I had an 8 ft step ladder that I was using to get into my boat that I was painting. I would climb to the top of the ladder and step over the gunnel into the boat, but one time as I was stepping into the boat the ladder fell over in the opposite direction. I made a jump for the boat and landed half in and half out on the gunnel which is the top of the sides of the boat. I landed on my left side and my ribs took the full blow. It feels like I broke a rib or cracked one, I don’t know for sure but I do know that if you tell a joke I cry instead of laugh. Now I am trying to do what I normally do but every move I make hurts so I am moving very slow. I am working hard to smile all the time, not complaining, not even a little bit. I am regularly meditating on Phillipians 4:4 and Phillipians 2:14. Do all things without grumbling and rejoice always. A test from the Lord that I am presently failing.

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Every conflict, disagreement, or fight has a starting point. Someone says something, does something, or an event occurs that is like the first domino tipping over in a long line of dominos. Usually, when that first thing happens nobody expects that it will continue and collect more energy as it moves along. In Matthew 5 Jesus in the “sermon on the mount” says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, they will be called sons of God.” A peacemaker is a person who takes the initiative and helps bring reconciliation to a conflict between people, those they are part of and those that they are near.

Another aspect of being a peacemaker is recognizing the tipping of the first domino and changing the course of events that would normally follow. It is much easier to prevent a conflict at its beginning than it is to fix one.

Proverbs 17:14 The beginning of strife is like letting out water,
So abandon the quarrel before it breaks out.

This verse is saying that the beginning of a quarrel is like a small leak in a dam, but it will get continually bigger until the dam breaks.

A wise person will see the beginning stages of a conflict and a humble person will do or say something to steer it in a peaceful direction.

Proverbs 20:3 Keeping away from strife is an honor for a man,
But any fool will quarrel.

For two years right after I was married I worked on a construction job as a track-drill operator and a powder monkey, that is someone who works with dynamite. I worked with another man that was grumpy, mean, irritable, and always mad about something. He was super hard to work with and it was impossible to make him happy. I told my Dad about the situation right after I started working this job, and he told me that it was my responsibility to figure out how to get along with him. I told my Dad that getting along with him was impossible and he responded by saying, “no such person exists, hard but not impossible.” I thought to myself, “Easy for you to say, you aren’t the one working with him,” My Dad said, “figure out what ticks him off and don’t do it.” One of the things that would set him off was when I would read my little New Testament while we were waiting for a ten foot piece of steel to drill down in the rock, which took about ten minutes and then I would add another ten foot piece which took another ten minutes. I figured that reading my New Testament during that ten minutes was good use of my time. One day I started reading my New Testament during our lunch break and he didn’t seem to care at all, I also read it during our 10:00 am coffee break and he seemed to care less. I was curious so I asked him about it, and he said that lunch breaks and coffee breaks were my time, I could do what I wanted, but the ten minutes that it took to drill a piece of steel down was company time. Instead of reading I ought to be greasing the machinery, or packing dynamite up the hill or cleaning up the sight where the next hole would be drilled. He said, “pay attention, look around, you should be able to find something to do, we don’t pay you to sit on your butt reading, even if it is the Bible!” So after that every time he got grumpy I would think to myself, “what did I just do that he didn’t like, and it didn’t take much thinking to figure it out, and I adjusted what I did. Sometimes it wasn’t job-related, just something he didn’t like. He listened to Paul Harvey every day at lunch time and if I made any noise while Paul was on he would growl at me, so I went off some distance, sat on a five gallon can and read my New Testament.

Romans 14:19 So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.

Hebrews 12:14 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

It took about six months before I learned all the things that pushed his buttons. We never became buddies but we did get along and we made a lot of money blowing up rock together.

There was a fight, of sorts, in the NBA this past week between two teammates at their team’s practice time. It is probably getting way more press than it deserves because teammates in competitive sports fight all the time. They compete against each other in practice and they are constantly trash talking as they work to be a starter. The reason it is getting so much attention is because someone videoed the event, and it is all over the news, and because the Golden State Warriors won the NBA championship this last season, so it automatically gets way more scrutiny than it would have with any other team. This whole thing reminds me of a sermon that I have been working on entitled, “How to Get Along with Anybody, Even your Mother-in-law.” The mother-in-law part was added for humor, my mother-in-law was easy to get along with except when we played pinocle against each other.

