How do we know there is going to be an eclipse tomorrow and how do we know exactly when and where? Is someone just making a guess? The reason is because the movement of the sun and moon and the stars are very precise and because of the precision it can be predicted what they will do years from today. Psalms 8 and 19, and Romans 1, say that we can learn a lot about God from His creation especially the heavens. God is precise and what He creates is as well. 

I want to be committed to doing certain things faithfully over and over again with regularity and predictability. When I function like God I function best. The things that aren’t important it seems easy to make a habit, but the things that are super important it is much more difficult to establish them as regular disciplines in my life. It is Sunday and though we are on a bicycle trip we are getting ready to go in and participate in a church service with other believers and worship the Lord and hear His Word taught. I have never been to this church before and it would be easy to skip going, but this is one of those important things that I need to do each week. It is important not because I say so or anybody else says do, but because God says do. 

On Tuesday morning when we take off on our bicycles again from Prairie City we will start right off climbing up to Dixie Pass which peaks at 5,240 feet and we are starting at 3,300 feet here at Prairie City. Most of the climb will be at 6% grade and will go for about 8 miles. I will be in my small ring on the front and my big ring in the back meaning I will be in my lowest gear on my bike pushing with all my might on the pedals going about 4.5 mph. I will probably stop about 4 times to catch my breath, rest, drink some water and massage my neck. It will take me about 2 hours to complete the climb and then the cool thing is that it is downhill almost all the way to camp which is about 70 miles away. Another cool thing is that it will be very cool even border line cold as we get towards the top so we won’t overheat from the exertion. There are a lot of people who wonder why we do these bicycle trips, and the simple answer is that challenge is rewarding. These bicycle trips are a lot like living the Christian life.

One of the things I hear and read a lot of today is that living for Jesus is just trusting, and that effort, self-discipline, trying hard, and work are not necessary. I am memorizing the book of Hebrews and have the first 8 chapters down good. When you memorize a book you go over and over the verses until you can quote them in your sleep. In doing that you notice so much more that is in the book that you never saw before. Hebrews 6:1 says, “let us press on to maturity” which means work hard. The word “diligent” is used 6 times throughout the book. The words of Jesus were, “take up your cross”, “deny yourself”, “give up everything”, and choose the narrow, hard gate instead of the broad, easy gate.

There are 7 key principles to remember and practice that makes the cross and yoke of Jesus easy;

1. We are saved, forgiven, and adopted into the family of God by faith in the gospel, Jesus did it all, we are going to live with Him because He died for us. Our diligence and discipline is for the purpose of growing in the character of Christ and bearing much fruit for Him, doing something with our life that matters, and that changes others for all eternity, we are not working our way to heaven.

2. God gives His strength to us to do all that we do for Him, but we must ask. He loves to give His strength to those who ask, and ask often.

3. We will mess up, but it isn’t failure, just a speed bump. One of my favorite Bible verses is Psalms 37:24 which says, “When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand. “. That is me!!

4. God will supply the opportunities to do something great with our life, but we must look for them, and want to do something that matters. In John 4, Jesus says, “lift up your eyes and look”. Passivity, laziness, and apathy are not synonymous with faith.

5. Accomplishment, significance, and greatness require planning, thinking, wisdom, and goals are good to. God gives wisdom to those who seek it like gold and silver and pray often and ask for it because they need it.

6. Every accomplishment that really matters requires endurance, which is a major weak link in most people who attempt to do something with their life that is exceptional. The key to endurance is learning what it means to “abide in the Lord”.

7. The “basic disciplines of the Christian life” are means of God’s strength, guidance, wisdom, and passion. Bible reading, scripture memory, prayer, gathering with other believers, confession of sin, seeking wisdom, giving, etc are like eating healthy meals, sleep, brushing our teeth, washing our hands etc are to our physical life.

Some bits and pieces from Revelation 6:12-16, you can look it up and read it all.

and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair,……The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up,……Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves …….from the presence of Him who sits on the throne,

It appears to me from this passage that at some point in the future those on the earth will see Jesus on His throne in the heavens. I wonder what would happen in the minds and hearts of all those watching the eclipse if that were to happen. I don’t think it will, just wondering what would happen if it did. The reaction of people will be all over the scale.

Things I ponder while I am riding a bicycle.

We rode 82 miles today from Burns to Prairie City. We were expecting some traffic issues because of the Eclipse and the fact that Prairie City is right in the perfect place to view it, but we must have been just ahead of the crowd. As we pedaled into town we saw a number of big fields with stakes and flagging and a bunch of porta potties and signs advertising places to park RV’s, no water, no sewer, no electricity, but a great view. It will be fun to see all that happens. We are camped at the Baptist Church here in town. Patty and I have our pads and sleeping bags in the foyer on nice carpet. We are going to hang out here for 3 days until the traffic is not so crazy and head off Tuesday morning.

