leadership is influence, not being a boss, but changing people on purpose. Not accidental leadership, but on purpose, thought out, pro-active leadership, influencing people in a direction , towards a standard, a particular way of living.  Leadership is training a person how to live life successfully, often in such a way that they don’t realize that they are being influenced or trained. I am training my new puppy not to potty in the house, and I am attempting to influence many other people how to live productive lives that bring joy to themselves and others. Totally different, but much the same. Being a good leader is a choice, and requires that you have a strong confidence in the standard you are influencing people towards.  My standard is the Word of God, and I am confident that it is truth right from God, and represents the ultimate way to live life successfully. The second requirement to being a good leader is that you have led yourself reasonably well towards what you are attempting to lead others to.  That requires an accurate self awareness, and a very real transparency that allows God to bless and empower. Leaders are not better than others, just ahead of them.  I buy and read books on leadership all the time. Many are secular as well as Christian, many are junk, and based more on the skill of manipulation than real leadership. Real ieadershop is selfless, not trying to get people to do things that benefit you but them. Real leadership is like being a good parent, with the other person’s success, fulfillment, and joy the motive. I want to influence my family and those God brings to JBC, and I pray daily for the wisdom and humility to for it well.

my Mom, Bernice Duke is about 84 years old. She got married shortly after World War II was over to my Dad who was in the war, when she was 15 years old. I came along a year later so the way I remember how old she is, is by adding 16 to my age. She had 5 kids, 24 grandchildren and 76 great grandchildren going on 100. She fell down a couple days ago and broke her hip and had surgery and they gave her a new  hip “ball”. I guess you could call it half a hip replacement. Over the years she has had cancer, some heart problems, knee replacement surgery,  her husband, my Dad died of liver cancer, all of her 6 siblings have died of cancer. She has had quite a few trials in her life, but everybody does by the time you get to be 84 years old, that is the way life is, full of trials, even for the most fortunate person.  I was talking with some people the other day about heaven, and the question was asked if we will remember this life when we get there. My response was that we will remember it much better than we do now because our minds get old and forgetful in this life, and even when we are young we forget a lot and don’t understand most of what is happening to us. Paul in the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians said in this life we see through a darkened glass but in heaven we will see clearly. Our clear memory in great detail of every thing that has happened to us in this life and a very clear understanding of all the reasons that we have no clue on now is one of the reasons heaven will be so wonderful. Contrast gives value and clarity, and the contrast between this life and heaven will be amazing.

sometimes when my kids or a friend asks me if I am excited about an upcoming event I usually respond with “not much”, which is usually an understatement if not an outright lie. I deny being crazy excited to protect my tough guy , show no emotion image. Oh well, to hear my kids talk that image got blown up years ago. Anyway, I tend to dwell on fun things, exciting things, new and never experienced things, and challenges. By dwell on I mean think about 24/7 over and over again. Each round elevates the excitement and anticipation of the event so by the time  when I actually go or do what I am anticipating it is usually anticlimactic, being no where near what I had been visualizing in living color. I am heading up to Alaska in a week to fish for Sockeye salmon which is just about the funest event in my life. I have been catching hundreds of fish in my imagination all day long every day for a month. So if you talk to me this weekend in church it may look like I am on drugs because I will be mentally gone to Soldotna, Alaska. Don’t take it personal. I think a lot about and visualize heaven now, but as wild as some of my day dreams are I don’t think I am remotely close to the beauty, the joy, the excitement of the real thing. The part that gets me most excited is my new body. Mine will fly faster than superman at least that is what I am anticipating, you can ride a horse in your new body if  you like. I choose not to dwell on the bad things of the past or to dwell on future possible trials, instead I fish and fly.

1 Thessalonians 2:7-8
as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.

These words of the Apostle Paul would also be the words of most pastors. I pray for every person in our church every week. I often agonize and grieve in my prayers as I intercede about bad marriages, addictions, lukewarm relationships with Christ, cancer and other health issues, jobs and finance problems. I pray for protection from the devil, and that God will make His will known  when people are struggling with right choices. I faithfully intercede for family members that are not believers that God would draw them to Himself. The result of the hours I spend each week laboring earnestly for people is that I become very attached to them. I have about 1,500  people in my IPad prayer journal with pictures of most people. Jesus declared that He was the good shepherd who laid his life down for the sheep. He also said that He knew his sheep by name. On the other hand the hired hand was not concerned about the sheep and when he saw the wolf coming he fled. Loving that many people is a load I often wish I didn’t have to carry, but on the other hand I wouldn’t have it any other way. There probably isn’t a time that I sense the Lord’s pleasure in me more than when I am agonizing over wandering sheep.

