I took this picture in our camp in Lincoln, Montana. We walked to church this morning down the Main Street in town and saw 6 deer. This is my kind of town. The pastor in his sermon was talking about people in the church being like parts of a physical body, and then he said that the most important part of his own body was his shooting finger, my kind of pastor. The church we attended this morning had about 25 people attending, with great worship and teaching from the Bible, and we were greatly edified as we spent time with God with a church family a long way from home. I spent several hours today planning or replanning our trip. The route I had planned on through Glacier National Park is not open yet because of snow so we are going an alternate route that is open, and once you change one thing you have to change almost everything else. I have 6 different Apps on my IPad for planning routes for bicycles. They pick routes that are bicycle friendly based on input from many different bicyclists who have given feedback on the various routes, plus I go over the route with google earth checking it visually. I especially check out the bicycle trails because many of them are gravel, the Apps don’t tell you that, and my skinny bicycle tires don’t do well on gravel. Tomorrow we are headed North to Chateau, Montana. a ride of 82 miles.

An important character trait in life is flexibility. Flexibility is not being wishy washy, or indecisive, it is acknowledging that at any given time there is a lot of information missing that is needed to make a good decision about most things, but decisions usually have to be made before the information is available. So wise people are flexible, they make decisions, make plans, set goals, and figure out strategies knowing that they may change, and they make those mid-course adjustments with the same decisiveness that they made the original plan as new information comes in. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” In the book of Proverbs these kind of statements aren’t 2 opposite statements, but parallel statements, like railroad tracks running parallel side by side. One statement is man’s part, man’s responsibility and the other is God’s. “The mind of man plans his way, and at the same time God is directing his steps”. God expects that we will be responsible and plan, organize, and make goals, but He also expects that we will trust Him, recognizing that He doesn’t give us everything we need to know up front.