible says life is like a blink of an eye, and it really does seem that way at this point in life. Sometimes I can’t remember if I bought an exercise bike yet or not, and then at other times it will seem like yesterday when I graduated from High School. I often wonder what I will remember of my life when I get to heaven. Our mind will be perfect so my memory should be perfect as well, but there it a fair amount of my life I would rather not remember for all eternity. Maybe that is what will make heaven so wonderful, the huge contrast between the past here on earth and the eternity that stretches ahead of me that will be indescribably wonderful.

In the Bible when Abraham died it said that he lived a “full life”. Today was the service for Don MacLain who was 92 years old when he died, and I can’t think of a phrase that better describes his life than “full”. Lots of people shared stories about Don, and he was greatly honored by all. It is fun to think of Don in heaven playing golf beating a few Angels. The purpose of life designed by God is to grow in character as much as possible in the days we have as we take that with is, and Don entered heaven with great character and maturity that will bring great pleasure to the Lord as they hang out. If I live as long as Don I still have 25 more years to grow and serve. Seems like a long time. I am getting tired just thinking about living that many more years. I better go take a nap and get rested up for the next quarter century of excitement.

i work hard at getting routines established in my life. Some are spiritual like reading my Bible every day, and memorizing Bible verses for 30 minutes each day. Others are exercise like weight lifting and riding my stationary bike 30 minutes each. Others are very enjoyable like sitting in my hot tub for 30 minutes before going to bed every night that I am home. Once a routine is firmly entrenched in my life as a habit I free up some inner energy that is used up exercising self control trying to be faithful to basic disciplines. Right now I have about 30 routines established in my life and working on establishing some more.

My bag only went as far as Seattle. I have called Air Canada 5 times and have been on hold over 5 minutes each time when I hung up. I tried the web sight where they have a “chat” to help find the bag but the little sign “a representative will be with you shortly” never went away as I waited for over 5 minutes 3 different times. Patience at times like that is more of a choice than anything. Working on my self talk to be “I choose not to get irritated, but instead ask the Lord to work out the details and then trust and wait on Him, and expect that He will give me His peace as He promised”. I choose to love in obedience to His Word and The Holy Spirit amplifies my little step of obedience many times over. I choose to not fret in obedience to His Word, and the Holy Spirit amplifies my feeble effort a hundred fold. I choose to rejoice in every situation in obedience to His Word and The Holy Spirit fills me with joy. I choose patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control and in the same way He works in me and strengthens me as He considers me obedient even just a teeny weeny bit. What a deal.

I flew into Seattle at 6 pm after leaving Halifax after preaching this morning in the church that I did the prayer seminar in at 2 pm. When I sat down to wait for my plane to Portland I decided to read some emails and noticed one from Air Canada that was a receipt for my luggage that I had checked in at Halifax. It said that I had just checked it to Seattle. Oops, I hot footed it back to Air Canada baggage carrasell, and I could not find my bag, and I had lost my baggage claim ticket to boot so the baggage people who were really busy and not really wanting to help me basically told me to go away. So I headed back to Alaska Airlines and I had gone out of the secure area to look for my bag so I had to back through security, and boy was there a lot of people. I forgot to tell you that when I was going back to Air Canada somehow I got turned around outside the terminal and got really lost. A nice old guy helped me out and I eventually got to where I was supposed to be. I am now sitting waiting for my plane to announce loading hoping that when it lands in Portland that my bag is there. Life is full of adventures. Working hard at laughing at myself and being pleasant to people around me who are grumpy. Can’t wait to see my beautiful wife tonight when she picks me up at Portland at midnight. Love ya all. Dee