My friend Matt Borg and I went steelhead fishing today on the Siletz River with guide Nolan Davis and we hooked up with and fought 25 steelhead, netted 18 of them, and released all but one of them. Matt and I were about even on the number of fish caught, which was a good thing because I didn’t want him staking claim to my self appointed title of being the world’s greatest fisherman. Nolan said we set the all time record for the most fish caught in a day in his boat, and it was a fun record to set, for sure. It was a cold and rainy day, and I would have been miserable if we hadn’t caught many fish, but because we were fighting fish regularly I hardly noticed the rain and cold, I felt great!!

One of the consequences of having Parkinson’s is an increased disconnect between my brain and my muscles. My brain tells my muscles to do something, and there is a time delay before my muscles obey. We were fishing with bobber and beads which is a relatively new method that works great. The bead just above the hook looks like a single fish egg, and it bounces along the bottom of the river looking delicious to an unsuspecting steelhead. Above it is a bobber that is red or bright green making it easy to see, so when it goes down the fisherman sets the hook quick before the fish has a chance to spit the artificial egg out of its mouth. I would see the bobber go down and order my muscles to set the hook, and they would say, ” who, me?” Which resulted in a number of missed fish, which if hooked would have resulted in an even greater record. When the bobber would go down and nothing happened on my part, Nolan would yell, “bobber down, bobber down”!!!!, and then would scold me for being so slow on the hook set. It was a bit embarrassing for me to be coached and scolded like a novice most of the day which I am sure I appeared to be. But the really embarrassing thing that happened because of my herky-jerky casting is that I hooked Nolan right in the ear, and it went in deep. We cut the line off of the hook and he left it in his ear the rest of the day fishing, and we all joked that it was the perfect ear ring for a fishing guide. I felt really embarrassed for having done it, there are dozens of stories and jokes about fisherman who do such things, and I felt really bad for him because of the pain he had from a sharp hook lodged in his ear. But he did say that I had another dubious record, I was the first one of his fishing clients to ever hook him with a hook and he has guided a lot of fishermen. So two records in one day !!

In my journal I wrote, God blesses the humble in many ways, and He must really want to bless me, because He gave me the perfect opportunities today to learn more humility. Though I was chaffing inside I think I responded to all mess ups and resulting scoldings with graciousness and humility. It was a very fun day.

God the creator of everything that exists, the one who holds all things together by the exertion of His own power, all wise, all knowing, all powerful God. God is the rule maker, He is the rule enforcer. He created His rules to enhance life, to make us happy and fulfilled. Men like to make their own rules and ignore God’s, and to declare that His are old fashioned. God’s rules cause us to live life with freedom, confidence and success, our rules seem to be reasonable, but the truth is that they result in failure and conflict and remorse. One of God’s rules repeated numerous times in a variety of ways is, “honor the king”. The Apostle Paul wrote this command when Nero was the Roman Emperor, and he was one of the cruelest rulers of all human history. If there ever was a ruler and leader who would be fair game to slander and complain about it would be Nero. It has now become an American pastime that most participate in, to bash the President of the United States and other elected leaders in our country. To blatantly violate and break the rules that the God of the universe has made is the ultimate in foolishness, and will result in loss of joy, loss of peace, frustration, failure, and general misery in the midst of abundance. God’s rules are not burdensome, they are not intended to restrict our freedom, we are capable of keeping them because God makes us capable as we choose to obey Him instead of following the world and imitating them.

We came home from the Prayer Summit today, and the question among our staff was “what did you gain this year?”. I enjoy going very much because of the special kind of rest and renewal it provides for me. It isn’t the normal take a break, sleep more, and eat good food kind of rest, it is special, unique, spiritual, relational, and psychological kind of rest. It really is hard to understand and harder yet to explain, but it is very real and effective in my life each year I go. There are numerous ingredients in a Prayer Summit that makes it special to me; a key one is the prayer and worship we do together that results in a special sense of God’s presence that is very powerful and profound in its effect upon me. Another huge factor are the people who are there, each one coming as a seeker of God’s presence, blessings, grace, energy, direction, and joy. When you sit in a room with 50 other men who believe in God with all their heart, soul, and mind, who are all choosing to live for Him and serve Him with their whole life, with no reservations, it really does create a special kind of environment in which my soul seems to thrive in. There are all kinds of people there, young, just beginning in ministry, very naive, and some hungry to learn. Old, experienced, ready to retire or already retired, with all kinds of wisdom that they would love to pass on to those hungry to learn. Veterans who are tired and discouraged because of unrealized goals, dreams, and desires, who are really hoping for some new life, vision, and passion while at the Prayer Summit. Veterans who are faithfully serving the Lord, showing up for work everyday, running the race with endurance that God has set before them, enjoying the rest the summit provides, but ready to get right back at it when the summit is over. It is amazing how the intermingling of the various kinds of men at the summit produces this obviously supernatural mutual blessing and benefit between all who are there.