I bought a Mustang II independent front suspension with disc brakes and rack and pinion steering kit to put in my 1949 Ford Pickup. The flathead engine runs great but it just rides rough so this latest modification should make it ride really comfortable. I got the lit at a very reasonable price but no directions came with it.  I get a part of the kit put in and then realize that it won’t work  and then I take it back out again. I found a little help on line but it has been pretty much a test.  The test determines how much we trust God  it has been a challenge and it has been fun to conquer the challenge. I am pretty sure I will drive it tomorrow, and that it is going to feel like a Cadillac.

i am self aware. I carry on a conversation with myself all day long. I have thoughts that I know and nobody else does. I think about my future, my past, my likes, and my dislikes. Self awareness is not something I think about often, but occasionally the awareness of it and the truth of it just sort of washes over me. Some think that our existence has no meaning, no purpose, no plan, but as I think about my existence my aliveness, my iniqueness, and the very strong sense of “future”  I believe without a doubt that I am eternal, that is I will never cease to be self-aware, to be alive, to talk with myself, and to anticipate and plan the future. God created me as an act of His will with a plan for my life. His  premeditated planning, and giving me existence so that I can know Him and live with Him is a great act of love. I exist, I exist, I exist, I exist, so amazing, so mind boggling, such a mystery. I will live my future with Him, in His presence with incomprehensible joy or I will live my future away from Him, separated, with no joy, zero.  If I really want to live with God forever I choose to believe in Him, to seek Him, to need Him, to draw near to Him.

A characteristic of us people is that we are finite as opposed to infinite. We can only do so much, and we can only be in one place at a time. That means that if we want to maximize our life we must choose wisely how we use our time, our energy, and our resources.  It really does boil down to choices that we make. At every intersection in our life and there are dozens every day there are multiple options to choose from, just like a menu in a Resturant. Wisdom is what we need to make choices that are absolutely the best. The book of Provers in the Bible says that if we have wisdom we will do well.  Part of our problem is that the wrong choices available to us have a lot of things about them that make them appealing to us and fool us into picking them. The best choices result in happiness, unity, peace, success, character growth. The less than best choices result in conflict, frustration, unhappiness, anxiety, failure. A major part of being wise is recognizing that every word we speak is a choice and that we choose  all day long and that every one of them brings consequence or blessing even the seemingly little and unimportant ones. Every day we are sowing and reaping. Sowing seeds of the choices we make that day, and reaping the consequences or rewards of the sowing we have done in days past. Life is not random, or an accident, it is precise, governed, and designed to make us wiser and more mature if we pay attention and learn.

we all seek happiness. In fact  we are driven by that universal quest for happiness. It is what everybody wants but very few know how to get. Most think it comes from the events and circumstances in our life being good instead of bad which makes them a victim, meaning they can’t control whether they are happy or not because most of the events in our life are outside the realm of our control. We got back from our two week trip to Sierra Leone, West Africa last night at 7 pm and I have been feeling extraordinarily happy all day today. I was curious why so I started writing my thoughts down, and it turned into “The Ten Commandments to having Great Joy”. As I finished writing and retread several times what I had put together I thought to myself, “that is pretty good”.  The reason I thought it was good is because it was simple, and easy to understand and it was guaranteed to work. It seems a bit prideful to declare a personal work”Good”, but we all do it whether it is a wood working project, a painting, or an apple pie. I am very seldom totally pleased with things I write, most of the time I am very discontent with it and struggle to make it better.  I am going to preach it this weekend at JBC so if you want to know the “Ten Commandments to having joy” our services are 7 pm on Saturday night and 9 and 11:30 am on Sunday morning. You can also go to our web sight and listen to the recording of it. Www.jeffersonbaptistchurch.org

My goal is to read 100 pages each week in good books. We didn’t do a whole lot today and the next two days we will be traveling home, doing a lot of sitting so I will get in a lot of reading time, and get ahead a bit on my goal that is 5,000 pages a year. Today I downloaded some books from Amazon on my IPad to read, one of them is called, “Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverence” which the author says is the true secret to success in any area of life. I finished about half of it today and it is a good read. One of the good quotes is, “people like to believe in the gifted, natural, talented, intelligent person being great because it lets them off the hook for being mediocre, but the statistical facts overwhelmingly prove that the greatest, most successful people were and are the ordinary in the world but they have grit”. Grit is defined as the combination of hard work, a never give up attitude, and a huge level of discontentment with present accomplishments. Almost any person can be a champion if they have grit and almost any person can acquire grit, but a catch is, most will need to be coached and mentored by a person who already has grit in order to acquire it for themselves, and most won’t be teachable and humble enough to be mentored and coached by someone else. So it looks like the main difference between high achievers, average, and low achievers is pride and humility. 

I skipped day 9 but we have been on a driving trip around the country the last couple of days visiting churches and schools that JBC has had a part in starting, and there was no internet service last night where we stayed. We also visited 2 new churches that have just started up and that was very fun. They both gathered all their people together though it was on Saturday and they sang and we did some praying with them. The church that we visited this afternoon that is new had a children’s program for us where they sang and danced. I wish the Internet was good enough to be able to send the video I took so you could see these little kids dancing African style. They had a little boy, probably about 7 or 8 that was amazing playing a drum. Their church facility was bamboo rods that formed the walls and ceilings like studs and rafters covered with plastic with dirt floor and wood benches. It was a cool little church. I was incredibly blessed being there with them. Tomorrow Brad and I are going to visit some shops in Freetown to do the tourist thing and then come back here to the compound for a 4th of July celebration with the missionaries that are here, and then Tuesday we head back home. It will be good to get home. The heat and humidity and general conditions really tucker me out, but it will be sad leaving because it is so rewarding working and serving here helping the pastors and churches. If I were 10 years younger I would spend 2 months a year here instead of bicycling around the country. Oh well, I will do what I can and pray a lot.