Patty and I went to an event tonight where our oldest daughter, Sarah, was speaking. I thought she did a marvelous job of teaching the Word of God in a unique way that held people’s attention and communicated clearly the truth that motivated those listening to life change. As her father, I was very proud of her. She has done a lot of speaking but tonight was the first time that I have heard her.

I am a professional speaker/teacher/ preacher; that is, I preach and teach most of the time in one form or another as my occupation. It is my ministry; that is, I do it for God, but I still get paid by people who listen to me. Because it is what I do, I work diligently at getting better and better at the skill and the craft of communicating truth to people in a way that makes sense to them, motivates them, and encourages them to change how they live their lives. I recognize that teaching the Bible is a supernatural event that the Holy Spirit is empowering. Still, I also have listened to many teaching the Bible who claim to be empowered by God and guided by the Holy Spirit but who are as boring as dirt, make no sense at all, and encourage no one to life change. There are several factors in being a great teacher for God: giftedness, character, holiness, prayer, and especially diligence in preparation; God honors, blesses, and empowers those who are not lazy in their preparation, who recognize the sacredness of the privilege of teaching the Holy Word of God to people, and give it their all.

1 Timothy 4:15-16
Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure spiritual growth both for yourself and for those who hear you.

At this stage in my ministry, I do a lot of coaching with Pastors on their preaching/teaching ministry. I listen to many sermons and lessons both by those just getting started in their ministry and by those who have been at it for years and have become masters at teaching the Word of God with power. I haven’t heard very many as effective as my daughter was tonight, but then, I am a very proud and prejudiced Dad.

It is interesting to read the various estimates of the number of people who have lived and died in the history of the world. Whatever system is used and whatever the number of years that is used as the total number of years that people have lived on the earth, it is a large number, in the billions. Have you ever pondered on the fact that you are one person in the midst of billions of people? I think about it all the time. I am a self-aware person. I think, I talk to myself, I am aware, I pray to God, I believe that in the midst of all that is going on and has gone on, that God is intimately aware of who I am, that He loves me, has plans for my eternity, and has been working in my life shaping and forming me into a person being created in His image and likeness.

I am self-aware, but I have no sense of what is going on inside your soul. You are self-aware, but you cannot read my mind or have any idea who I really am on the inside, only God knows my heart. We are all a bunch of islands, as it were, living together, talking to each other, trying to understand each other, touching, kissing, and hugging each other in various degrees of intimacy. It all is a huge mystery, almost infinite.

In the midst of the sea of history, in this great ocean of humanity, here I am like a little cork bobbing around in the ocean, trying to make sense of it all, trying to feel some sense that I have purpose, value, and meaning. It is no wonder that as our world, which used to have some level of sense about what was going on, is unraveling, more people are becoming confused, disillusioned, terrified, and with no sense of purpose or hope for the future, just a number.

My anchor is the Bible. It is a history book of a tiny slice of the history of the world and humanity. But in that small sampling of the totality of life, it is clear that it is not random, by chance, or out of control. God, who is very real, wise, and mighty, is in total control, and I am a crucial part of His life and plans for the future. I know that without a doubt. It isn’t hard for any person who feels the lostness of life to find purpose and meaning in God. Any person who truly seeks diligently for Him will find Him.

Patty and I got home from Alaska this morning. She was hanging out with grandkids and I went hunting with two son-in-laws for caribou on the North Slope of Alaska. The North Slope is that area of Alaska that is north of the Brooks Range, which is the northern most areas in Alaska. There is one road in that entire area that goes to Prudhoe Bay and the oil fields.

We drove 14 hours on this road called “The Haul Road” from Fairbanks, Alaska, north, to where we put Philips boat in the Sagavanirktok River, which most call the Sag River. The road was gravel, muddy, and very, very bumpy. We went up the Sag River for an hour and then turned onto the Ivashack River and went for several more hours until we reached the spot where we camped for a week, hunting for caribou.

The North Slope is Tundra with no trees, just little bushes. It is all on permafrost so the ground is all wet and spongy and you sink in every step that you take. It is incredibly hard to walk on, and in fact, I didn’t walk on it much. I got in a spot where I could see a long way and looked for caribou with my binoculars and then prayed that they would walk close enough to my chair that I could shoot them. None did, but both of my sons-in-law got very nice caribou and they shared the meat with me so we brought 50 lbs home with us on the airplane. Caribou meat is the tastiest of all meat in my opinion.

We are home now for the next nine months so I will be writing my blog every day, teaching and preaching every week, fishing a little bit, golfing a little bit, exercising, reading, and getting older slowly. Here are some pictures of our Alaskan adventure.