Here is a picture of my new 10 foot pram that I recently built in Odell Lake.

5 of us went fishing this morning at Detroit Lake, and we limited out with 5 fish apiece by noon. The weather was perfect, the fellowship with the other friends was awesome, and the fishing was superLast week I went fishing and the wind was blowing, it was freezing cold, and we didn’t catch a single fish. That is the way it with fishing and hunting, sometimes it is great and other times it is a bust. You learn all the skills and methods you can that are proven by others to work, but there are very many circumstances and conditions you have no control over that no skill level, method or bait will overcome. On a day like today you say “thank You Jesus for the wonderful day of fishing”, and on a day like last week when I was froze to the bone after 2 hours of fishing, and not a single bite, you say, “thank You, Jesus for a wonderful day of fishing”. My Dad used to say that a fishing Trip was like our life in a micro photo, and a major principle of life is enjoy the experience, good or bad because you choose to, rejoice always, never grumble or complain about anything, and be nice to the people you are fishing with (though a little trash talking is allowed😀).

Today was the “National Day of Prayer”. It became an official day on the calendar in 1952 after being signed into law by President Truman, but it wasn’t until 1988 when President Reagan signed a bill that made the first Thursday in May the official day of prayer. That also was the time when key Christian leaders took over leadership of the event and made it a major emphasis for the church. The National Day of Prayer is based on 2 Chronicles 7:14

“If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

A group of about 20 people from Jefferson Baptist Church, Talbot Community Church, Jefferson Evangelical Church, and The Abundant life Center gathered together today at the Abundant Life Center and prayed for our country. It was a very powerful time and I believe without a doubt that significant victories were won over the kingdom of darkness that wants to control our land and turn it into an evil country. God blesses unity and there was very good and obvious unity between 4 different churches today.

I believe that nothing as powerful as prayer is more neglected by the church today. It is very hard to get people to gather together and pray in spite of the super promises in the Bible toward us if we just took some time and interceded to God on behalf of our country and it’s leaders.

We don’t pray because we have little faith that it will make any difference. We don’t pray because we are so self absorbed in our own life that we refuse to take time away from our stuff to pray. We don’t pray because the devil is very strong, fears prayer, and works diligently to keep us from praying by planting all kinds of negative thoughts in our head about the activity of corporate prayer.

I was fiddling with a new bicycle computer that I got recently for my bike. It is a little thing, about the size of an I-phone, but it tells me a bunch of information beginning with being a speedometer. At the end of a day I can see how many total miles we went, what the average speed was, how much climbing we did and at what grade and speed. It will tell me my fastest speed for each day and for the trip, and a bunch of other stuff that I have forgotten and probably won’t use. The first thing I did was check the default settings and changed many of them. Changing them was a major trial because each setting had a different formula to change it and to use it, and they weren’t easy to remember or to enter. After an hour of frustration I pushed a button that put everything back in default mode. Oh well, at least it was in miles instead of kilometers in default. I went with default because it was easier and less hassle.

We were born with a default setting in our brain and our character, it is called our sin nature or old nature in the Bible. Our default setting is selfish, gets angry, bitter, is critical and judgmental, is seldom content, and is never really grateful. Wise people have learned how to change the settings, but it isn’t easy, and it takes lots of work. Because of the work and constant attention to detail that is required most people give up and settle for the default setting. They just go with the flow. Reminds me of

Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

I worked on my bicycle for a couple hours today getting it ready for our 2,000 mile ride in the month of June to Glacier National Park. I replaced the pads on the disk brakes, put new tires and tubes on, put a new seat on, and fiddled with it for an hour trying to get the perfect height and angle on it so it was comfortable, relatively speaking, of course. I had a squeak in the front wheel that I just couldn’t seem to figure out quite where it was coming from, but finely got it gone. Tomorrow I am going to try and squeeze in an hour ride someplace. I haven’t ridden on the road with my bike for 10 months, just the stationary one in the house. I hope I haven’t forgotten how!

I got to thinking as I was working on my bike how nice it would be if I could do some fine tuning on my character and behavior in 2 hours that would make me good as new. All it took for the bike was a couple of new parts, an allan wrench, a pair of needle nose pliers, a couple of wrenches, and a tire pump to make the old bike like brand new.

I really want to get better, to grow to be like Jesus, to be mature, and to never, ever backslide not even a little bit. But, man, it is slow going, like trying to find that squeak. But, you just keep working at it, a little bit here and a little bit there. Evaluate, examine, and reflect, then commit, resolve, and plan, then confess and do it all over again with hopefully better results.