So in my sermon, there are six keys to getting along with anybody; (1) Never trash talk. From what is being written about the altercation between the basketball teammates in the news is that practice was very competitive and intense, and the two players involved were trash-talking a lot to each other. The problem with insults is that once started; they have to escalate, and sooner or later someone will go over the line and a fight, usually a verbal fight, but sometimes a physical one is the result. Actually the way I am describing the rule in my sermon is “Always Talk Nice.” I suggest that we compete with others being the one who affirms, encourages, compliments, and praises more than anyone else.

Our self-worth is affected by what we think others think of us. A person who makes us feel important is a person that we like and we will tend to get along well with them. Building others up with our words is a discipline, and a learned skill that anybody can learn if they see the value in it and work at it.

The main point of this rule is that getting along with others is much more proactive than reactive. Proactive is when we take the lead in shaping the atmosphere in relationships. Reactive is when we simply put up with the irritating behavior of others.

This is my passage for today. I changed it a bit to make it more personal. It took me about 15 minutes to memorize and then I spent an hour while riding my stationary bike going over and over it in my brain. It is a great way to start a day, with coffee of course.

Psalms 21:1-7 O Lord, in Your strength I will be glad,
And in Your salvation how greatly I will rejoice!
You have given me my heart’s desire,
And You have not withheld the request of my lips.
For You meet me with the blessings of good things;

For You make me most blessed forever;
You make me joyful with gladness in Your presence.
For I trust in the Lord,
And through the lovingkindness of the Most High I will not be shaken.

Today we did something that we have done every year for a long time, we had a ten yard dumpster delivered to our house. A ten yard dumpster is huge, but every year we fill it up. Where does all that stuff come from? It seems like we are like a magnet and stuff just ends up at our house. A lot of what gets thrown into the dumpster is stuff we bought years ago and it no longer works or we no longer need or want it. It is nice to get rid of all that clutter and junk.

With Amazon and eBay it is so easy to buy stuff. Sometime I need it and sometimes I don’t, and it ends up in the dumpster next year. Some verses that address this problem;

Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and the stuff in the world.

1 John 2:15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Luke 18:22 When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

2 Timothy 2:4 No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.

My muscles hurt when I move and my joints do as well, so I am inclined to sit in my recliner and read, watch YouTube videos, listen to PodCasts, and sleep. I have many projects that I need to work on and get done, and I have goals for many more; there are so many opportunities to do ministry and make a difference for God, and I need to exercise, ride my stationary bike, jog, and lift weights. I need to get out of this chair and do something, anything, just do something, but it is so comfortable just sitting here, I can get up and do something in five minutes, yeh, just five minutes!

I would be a near a perfect person if I had some self-control. There are so many things that I don’t do that I need to do, but I will do them tomorrow! For sure!

I am working at this thing, I really am, but it is so hard! I need to read my Bible every day, to memorize Bible verses, to lose weight, to spend time in prayer, to ride my stationary bike, to spend time with Patty, work on my sermon, write my blog, work on the house, work on the car, paint my boat, go to men’s prayer, I have a really long list of things that I need to do every day, and I don’t really want to do any of them. Once I get out of my chair and get started I am so glad that I did, and I have a great time, but then I take a break and bummer, now I need to get out of my chair all over again.

My plan: (1) Don’t scold myself too much; keep the self-talk positive. (2) Break up my goals and to-do lists into small parts that can be accomplished quickly. (3) Take breaks as a reward, but always set a time limit with an alarm on the phone, and don’t fudge. (4) The best exercise for me to develop self-control is fasting, so I will fast regularly and often. I have a plan and schedule. (5) Other than an occasional blog, don’t whine or complain about anything. This commitment is also an excellent exercise for developing self-control. (6) Bible reading, scripture memory, private prayer, and praying with Patty are the key disciplines that give me energy so make them a high priority. (7) A rule that I have made is that the only time I can watch sports stuff, news or political stuff on YouTube is while riding my stationary bike which guarantees that I will ride for at least an hour every day. My bike riding is the most effective thing I do to keep the aches and pains at bay.