Leadership is influence. Influence is when we cause change in another person’s life and/or character, or cause change in an organization, or even have enough influence to cause change in a culture or people group. Great leaders influence to such a degree that the change they cause lasts for eternity. Great leaders who cause significant and lasting change don’t do so because they connect effectively with people, but because they connect effectively with God, prompting Him to create the change. Powerful influence is supernatural, it is the authority of God being given to a person who uses it wisely to move and motivate others to significant accomplishment and growth.

There are character traits in a person that moves God to give His authority to them causing them to be a strong leader. Faithfulness is a key one; “This one thing does God require of His servants, that they be found faithful”, “You have been faithful in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things”, and “God considered me faithful, putting me into ministry”.

A close second and complimentary character trait that God loves and blesses is endurance; “Run the race with endurance that is set before you”, “In due time you will reap if you don’t quit”, and “let endurance have it’s perfect result”.

Endurance and faithfulness work together to produce a person of high character that God uses and blesses to influence many others for His purposes. Eugene Peterson’s book, “A long Obedience in the Same Direction” is a great description of a person of great and lasting influence, a true leader for God.

A faithful person who runs the race with endurance, perseverance, and passion becomes that person because they do what they do in obedience to the Lord, desiring to please Him, seeking strength from Him.

In 1989 I had been pastoring JBC for 13 years, and I was burnt out, worn out, discouraged, depressed, and ready to quit. I had found 2 different dairies that had attractive herdsman position jobs open, and I was writing my resume sure that I would get one or the other of the jobs. I felt like a total failure as a pastor, and I was disgusted at myself for thinking that I could successfully pastor a church, and subsequently wasting 13 years of my life. In February of 1989 the late Joe Aldrich, president of Multnomah Bible College wrote a letter to most of the pastors in the greater Salem area. In the letter he quoted a recent study about the church in the USA which said that Oregon was the least churched state of all 50 and that Marion and Lynn counties were in the list of the 5 counties that were least churched in Oregon. He suggested that the pastors in the greater Salem area should get together and pray for several days with no agenda for God to work in our State and ultimately in our country.

So we did, 63 pastors prayed together for 8 to 10 hours for 3 days that God would work in our lives individually, that he would work in out respective churches, in the State of Oregon, and in our entire country. The experience was life changing for me as I made prayer the key discipline and activity of my life and ministry after that. My life changed drastically and so did JBC. I made a commitment that I would pastor JBC until I died no matter how bad it got, and that I would survive by spending time with the infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent God of the universe in Prayer every day.

I am here at the prayer summit in Cannon Beach, Oregon now for my 30th time in a row with no misses since it’s beginning. I come each year expecting to experience God in a new and novel way, and I come away from the 3 days with a fresh commitment to prayer. Especially a strong commitment to pray for each and every person at JBC at least once each week. This discipline that I started in 1989 has made a huge difference in my life and in the life of our church. Every year here at the beach I remake that original commitment, goal, and vow to pray however many hours a day it will take to cover each person with God’s grace.

When God created the world and everything in it, He ended each day with an inspection of His work and a declaration, “It is good”! It is impossible to comprehend the number of choices God processed as He decided what everything would look like, how it would function, and how it all fit together. The creativity of all the universe is staggering. On a much smaller scale each one of us has his life to use up, his character to develop, his goals and dreams to accomplish. When I get to the end of a week like tonight, I think about all that I have done, what I have done that was good, wise, and blessed others, what I did that I should have replaced with something else. At end of some weeks I feel really good about the choices, activities, and results and I declare to myself, “Now, that was a good week”. It is sort of like an artist stepping back and looking at his painting, and thinking, “now that looks very good”. The key for me to get to the end of a week with a great sense of victory in my life and the work I have accomplished is to choose to do what matters most every day all day long. The number of choices available to us in this day and age is incredible and the result for many is a lot of wrong choices or decision paralysis. The decision making process creates great stress for many as they agonize over what should I do. The single most important grid for shorting through the options for me is the question, “does it contribute to the accomplishment of my goals”. If it doesn’t I chuck it even if it is a really good thing, because you can only do so much so decide ahead of time what that will be and express it in the form of a goal and stay focused on it. The result is a lot of really good weeks.

