One of my goals is to call my Mom every week. I know how much I like it when one of my kids call me and how honored I feel. My Mom was the key to my spiritual formation as I grew up as a kid, and I need to honor her. The problem is that I forget, and pretty soon another week has gone by and I haven’t called my Mom. I have a list of 12 things that I do every day, my “daily dozen duties”, and I read the list every night to make sure I didn’t forget anything. The problem is that I don’t have a list of weekly duties to read to make sure I don’t forget. I am going to try and use my appointment App that I have on my phone and put in “Call Mom” on three dates during the week, and I should be able to make one of them work as they pop up in my reminder window. I have a goal to pray with Patty three times a week and I struggle to make that one happen for the same reason. I also have a goal to take Patty on a date twice each month, and you guessed it, I tend to forget that one as well. I schedule most of the things I do each week, like counseling appointments, meetings, etc. but I haven’t scheduled calling my mom, praying with Patty and taking Patty on a date because they are so important to me, and so enjoyable, I didn’t think I needed to schedule it, they would just happen. One of the things I teach in my leadership classes is that the more structured you are the more faithful you will be. I guess I better follow my own advice.

Our service tonight at JBC was super good. The worship was awesome and I felt really energized tonight as I preached, and felt really good after the service. Then I came home and was a grump to everyone including my dog, Russel. Laying in bed writing this I am trying to figure out how that happened and why. Sometimes life is such a puzzle, I guess a better way of saying that is, sometimes I am such a puzzle. I often have a bit of a judgmental attitude towards moody people and the next thing I know, I am one! I am working at training my dog not to be so hyper, I wish I could figure out how to train me. I have confessed all that I can think of to God and I am so thankful that He forgives me. I need to do the same with some people tomorrow. I hate doing the same dumb things over again. Help me Lord to make a little bit of progress tomorrow to be more like You.

One of the key concepts of life is that what we think about predominately is how we will act, so if we want to change how we act we must first change how we think. The Bible teaches that in Proverbs 23:7, “as a man thinks in his heart, so he is”. Another part of this law of life is the fact that what we speak out of our mouth sets or makes permanent how we think habitually. We speak words out of our mouth mostly on the basis of what we see, hear, and experience in life. Controlling our words is very hard, in fact in the New Testament in the book of James it says that controlling our words is the hardest part of our life to control. So the cycle goes like this for many; you have a negative experience in life so you grumble and complain about it because of the inconvenience, discomfort, or pain it causes. Those negative words powerfully influence the way we think, moving our running self talk in the negative direction, which prompts us to complain even more which in turn moves our thinking further to the critical. This movement to the negative in our thinking influences our choices, our relationships, our joy level, our energy level, and even our walk with God. It is no wonder that God tells us clearly in His Word in Philipians 2:14 to do everything without any grumbling or complaining.” Every morning as I pray my “commitment prayer” one point in it is “today I will not complain about anything no matter how bad it is, not even a little bit”. I am never totally successful at keeping my commitment but I work hard at getting better at being a positive person who rejoices always. I target certain phrases that become habit like “I am so tired”. Saying it just makes it worse so I replace it with, “thank You Lord for giving me so much to do for You, please give me Your strength to accomplish all the work You give me to do, thank You.

We had Thanksgiving Dinner at Mike and Sarah’s house, along with their three kids, Sarah is our oldest. Sandee and Luke and their 4 children also came, Samdee is our second born. Thomas and Sherri and their little boy also were their, Sherri is our 4th, and Seth our only unmarried of 8 kids rounded out the ones there at our feast. Tomorrow we are going to do it all over again at our house and Sam and Shannon and their 3 kids will join us. We plan on watching a lot of football and eating a lot of food. I am always very blessed by our family get togethers whether there are just a couple there or the whole gang of 8 kids, 6 son in laws, a daughter in law, and 22 grandkids. What blesses me most is the incredible unity and love that exists between everybody. It makes our gatherings very, very enjoyable for me. Not enjoyable in the sense of fun, but in the sense of feeling happy and proud because of the character of each of our family. They all love the Lord with all their heart, are growing in their Christian walk, and they all are serving the Lord and bearing fruit for Him. Also one the most enjoyable things is that each of them treat Patty and I with great respect, honor and love. I always leave these events feeling special. It is a great feeling that I will never get tired of or will I ever take it for granted. Thank You Lord for blessing our family so much.

As I sit and think, talking to myself is what I am really doing. I always think, but at times like this evening I am thinking, I guess you would call it reflectively. I am much more aware of the words that are forming in my mind as I think tonight than at other times when I am just cruising through the day and my mind is sort of on auto pilot mode. At times like tonight is when I am most self aware, that is my uniqueness as an individual, one of a kind, nobody like me, person who has conversations with himself, and can have ideas that are totally from me. As I reflect about my existence I state with conviction in my self talk that God created me as an act of His will, in His image and likeness, for the purpose of being with Him forever in love, unity, and fellowship. God’s intent is that I would enjoy Him forever and that He would enjoy me. I exist, breath, think, very much alive because God chose to create me. As I think about being thankful, I can be thankful for stuff, for circumstances, and for people, but I think what I am most thankful for tonight is that I exist, that God did indeed choose to give me life, and the cool thing is that I am eternal, I will never cease to be self aware, to think, to choose, to love, to enjoy. One of these days soon I will change locations, I will be in heaven with a new body, with a perfect invironment, and I am sure that my thinking will be so much more intelligent, and clear, and unbiased. Wow, I do have so much to be thankful for. There really is never any excuse for me to feel sorry for myself, not even a little bit.

