1 Timothy 2:1-4. First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

I have a App on my IPad where I have the names and pictures of every person that is part of JBC  and I pray for everyone in it each and every week, faithfully. I am adding Donald Trump to this list of people, and I will pray for him every week.

These are the prayer points that I will have under his name and picture.  L

1. I pray  that Donald Trump grow spiritually and in his walk and relationship with God.              2. I pray lord that you will bring some strong spiritual leaders into his life to coach, mentor,, and disciple him.                                                                                                              N n n n n n n n n        3. I pray, Lord, that You will work in DonaldcTrumpa heart and remove the pride and that you would replace it with a gracious and humble heart.                                                                               4. I pray that you will fill him   with a knowledge of your will  in every area of his life and ourselves

On our hunting adventure yesterday we were riding horses up this canyon looking for deer, and it was long and it was very steep. The horses were working hard, puffing and panting, and very sweaty. We would stop periodically to look with our binoculars and spotting scopes for deer, then we would get back on the horses and ride up the canyon some more. On one of those stops when Seth got back on his horse, he was about half way on when his horse decided he had enough for the day and started at a run back down the trail the way we had come. As Seth attempted to get fully seated and stop the horse he started bucking. Seth held on for a bit and then flew off the horse and hit the ground. As I watched this whole thing unfold I thought surely he broke something, but Seth jumped up and started chasing the horse down the trail and caught him, and got back on. Tough kid.

I commented in my last blog on how important the character trait of contentment was in wanting, really wanting, dreaming big dreams, super big dreams, and setting big, hairy, audacious goals, and then experiencing the disappointment of not pulling it off. A key passage of scripture for me is   Psalms 37:7-8  “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him;  Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.”

The word “fret” is a cool word. It sounds a bit like worry, but worry and anxiety are about the future, and fretting is about an event that happened in the past, like a few minutes ago past, that we don’t like, the final score is in and we lost. “Rest in the Lord” another cool set of words full of meaning. “Rest” doesn’t mean sit in your recliner, it means we have a safety net in life. Go out and risk big, try something that is hard. If it doesn’t happen “don’t fret”. God still loves you, you are still going to heaven, you  have grown in a number of ways because of the effort, you are much more apt to win the next time, you had a great adventure, and life is good.

we hunted hard all day yesterday and saw lots of does, but no bucks. After getting back to our room I sat down in a chair to read, pray, and write my blog and promptly fell asleep sitting in the chair and woke up at 3 am so got up on crawled into my sleeping bag. We slept in to 8 am this morning, got up, packed the pickup, and now we are on our way home. It was a good three days of hunting in the wilderness of Wyoming seeing lots of gorgeous scenery and country, having great experiences, and having a very enjoyable time with my son Seth (he did get bucked  off his horse, but I will tell that story tonight). One of the key things that any person who wants to bear much fruit for God, accomplish a lot with their life, change the world, and be a “winner” in life must learn is how important it is to have big dreams and desires that are getting bigger all the time, always want more, and then they must learn how to manage the disappointment of unrealized dreams, desires, and goals. If that is not learned the dreams, desires, wants, and goals will shrink in pursuit of joy, comfort, and self worth. Contentment is one of the 26 character traits that I am pursuing. Contentment is not a ho-hum, oh well, whatever attitude that results in lack of drive, low passion, no dreams, and a negative opinion of goals. My definition of contentment is “want more and more, dream big and bigger, work as hard as you can, sacrifice significantly, trust God with the results in the process, and thank Him for the results when the hunt is over, repeatedly until it is sincere. Then think and ponder about what could have been done better, ask others if appropriate, write that information down, and begin planning the next big thing in your life!

today was our second day hunting in Wyoming for a mule deer buck. Yesterday we road horses all day and I thought I was near death my muscles hurt so bad. Today we walked all day as we attempted to find a wiley  old buck and retire him to our freezer. My muscles tonight hurt and ache really bad in all different places. We saw a lot of deer today and a number of bucks.  The number one question today was, “what is the smallest you will go” on buck size. One of Seth’s statements was, “You didn’t drive all the way to Wyoming to shoot a buck you could get in Oregon”. My argument was, “I don’t want to go home with nothing”.  This morning first thing we spotted a nice buck up on the hill side with our binaculars, and watched him feed.  So then the questions and statements began as we tried to figure out how big he was as we watched him a half mile away.  Then we spotted another one a little bit bigger, and  the evaluation started all over again. “To little”, “not bad”, “he will do”.  I settled the discussion by announcing, ” I am going to hike up this ridge and when I get to that old snag I am going to come over the ridge nice and slow and shoot him.” As I got up and started up the hill Seth and my Wyoming friend Andrew followed me. My second strongest character trait is decisiveness. When I need to pull the trigger I pull it”. Few things paralyze a person like indecision does., one of my life motto’s learned from my Dad is, “don’t make a decision until you have to, so you can gather as much information as possible so you can make a wise decision, but when you have to make it, make it”.