Along the trip I have irritated a muscle in the back of my neck that goes from the base of my scull to the top of my shoulder on the left side from all the rough roads and the vibration that goes through the front tire, the handle bars, my arms and neck. It has gotten increasingly worse every day and today the pain was incredibly intense. Every 5 miles I rubbed liniment on it, and took ibuprofen. I am hoping that 3 days of not riding will give it a chance to heal a bit, I am also going to buy a different kind of liniment, and get some Aleve and try that. We have 7 more actual ride days left so I guess I can bite on a piece of rubber retread off the side of the road, and just tough it out, and whine a little bit in my blog each night.

One of my self-talk lines when I am going through an experience that I don’t like, such as this neck pain, is ” I am going to heaven and I am going to get a new, glorified body that will not ache or hurt, in the mean time my main goal is to grow in character and become as much like Jesus as is possible in the time I have left, and this (fill in the blank) is a perfect gift from God to help me grow, so don’t waste it by grumbling and feeling sorry for yourself” and I add this important prayer, “Lord, would You give me some of Your strength to manage this well, thank You, I love You”.

This is a picture of our campsite last night. There was no regular campsite near where we wanted to go so we stopped at this gravel pit, and set up camp here. It wasn’t bad except for no water, no electricity, no cell service or wi-fi, no bathrooms, and no shade, but other than that is was super!! We left this morning at 7 am and headed north on 395 to Highway 20 and then East to Burns where we are now at “Burns RV Campground”. We rode 75 miles and it was a very pleasant day with lots of rollers, but no real monster hills. On the rollers we go down the hill shifting, shifting, shifting until we are in our highest gear and then we hit the bottom and keep our speed as long as possible as we head up the other side shifting, shifting, shifting to our lowest gear and then we hit the top and do it all over again. A bicycle riders favorite swear word is “Oh Shift”!

The traffic is starting to get real busy as we get closer to the date and also closer to the area where many are going to watch the Eclipse. Tomorrow we head North to John Day and then East to Prairie City where we will stay for three days as we watch the eclipse and wait for the traffic to shrink and the craziness to subside. I imagine tomorrow will be a very heavy traffic day. I hope they like bicycle riders and are nice and polite. Today was our first day with rumble strips. I hate rumble strips. One second riding on them with a bicycle and every thing that is not fastened on the bike well will shake off, 2 seconds and the bicycle with fall totally apart, and if some how you manage 3 seconds all your teeth will fall out. The people who decide where they will go must hate bicycle riders because they put them where it leaves about 6 inches of pavement between the rumble strip and the edge of the pavement and if you attempt to ride there and veer to the left you hit the dreaded rumble strips and if you veer to the right you drop off the pavement into gravel and have a terrible wreck. And if you ride on the left side of the rumble strip you are out in the road past the white line and the cars and trucks think you are trespassing on their personal road space, and honk, make hand gestures, and yell! Oh well, character building.

Today we rode north from Lakeview up Highway 395 towards Riley. There are no camping places along this road so we pulled into a gravel pit and are making this our home for the night. Today we biked 74.7 miles and it was mostly flat with rolling hills with one monster hill of about 1000 feet elevation gain in about 5 Miles and all of it was at 6% grade. The terrain is all open sage brush, but still pretty to ride throughWe had our first flat tire today, John got it, who has most of the flats. Last year when we went across the US he had 8 flats and I had none. So far on this trip it is John with 1 and I still have none. Every flat he has had is a result of the steel wire that is in truck tires that blow up on the road and leave the little shrapnel all over the road for bicycle tires to pick up. I have suggested that if he were nicer to me maybe God would quit giving him so many flat tires😀

Tomorrow we have about 75 miles to go again and we will end up in an RV park in Burns. I think it will be a relatively easy day with no monster hills to go over.

Today we are at Junipers Reservoir Campground, just outside Lakeview, for the day. Probably the nicest camping place we have stayed at. Super showers, a covered area to sit and read, nice grassy area for the tents, free coffee, deer wandering around on the lawn, and very gracious camp hosts. Tomorrow morning we will turn and head north on our Around Oregon bicycle trip up Highway 395. It is about 160 miles to Burns and there are no camp sights approximately halfway so we have identified an old road from Google Earth with nothing on it and we are going to go up that a few hundred yards and spend the night there. We won't have electricity, cell service, water, or bathrooms but I think we can make it work for one night. We will ride for 3 days starting in the morning, each of them in excess of 80 miles, and then we are going to camp in Prairie City at the Baptist Church for 3 days until the Eclipse craziness clears up, then up to Ukiah, then we head West over to Heppner, then Condon, and Tye Valley, Culver, Mehama, and home!!