I enjoy reading the biographies of great people. I would define a great person as someone who became well known because of a significant accomplishment that came as a result of character. A book I am reading now is about Norman Schwarzkopf, titled “Life Lessons from the Bear”. In the book each chapter deals with a character trait that Schwarzkopf endorsed, taught and modeled. Some of those traits are courage, integrity, love, perseverance, leadership, discernment, and reliability. A question I have is how does a 67 year old man acquire these character traits and grow stronger in them. It is a fact that the older one gets the more set in his ways he becomes, and that is not just in preferences. I would like to shift into high gear in the area of character acquisition and growth in my life. It is for sure more difficult than learning how to sing. Much of what is needed is basic character traits as a foundation for more. One of those foundation stones would be humility in the sense of being willing to recognize that there are huge deficits that need to be worked on. It is easy to get comfortable with who we are and get locked into that character state because of the natural desire to protect ourselves and to create a sense of worth that is not true. Intense scrutiny of our own character weaknesses without paralyzing ourselves with a sense of failure is tricky, but I think very doable with perseverance. I am determined to grow rapidly with the short time left to do that. I don’t want to miss a day growing because I am reluctant to face the discomfort that self examination brings. Help me Lord to pursue being more and more like You.

I went fishing on the Alsea River with friend Matt Borg with a guide in his drift boat for Fall Chinook Salmon today. I got up at 4:00 am for the great priviledge and we were on the water a couple miles above tide water by daylight. We fished with bobbers and salmon eggs. It is a fun way to fish because it is so visual. We cast to the side of the boat out in the current and let the bobber drift down with the eggs below the bobber held down in the water a little bit off of the bottom by a small amount of lead. We just let out line “mending” it occasionally so that the line is above the bobber. When the bobber starts bouncing a bit in the water we put our thumbs down hard on the spool and when the bobber goes down hard we set the hook hard and the fight is on. Matt and I both caught two very nice chinook salmon in one hole in about an hour. It was a blast. Fishing is probably my favorite activity of all the things I do. I think the reason is because it was my Dad’s favorite thing to do and it was almost always done when I was a kid as a reward for some significant accomplishment. When we got the first cutting of hay in we would go fishing. When we got the addition on the barn built we went fishing. When Jesus called His disciples most of them were fishermen by trade. When He called them to follow Him, He said that He would make them “fishers of men”. I am looking forward to my next fishing trip.

I enjoy going to church very much. The most enjoyable part is while we are singing and worshiping God. I work hard at not letting my mind wander and very proactively singing to the Lord as an expression of my love for Him. As we sing together I get a very real sense of God’s presence and pleasure. It is a very spiritually renewing experience for me that I look forward to each week. My second most enjoyable part is chatting with many different people before and after the service. Some of those I visit with I have not met before so I ask some key questions to help me get to know them and to remember their name. After our conversation is over I write their name on my hand with my pen and look at it a number of times before I write it in my prayer journal. I enjoy very much as well visiting with good friends many whom I have not seen since the last time they were in church. During the sermon it isn’t what I would call enjoyable but it is very rewarding to teach the principles in the Bible that I am strongly convinced if people believed and lived them they would be very happy and fulfilled. Now as I sit here thinking about all three services I like to mentally enjoy the memories of the weekend all over again, and then start planning for next week.

The apostle Paul in the New Testament book of 2 Timothy tells his young prodigy pastor that if he really wants to please the Lord and do well in ministry pastoring a church than he must be careful not to get “entangled in the affairs of everyday life”. I think about that counsel often and wonder if I am “entangled” or not, or if I am getting close. I often wish that there was some kind of definitive way of measuring that. I own things, possibly more that I ought, not in a bad way, just in a way that takes to much time away from doing things that have an eternal result. Everything I own, owns me. I have to take care of it, maintain it, use it. Granted, a person has to live and certain things facilitate that aspect of life, but it is so easy to want just a little bit more and justify it. With the constant exposure to advertising on the television, magazines, and the Internet there is a constant brainwashing that I really do need certain things. One of the blessings of the 2 month bicycle trip that we took last summer to Portland, Maine with everything we needed in bags on the bicycle that weighed less than 70 lbs, it was easy to see how simple life could become. Oh well I don’t think I will sell everything tomorrow, but I do want to think about where I am and stay on guard against thinking I need just a little bit more to be happy.

Tonight was JBC’s annual Wild Game Feed. It is a pot luck dinner and you bring something that you “shot, caught or ran over”, no vegetables or fruits allowed except for chili beans as long as it has some meat is in it. If you don’t hunt or fish you can bring chicken and call it pheasant, wild turkey, or possum. Hunting, fishing, shooting, archery and other out door videos are played on the big screen in the gym where it is held as guys arrive and chat and during the dinner. I ate way to much having salmon, elk heart, deer meat loaf, some really hot chili, and some “possum”. Then we had different guys share some stories of hunting, fishing, and other out door exploits usually with pictures. I shared about our bicycle ride across the Nation last summer and about our next one coming up in March and April. I had my recumbent trike that I built there and showed it off. A bunch of guys road it around the gym after the event was over. Then we had the drawing of the raffle tickets for guns, fishing rods, and camp stoves. It was a very fun evening and I met a bunch of new guys who were invited by friends who seemed to enjoy the evening as much as I did.