for the last several weeks I have been blogging about character, and I have referred to the 26 character traits that I use to do self-evaluation. I mentioned my two worst character traits, orderliness being #26, and Flexible being #25, and just for fun I will give you #24 which is “Gentleness”. There are some of you who guessed that one at #26. But everybody has some strong character traits as well as the weak ones, and I think it is good to acknowledge those without thinking that you are being prideful for doing so. Of the 26 character traits I would say and Patty agrees with me that  my strongest character trait  is “being tough, having grit, handling pain well”. My Dad and Mom were very tough people, Mom still is, and they taught that character trait well to me, so it is a gift from them to me. Character is what we are on the inside. Most of these 26 character traits start with discipline, move to habit, and then become character. When you are “tough” in character you don’t have to “suck it up”, try hard, bite your lip, you just think a certain way and habitually respond a certain way to hard things so your toughness is natural, comfortable, and “it is just who you are”.  People with this character trait enjoy the challenge of conquering pain. Today as Seth and I hunted for monster mule deer bucks in Wyoming with a friend we road horses into Shoshone Widerness area and we road close to 20 miles and it was very steep up and down with sheer drop offs on one side, so I was hanging on to my horse with my legs as hard as I could all day long. When we got back to his house at 8 pm after getting up at 3:30 am my legs hurt so bad I could hardly walk. But we have to go hunting again tomorrow so I can get a monster buck( we saw only does today) so I sat in a jacuzzi  tub for 30 minutes with super hot water and I took 5 Ibrupropen tablets and now I am ready!!

Well, Seth and I made it to Powell, Wyoming and we have moved into the shop of my friend here who is taking us hunting. He has a couple of cots set up for us and we are getting ready for a nap. It took us about 15 hours drive time and we stopped several times for fuel and eats so 17 hours total to get here. We were thinking about finding a Sports Bar somewhere in Powell and watching Thursday Night Football or maybe the Golden State Warriors play the Oklahoma City Thunder. As I was thinking about the list of 26 character traits and how I am doing in each one, I think I have decided that my second worst character trait, right behind orderliness is flexibility. For a middle name all I have is the initial “F”, no middle name, just an initial. When people badger me insisting that it must stand for something I tell them it stands for “flexible”. I like to think I am flexible, but I know that I am very passionate about what I want to happen, and what I want to accomplish, and the good character trait of determination goes beyond good and becomes rigid lack of flexibility. The key for me in maintaining balance between being flexible and being determined is to practice Psalms 37:7, “commit your works, and plans to the Lord, trust also in Him and He will do it”. On a trip like this I plan every detail out, and I push hard to make it happen. When we stop for fuel I am watching the time hurrying Seth up so we keep on schedule. I work hard to get as much done in a day as possible to be a good steward of my time, but it is easy for me to become a fanatic that drives everyone around me crazy. Being a person who is growing in character always requires constant self-examination. It is certainly easier to ignore the weak areas and pretend everything is OK.

My son, Seth and I left our house in Jefferson about 9 pm tonight, and we are headed for Powell , Wyoming. It is a little over 1,000 miles, and we are going to drive straight through. Seth started driving and he will go until he gets tired and then I will take over until I get tired. Hopefully Seth can drive several hours before I need to give him a break.I can do pretty good as long as I have a thermos of coffee, and a big bag of sunflower seeds. I don’t know what it is, but when I have a mouth full of seeds wallowing them around in my mouth picking one out with my tongue and shelling them with my teeth I don’t get sleepy. We will get to Powell tomorrow afternoon, and then Friday we are going to ride horseback into a Wilderness area outside Cody and hunt for 3 days. The goal is to shoot a big, trophy mule deer. I don’t walk real well any more so the horseback riding is a great way for me to cover some ground and see some deer. Seth is going to help me on and off the horse. The election will be over when we get back, the Cubs just won the World Series after being down 3 to 1 before coming back and winning 3 straight from the Cleveland Indians, the Portland Trailblzers lost in overtime to the previously winless Phoenix Suns. I wonder what tomorrow holds? Life is an adventure

Proverbs 1:20-25  Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:
“How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? and  scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge?  Turn to my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.  Because I called and you refused,  I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention.  And you neglected all my counsel  And did not want my reproof;

Having a teachable spirit is such an important character trait, and so easy to not have because of our pride.  A prideful person says, “I know”, but a humble person says, “teach me, show me, help me”. Whenever this character trait rolls around, and it is the one I am supposed to focus on for a week, I make it a point of calling some people I know that are doing well in life, asking them to go out for lunch, I always buy, and I ask previously thought out questions.  I take good notes. Usually, as a result of the notes taken I write some new goals.

There aren’t many people today that look frantically for wisdom. Those who do find it, or really God gives His wisdom to them. Life is an exciting ride then.

tonight we had an event at JBC called “Trunk or Treat”, which is a bunch of kids and parents all going out “trick or treating” but instead of being on the streets going to homes they were in our parking lot going from car trunk to car trunk getting candy and playing games and eating free hot dogs with free packages of chips and drinks. In the gym there was a bouncy house and more games to play with tables where they and parents could sit and rest and eat the free food.  I brought my 1949 Ford and sat in a lawn chair with a bucket of candy handing it out to kids as they walked by, talking to them and their parents. There were so many people who came tonight that I ran out of candy, and as I walked around to the others giving it out to find someone who had extra, it seemed that everyone was about out, but we managed to pass around the little surplus between us and make it to the 8 pm ending. I had so much fun tonight seeing the little kids in costumes, giving them candy, and talking to parents. This event has become one of my favorite ministry events that we do as a church during the year. A ministry or ministry event is something that we do that meets a need for the people in our area that would show our love for them, and also show the love of Christ for them and attract people to Him. We believe that God is real and that we can have a relationship with Him though we can’t see, feel or hear Him. He is Spirit and He communicates to our spirit so that on the inside in the “real” us we can have an awareness and intimacy with the God of the universe. Most don’t have more than an intellectual assent to a historical fact in regards to Jesus. Our mission as a church is to attract people to Jesus through the ministry and love we would show them. So for many tonight their venture onto our parking lot was a small step toward Jesus, that is our prayer.