My muscles are getting stronger every day and as a result I am enjoying the bicycling more because of less pain. During this trip, especially on rest days like today, I have planned out every day in detail from September 1st until the end of April, and it is very full with lots of teaching time at JBC, I will be traveling and speaking a lot, and I will be writing a lot. When I have things planned out very well and in detail it gives me a great sense of energy, excitement and confidence in what I will accomplish, which is so much better than feeling tenuous, apathetic, and confused. One of my key memory verses is Psalms 37:3-5 and verse 5 says,"commit your plans to the Lord, trust in Him and He will make it happen", so I am careful to present my completed calendar to Him and say "I believe this is Your will for my life for the next 8 months, I present it now to You as my offering to You, if You would like to change anything in it or all of it I will enthusiastically adjust, but in the meantime I will move ahead full speed in faith. Please grant me Your strength to accomplish all that is in my plans and to bear much fruit for Your glory".

we went over 3 passes today, 2 were 5,300 feet high, and this one was 5,504 feet high, and we road 84.4 miles. Last night we were looking forward to over 60 miles of today's ride being on a bike trail but today when we got started on it, it soon turned into all gravel and was very difficult to ride on so we bailed off of that and got on hwy 140 and rode it all the way to our camp outside of Lakeview. It was a long day in the old bike saddle today so it is now 9;45 pm as I sit in our tent writing this. We found out tonight that our planned route to go into Nevada down Hwy 140 has some very dangerous stretches for bicycles so we have decided to go up 395 to Riley and then into Burns instead of going to Burns through French Glen. All of that to say we shortened up the trip by a day with this decision so we decided to stay here tomorrow and head off on Wednesday, because this camp sight is so wonderful, and I am so tired and wimpy!

Tired and wimpy is an issue with everyone sooner or later, especially as you get older, and my wimpiness is amplified by Parkinson's. If you give in to it, you will do less and less, and exercise less and less , and then you feel even more tired, and down we go in this spiral until we crash and burn. The key for me is to anticipate the feeling and make commitments to myself to exercise anyway in spite of how I feel, to get up and Bicycle another 80 miles, or if home I make a daily todo list, and make a commitment to myself that I am not going to let my body run my life. Most tiredness is in our mind and we all are good at letting our tired body tell our mind what we are going to do. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, "I discipline my body and it my slave". Positive self-talk, lots of prayers asking God for strength, a daily list of things you are going to get done, a personal resolve to be a disciplined person, no matter what, and control every thought so we thinking our way up instead of down.

I got a number of responses to my blog yesterday about my "Reflective Thinking" comments while riding my bicycle. I have become a student of the the topic and a growing practitioner of the discipline of reflective thinking, let me share a few observations and principles that I have learned.

1. Very few people spend much time in "reflective thinking" because it is a discipline, that is we don't think this way naturally or easily, so we need to train ourselves to do it.

2. Very few people think reflectively because our thinking is prompted by what we see, hear, and experience all day. Our thinking is focused on the details of life and often moves to thinking patterns that are self-destructive like thinking anxious thoughts about the future, the unknown, or problems, thinking bitter thoughts because of how we have been treated, thinking about the unfairness we have experienced and wallowing in self-pity, thinking angry thoughts. discontent thinking, judgmental-critical thinking, and on the list goes.

3. Reflective thinking has as it's purpose to grow, to become a mature person who has the character of Jesus. Reflective thinking is looking in the mirror and examining our behavior, our habits, our flaws, our motives, our character strengths and weaknesses, our relationship with God, and doing that very honestly without any hint of denial, justifying, blaming, ignoring, or excusing because we don't like what we see in ourselves.

4. Solitude is an absolute requirement to think reflectively, which most must program into their life to make happen.

5. Journaling is the best tool that I have discovered to grow in our skill of thinking about ourselves honestly. Writing about the day not just about events, but what we did, said, thought and why. Journaling has a great power to move us away from the events and look at ourselves as another person. Writing out what we did wrong, or what our flaws are is very powerful in making us an honest, transparent, real person.

6. I ask God to search me and to show me what needs work. I confess all the negatives I see in myself to God and experience his joy and feel the value He places on me.

7. I regularly ask other people who know me well what they see that I could work on, and journal about that experience.

Today we bicycled 66 miles and ended up at the KOA Campground in Klamath Falls. Today takes over top place for the hardest day. We climbed almost 6,000 total feet and averaged 10 mph which is our slowest day because of the climbing. There were not only a lot of hills but they were very steep, well in excess of a 6% grade. Today was the first day I had to walk and push my bike, which I did for over 4 miles. I can walk up a steep hill at 2.5 mph and John was pedaling 3 mph, and I don't have the balance to keep my bike upright going that slow, but they didn't have to wait long for me. It was hot and I had sweat dripping off my nose at a steady pace, but I drank lots of water. Of course with the uphills comes the downhills, and I set a personal best for bike speed of 37 mph going down one of them today. I could have gone faster, but I was a bit nervous going any faster on a bicycle with skinny tires, so I did quite a lot of braking, especially for corners.

The Campground has a swimming pool so the first thing I did was put on my swimming suite and jump in. Cooling off my hot muscles and body felt so good. Tomorrow is a rest day so I plan on spending a lot of time in the pool. We are planning on going to church in the morning.

One of the things I like about bicycling, and going on trips like this is the amount of time I can think. Not just regular kind of thinking that tends to be controlled by all the events of life that go on around us, but reflective thinking about myself, who I am, how much or little that I am growing in character, in my relationship with the Lord, and in my relationship with Patty and other family and friends. I think about things I want to do and accomplish, I think a lot about JBC and what I can do in ministry to make her more and more a beautiful bride of Christ. I think about heaven and what that will be like. It is only 9 pm but I think I am going to crawl into my sleeping bag. Talk to you tomorrow.