It is so fun to watch people who have obviously practiced for hundreds if not thousands of hours, perform. They have perfected their various skills to near perfection. The hours and hours of practice, strength training, and eating just the perfect foods takes immense amounts of self-control, what is the motivation behind it all? We all know the answer to that, to win the gold medal in front of the world. As I watched I thought I should put forth that much discipline, effort, hard work, and sacrifice to living the Christian life, to growing to be like Jesus in character, and to bearing much fruit for God. The Apostle Paul says they are motivated by the hope of winning a prize that won’t last, that is in a year no one will remember who who won what, but the awards we receive at the “judgment Seat of Christ” will last forever. Why don’t more believers put out that kind of effort and discipline? Why don’t I? I think the key is a fuller understanding of “The Judgment Seat of Christ”, and then a faith that it will happen, and that the rewards received are real and worth the sacrifice. Is the effort worth it?

Yesterday I wrote in my blog that choosing to fast was like choosing to run a marathon, you know it is going to be in the super hard category, but you choose to do it anyway, and then I went on to write that choosing to fast was much harder than choosing to run a marathon. I reread yesterday’s blog today and as I read that part about the marathons I thought, “really?, you haven’t done any running whatsoever for 5 years-what’s with that?” My defensive response to myself was, “with the onset of Parkinson’s running became painful and hard, so I quit!” The side of me that started this conversation, the weird, crazy and B-HAG side said, “You quit!! you wimp!! You are always telling everyone to do the hard thing, and then you quit!!” Then my sane, intelligent, reasonable, and wimpy side said, “OK, OK, get off my back, I will do it”. So I wrote a new goal to run the Portland Marathon on October 7th, and then I got on the tread mill after riding my bike for an hour and ran/walked for 20 minutes. It was pretty slow going averaging 4 mph or 15 minute miles. Most people can walk faster than that. Oh well, I gotta start somewhere, and I did start. I like my highly intelligent, wimpy side better than my weird and crazy side, for sure!

I ended my fast at the end of 8 days instead of 10. I will do 10 next time. There several reasons why I ended early including, “I am a wimp”, but the main one was I was doing good except when I walked very far, today I was getting dizzy whenever I walked. Tomorrow I am going to the Portland Sportsman’s show, which I haven’t missed since I was 15 years old. There is non-stop walking for about 4 hours in that, so I decided to eat a bowl of high fiber cereal and a little bit of rice tonight. Now as I sit in my recliner writing this I feel really good! The challenge of fasting was a good one for me, and I am planning on regular times of fasting in the days ahead. In the 8 days I lost 15 pounds and I will try to keep it off, and then lose some more next time which will be the middle of March before Easter. The fasting didn’t change anything about my Parkinson’s, but I tried to lower my medication starting the 3rd day of fasting, but I had lots of problems when I did so I went back to my normal. I do feel like the five days of,prayer was especially good for me this time, feeling a real sense of God’s presence most of the time, and I attribute that to my fasting. I am sure my self-control level went up, and it will go even higher the next time, that is a big plus for me. Fasting is like choosing to run a marathon, you do it because it is a challenge and because it is good for you. I have run 5 marathons and this 8 days of fasting took more effort, self-control, and determination not to quit than than any of the marathons came close to doing. On the next one I will let you know early so you can join me even for a day

I am fasting with water only and some coffee for ten days. I have never done a total fast for ten days so this was a new challenge. So far I feel good, no weakness, or bouts of nauseousness which is common. I rode my stationary bike for an hour tonight, and didn’t feel any more tired than normal. I have written about 5 reasons I chose to do this fast, and today I realized there was a 6th reason which is very significant for me. I hadn’t identified it as a motive because I had included it with the quest for greater self-control motive, but it really does stand alone as a growing motive in the choices I make.

In the Old Testament the sin that God hated most was idolatry, worshiping something else besides the one true God. The first of the “Ten Commandments” is “Thou shall have no other God’s besides Me”. In the United States we are more sophisticated than to worship a wood carving covered in gold, or the sun. I believe that the number one idol in the U.S. is the god of comfort. We generally as a culture have been brainwashed into believing that life ought to be comfortable with few problems or trials if any, and if we do have trials we question God’s love for us and sometimes even His existence. The motto of our day is “It’s so hard”, and we even say it with a Country Music nasally twang!

According to the Bible God purposely made life hard, full of trials and problems so that we would grow in character, character that we will take with us into eternity, but the trials of life produce no growth in the person who grumbles and complains and says “It’s so hard”.

So I believe it is good to choose to do something that is hard periodically, just because it is hard, so that we learn to manage hard, to overcome hard, to learn that joy doesn’t come from comfort, it comes from hard, the only thing that comes from comfort and easy is boredom.