One of the common statements by older people is that they forgot. Senility, dementia and Alzheimer’s are words that are common to old age. As we age, our body doesn’t function as well as it used to, including our brain.

I want to get wiser as I get older. I want my brain to function at an optimal level. I want to remember, to think logically, clearly, to have great understanding and knowledge. Anybody can do the research on how to stay mentally sharp, but our minds our like our muscles, work them hard, regularly and they stay strong, be lazy and they get weak quickly.

I have a plan, a strategy to keep my brain strong, I am reading good, intellectually challenging books regularly. My goal is to read 50 pages a week. That isn’t a lot but it does seem to keep my mind thinking about stuff logically. I am also writing at least 300 words daily in my blog. Writing well takes a lot of thought and it is great exercise for my brain. I am also memorizing Bible verses and meditating on them. My goal is to spend 30 minutes every day reviewing old verses and learning new verses. I just finished memorizing the book of Philippians and am working on the book of Colossians. The Bible is the Word of God, the very mind of Jesus Christ, so it isn’t just the exercise of memorizing that is good, but the supernatural power of God’s Word in my brain doing it’s work.

1 Corinthians 9:26 Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air;

Archery season opens August 24th and I have been practicing with my bow quite a lot this last month. I try to shoot ten arrows ten times every day. One of my main goals in my practicing is to have a smooth release and not a jerky one. Even a small jerk when releasing the arrow can mean a miss even at a short distance and for sure at distances over 30 yards.

One of the problems I have with my Parkinson’s is the disconnect between my brain and my muscles. So when my brain says squeeze slowly my muscles will jerk violently and I put another hole in the side of my shop. So I have been shooting over and over at very short distances so as not to put another hole in my shop and ruin another arrow. The repetition is helping a lot, but the main thing is I need to focus intently on the bullseye and my trigger finger. The more I focus the better I do, and the more I practice the more focused I become.

One of the descriptions my Dad would use for people that didn’t do very well in life was “scatter brain.” That is a person who can’t seem to keep their eye on the finish line and as a result they are not very faithful, consistent, or reliable.

A key reason I am such a strong believer in personal goals is that they become the bullseye on my targetS in life. The more I review and strategize about my goals the more focused I become on them and the more success I will have in accomplishing them.

A waitress comes to our table and asks us, “ what do want?” After looking at the menu I decided that I wanted “fish and chips.” In life, what do I want, what are my strongest desires in life. If I had a vision in the middle of the night like Solomon had what would be my answer to that question, “what do you want?”

I think my answer is, “I want to be as holy, righteous, and perfect as Jesus was as a man.” I know that I am growing towards that, and I am now expected to pursue holiness and righteousness, but if I were there now it seems like I could do a bunch more ministry for the lord.

Regardless if it happens now or the last thing in my life, it is still the strongest desire in my life. Growth in righteousness causes the most personal excitement and sense of accomplishment in me of all the things I pursue, and not much else makes me feel like dirt as much as messing up living my life as an ambassador for Jesus.

I want my desire for purity to stay white hot so it is important that I don’t excuse any failures on my part and that I read the Bible every day.

“t

Don’t eat sugar. Don’t eat anything with processed wheat in it. Don’t eat more calories than I burn. Ride 30 minutes minimum on my stationary bike every night. Run/walk on my tread mill at least 30 minutes every day. Lift weights for one hour, three times each week. Read the Bible for 30 minutes every day. Work on my Bible memory program 30 minutes every day. Spend 30 minutes minimum with God in private prayer every day. Read in a good book for 30 minutes every day. Pray with Patty ten minutes, three times each week, write in my blog for one hour each day. Listen to a sermon or lecture via podcast for 30 minutes every day while bike riding or running. That is a total of about 4 and a half hours of disciplined practice every day. Those numbers are my goals, but I have successfully done all of them probably once in my lifetime. The rest of the days I get anywhere from none to most accomplished. The days that I don’t do well is usually because of a competing activity such as fishing. Every night when I write down my successes and failures, I scold myself, encourage myself, and reward myself accordingly. I have been doing this for quite a few years, and over those years have slowly, very slowly gotten more and more self-controlled. My main Bible passage is 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, and the phrase that I want to be true of me is “I discipline my body and make it my slave.” I teach this in my leadership classes and have those in the class that get almost all of the disciplines done and many who struggle a lot to get any done. These disciplines are like the practice that a piano player does each day. The more and the better they practice the better they play the piano and the more people will listen to their playing. The more we faithfully do the spiritual disciplines the better we will do living the Christian life and the more people will listen to us. One of the major keys to success is being part of an accountability group where each member encourages the others in the group and prays for their growing success.