I didn’t say “ it is so hard,” did I? 🥺😱It is a piece of cake, the Lord and I have this conquered, or we will.

One of my new goals is to ride my bicycle from the Canadian border to the Mexican border on the West Coast, mostly on hwy 101. It is 2000 miles and I would like to average approximately 65 miles each day and take a rest day every Sunday. That calculates to about 65 days so we would start on May 29th and end on July 3rd. One of the cool things about this route is that the prevailing wind will be North to South, so that we will have a tailwind every day. I love tailwinds. I bought two books written by guys who did this same route and reported the details in these books. I have been reading them and getting all excited about the trip. I also bought a map of the route that I downloaded on my Ipad. I have started planning each day of the trip with the starting point and ending point which will be mostly campgrounds. I have an App that has every campground in the United States on it along with details, general reviews, and ratings on how bicycle friendly they are so it is relatively easy to pick good spots to camp. I am putting each days route on a map that can be downloaded on my phone each morning which mounts on the handle bars of my bicycle so it is easy to read as we travel. These annual bicycle trips are what keep me motivated to ride my stationary bike for an hour almost every day which is what keeps my Parkinson’s at bay.

I start writing my goals for the new year on October 1st and try and have them all completed by October 27, which is my birthday. I run my goals from October 27th to October 27th instead of January 1st. I just finished them and I have 74 because I am going to be 74 on my birthday. The increase of my number of goals by one each year is my statement that I am going to do more as I get older, not do less.

About 35 of my goals are a repeat of last year such as, “I will read 12 chapters every day in my Bible,” “I will pray three times each week with Patty,” “I will pray for everybody at JBC each week,” “I will pray for everybody at Agape Family Fellowship every week,” “I will pray for my 8 kids, their 8 spouses and our 29 grandkids every day,” and I have 30 more like that. There are two reasons that I repeat those 35 goals each year, the first reason is because they are such important disciplines and I want to be sure that I stay faithful to them. The second is because I hand out my goals to a lot of people to encourage them to set goals and I use my goals as a model and I want them to set similar goals.

39 of my goals are new or semi-new and they are the ones I really get excited about!

Some of my new goals that I am excited about this coming year are; “I will restore my 1950 Ford Club Coupe with a Flathead V8 engine,” “I will put in a 1/4 acre fish pond and stock it with bass.” “I will bicycle the Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico,” “Patty and I will go to Hawaii this winter to visit our youngest daughter, Sally, and her family,” “ we will go to Fairbanks, Alaska to visit Shelley and her family around May,” “I will work hard pastoring Agape Family Fellowship, preaching each week with a goal of an average attendance of 100 by the end of 2023,”

Goals are a great tool for managing your life and doing what you want instead of what everybody else wants from you. Take the time and write out at least a dozen goals and read them every day. I would love it if you would send me a copy.

I have memorized these verses well and meditate on them (recite them in my head over and over) often. Some observations;

Psalms 3:3-6 But You, O Lord, are a shield about me,
My glory, and the One who lifts my head.
I was crying to the Lord with my voice,
And He answered me from His holy mountain.
I lay down and slept;
I awoke, for the Lord sustains me.
I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people
Who have set themselves against me round about.

This is a prayer of David when he was fleeing for his life from his own son Absolom when he was trying to take over the Kingdom from David,and kill him.

The result of his praying was that God gave him “glory” or a great sense of worth and value, and God “lifted his head” or took away his sense of shame and failure. Also fear was taken away and replaced with peace and confidence.

Life is full of pressures, trials, failure, mean critical people, uncertainty, and change. All of that can make us sad, full of fear and uncertainty, make us feel like a loser, and fill us with shame. We can wallow in that or we can turn to God and pray, not a little prayer but the kind of prayer that shows we are desperate. God loves to draw near to those who really need Him and give them all that they need to conquer life.