God gives strength, self-control, and willpower, but He doesn’t give it to those who make little effort to grow, to those who do not press on to maturity.

So I have changed my mind, and I am going to make a goal to climb Mt Adams next year. I have been thinking about it, and I don’t think my bicycle riding, even though almost 4,000 miles, did enough for my cardiovascular, which was my problem. I am going to make running my new main exercise and run several half marathons, maybe even a full marathon. I also am going to climb much earlier in the year so I can climb on the snow as much as possible. Climbing on the rocks was a “killer” this last effort, and with my major balance issues with my parkinson’s I was always fearful of falling. Walking on the snow with crampons will be much less of an issue. I haven’t talked to my son-in-law yet to see if he wants to climb with me. I might have burned him out on this last trip, but if he opts out of this amazing potential for adventure I have other son-in-laws I can ask.

I know down in the depth of my “knower” that I can do this. I know what the issues were and that I can do something about them and conquer this past failure in my life. If anybody wants to be apart of this adventure let me know. Wow, I am getting excited and energized already.

Today I am thinking of all the reasons why I didn’t make it to the top of Adams; I should have done more running to get in shape, I should have lost more weight, I should have taken a lighter sleeping bag, I should have just tried harder and not been so quick to quit, I should have climbed earlier in the summer.

There is a place for honest self-evaluation in order to improve so as to accomplish goals previously failed because of personal growth. And then there are those goals, quite often they are BHAG’s, that I should just move on from. This climb was my third attempt in five years to make it to the top so it wasn’t a quick decision looking for the easy way. Each attempt was less successful than the previous one so I obviously wasn’t getting closer to my goal. Because of the recent 4,000 mile bicycle trip I was sure that I was in the physical shape to make it. The altitude was a major factor more than my being physically in shape. How do I manage a failed goal so as not to get discouraged?

1. I find as many things to be thankful for as I can. This event had lots of very positive things so being positive and grateful was easy.

2. Most of the time failure to accomplish a goal is because of things I can’t control. My Parkinson’s and a decreased ability to manage higher altitudes were the major factors in my failure. A growing list of limitations in my life because of age are a given. I control as much as I can, but there is much that I can’t. I don’t let those things discourage me. That is life, adjust, rejoice, and make some new goals.

3. I don’t let myself envy or be jealous of other people’s successes. Rejoicing with others for their accomplishments is a key part of humility.

4. I set new goals that are similar but achievable. I had already set a goal to run a half marathon on Thanksgiving day, but I am now going to work extra hard to accomplish it. I want to use failure to motivate me not discourage me. There is the risk that I won’t be able to run a half marathon, then I will make a goal to run a 10K.

5. A key to continuing to set hard and challenging goals is to work at developing self-compassion when I fail. There is a difference between excuse-making and justification that encourages poor effort and discipline from self-compassion. I want to continue to dream big, aspire to greatness, and bear much fruit for God, but in the process I want to have fun and enjoy life.

My son-in-law and I left timberline of Mt Adams at noon on Thursday, August 11th and got to the “lunch counter” at 5:00 pm. The “lunch counter” is a place on the South side of Mt Adams at approximately the 9,000 foot level where there is a fairly large relatively flat spot. The wind keeps the snow blown off of this spot, and over the years climbers have picked up and stacked rocks in half circle wind breaks. The half circle of rocks is the perfect size to set a tent up in, and most of them have sandy bottoms in them. I haven’t counted them but my guess is that there are over a hundred of these handy tent spots for climbers who want to split their climb into two days.

Climbing from where we parked the truck to the “lunch counter” I was so slow that Kyle went on ahead of me, picked a spot for our camp, set up the tent, and then came back to where I was struggling, and carried my pack the rest of the way. Our camp was a very nice camp with a great view. Kyle brought his tent which was plenty big enough for both of us. We ate our freeze dried dinners, I had lasagna, and then we went to bed on our blow up mattresses and sleeping bags. I slept like a baby even with the wind blowing and slapping the tent around.

I struggled so much with the climb up to our camp that I decided not to attempt the rest of the climb. I kept getting dizzy and struggled not to fall over while climbing. I wanted to make it to the top one more time, but it will have to be in my dreams. Even though it was a major challenge I had a great time on the climb up to the “lunch counter” and the camping experience. Camped right next to us was five Dads and five kids who were all between 10 and 14 years of age. They didn’t plan on climbing any higher, just climbing to there, camping, and playing in the snow.

Kyle left our camp at 6:00 am this morning and climbed to the “false summit” at about the 11,000 foot level, and started getting major dizzy from the altitude, so turned around and came back to camp. We packed up camp and went down the Mountain and drove home and I am now sitting in my recliner writing this. Kyle is young and will have more chances to make it to the top, and may have this time if he hadn’t done that extra climbing helping me make it as far as I did. But I gave it my best shot and I am now officially retired from climbing anything but the stairs to the second floor in our house.

When I say I love you to Patty, to those in our church and to God, I am not saying I have warm, fuzzy feelings toward them. I am saying I love you as a statement of commitment, specific commitments. I love you is saying “I will. “

An additional meaning of “I love you,” is “I want a relationship with you.” God loved the world so He sent Jesus to die for our sins so that we could be forgiven and live with God forever. The bottom line in all that God did was making it possible for us to be sons and daughters of God forever.

To say “I love you,” is to say, “I will,” but it also means, “I want.”

John 14:1-3 Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

“That where I am, there you may be also.” That statement by Jesus is the ultimate “I love you,” statement.

When I say “I love you” to Patty I am saying that I want to know her, be with her, talk to her, live with her, sleep with her, be one with her. When I say “I will” I follow that up with action, and when I say “I want” I follow that up with action as well.

When we fully understand what we are saying when we say, “I love you” we become very motivated to live our lives right, in a way that pleases God.

Husbands love their wives! Parents love their children. We love our friends. The great commandment is to love God. How? Do you? How do you know you do? How do you measure it?

Deuteronomy 11:1 You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments.

John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”

The desire of my heart is to please the Lord because I love Him, to obey Him because I love Him, to serve Him because I love Him. So, how do I say, “I love You” to God. I say, “I will.”

I will be kind to my grumpy neighbor. I will take my immoral thoughts captive. I will not get angry at my wife. I will control my spending and give more to the Lord. I will not look at porn.

God’s power flows to commitment. If you blow it, confess and repent and recommit. God is patient as we pursue holiness and righteousness because we love Him.

I begin every day with my prayer of commitment with a list of “I wills.” I ask for His power and wisdom to do well. At the end of the day I acknowledge where I didn’t do so well. I don’t beat myself up, I am simply honest with myself and God, and resolve to do better. God delights to give His strength to those who love Him and want to please Him. Little bit, by little bit I grow

I am going to climb Mt Adams two days from now. I am leaving my house at 6:00 am on Thursday morning, driving up to Trout Lake arriving at Trout Lake at around 9:00 am where I will meet my son-in-law, Kyle. Kyle is a Pastor in Washington, and is young and strong, and he is going to be my Sherpa and carry my camping stuff in his pack. We are going to start climbing at 11:00 am and camp on the mountain at about 10,000 feet getting there at approximately 5:00 pm. We will take a two man tent, warm sleeping bags, a “jet-boil” single burner, light weight cook stove, some freeze-dried meals, some warm cloths, a headlamp, sunglasses, sunscreen, gloves, and our cell phone to take pictures. We will take off the next morning at 6:00 am and climb to the top of Mt Adams which is 12,280 feet tall and then go back to our camp. We will decide then if we continue to the bottom and then drive home or stay another night and go down Saturday morning.

Because I grew up in Trout Lake and lived there from 1965 until 1976 I have climbed the Mountain quite a few times and climbed it just about every year from 1978 to 2017 while I was here in Jefferson as Pastor of JBC. I have made three attempts since 2017 but I failed to make it to the top each time. I hate to end my climbing career with a loss so I am going to try very hard to make it this year and then call it quits so I can go out as a winner.

I tried hard to ignore the fact that I wimped out the last three attempts to make it to the top and just be done with it, but because I knew that I could have made it if I had just persevered, it bugged me to death every year when a group from the church climbed without me. This is my last time climbing Mt Adams; win or lose so I hope I make it.