Patty and I are on a trip with our daughter Hanna and her family near Palm Springs, California. This morning, we got up and went to a church near where we were staying. I always enjoy visiting other churches, seeing how they do things, and listening to different pastors preach. One of the things that I am careful about is not letting my basic disciplines slip when on a vacation or trip. It is easy to do and easy to justify and excuse. I read my Bible yesterday on the plane, did lots of scripture memory, and spent time praying and reading once we got to our condo last night. Because of lots to do and hectic schedules on trips like this, it is easy to let the disciplines slip. Also, the total change in our routine contributes to our failure to practice our spiritual disciplines faithfully. Probably the main reason many don’t attend church, read their Bibles, spend time in Prayer, memorize scripture, and read in good Christian books or listen to good podcasts and recordings of sound Bible teaching is because they are on vacation. Because we are on vacation from our everyday life at home, we also tend to take a vacation from our spiritual life. The problem is that the devil and his demons don’t ever take a vacation, and in fact, they aren’t dummies; they know that when we take a break from our spiritual disciplines is when we are easy prey, so they will double their efforts to get us to backside.

I have messed up many times on trips like this in the past. My worst compromises happen on hunting and fishing trips when I am so focused on pursuing fish or elk that I just forget about the disciplines. It helps if, before a trip, I commit to be faithful no matter what. Sometimes, it works, and sometimes, the elk and fish win.

We are on an airplane headed for Palm Springs to spend a week with our daughter Hanna, her husband Kyle, and three grandkids. We will stay at Indio Springs, a resort with a very nice swimming pool and two golf courses near where We will be staying. I am anticipating that we will have a great time this next week.

Our plane was supposed to depart at 4:00 pm, but it is now 5:00 pm, and we have not yet taken off. The reason is that our plane landed here in Portland an hour late, so naturally, we were an hour late when we took off​. Was it God’s initial will that we took off at 4:00 pm? The flight before us affected our departure time, and we will impact the flight after us.

Let’s pretend that it was God’s primary will that I married Patty Buckner. But she went against God’s will and married Joe Jones. So I could no longer marry Patty Buckner, so I married Patty Burtner instead, who was supposed to marry Zeke Dude. So because one person messed up, the whole world had to slide over one place.

There is an event in the Book of Acts that is similar. Paul gets a message from God saying everyone on the ship will be saved, and then, as some of the men are trying to escape the ship in the storm, Paul says that if they leave the ship, the end of the story, as it were, gets changed.

Acts 27:22 Yet now I urge you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.

Acts 27:30-31 But as the sailors were trying to escape from the ship and had let down the ship’s boat into the sea, on the pretense of intending to lay out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, “Unless these men remain in the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved.”

God is sovereign, but it seems like God gives much freedom to us humans, and as a result, the story often gets messed up, and we also mess up the stories of others as we move over a spot.

Colossians 1:9 For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Paul prays that those in the Colossian church will know God’s will. Obviously, he wouldn’t have prayed for something guaranteed to happen anyway.

All of that is to say that I can choose to live outside the will of God, but everything will go so much better if I know his will and I live it.

I rode my bicycle 40 miles today. I haven’t ridden my bike that far since last year, when we made our trip down the Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico. I was exhausted when I got home, and as I sat in my recliner tonight trying to write this, I kept falling asleep. The worst thing about falling asleep in my recliner is that my mouth falls open, and everyone laughs at me. They have even been known to take my picture while I am sleeping in such an undignified posture. While sleeping, I am relaxed and having a nice rest, totally unaware of what is happening around me while snoozing, totally oblivious to my being the entertainment for everyone in our house.

There is actually a lot happening around us all the time that we are totally unaware of. All kinds of radio waves, cell phone waves, and internet signals are flying around us, and we can’t see, feel, smell, or hear them.

There are also many demons and angels all around us all of the time as well that we can’t see, feel, hear, or smell. Actually, we can hear them in our thoughts, but we are unaware that they are doing it, assuming that all of the things we hear in our head are original from ourselves.

Very few people realize how much these spirit beings control us simply by talking to us. There would be zero control over us if we simply dismissed the thoughts, but we tend to dwell on them and repeat them over and over in our thinking, and it isn’t long before those thoughts direct and influence our lives.

If we read the Bible a lot, memorize it, and meditate on what we have memorized and read, the thoughts popping into our heads from demons wouldn’t stay in our minds very long at all; they would be too foreign, and our brains would kick them out.

The thought of wicked, evil demons putting thoughts into my mind by talking to me makes me more agitated than if I were to eat a big spoon of bacteria and germs. If there is something that I can do to keep those ungodly and sinful thoughts from lodging in me, I will do it diligently.

We aren’t supposed to judge people, but we can’t help but develop some kind of impression of people as we interact with them. Patty and I went out to dinner tonight at a fairly nice restaurant. Our waitress was very friendly and enjoyable to talk to as she served us. I immediately formed a strong impression of her through her words, demeanor, and the personality that came out of her every pore. As we ate and she periodically stopped to see how we were doing, I couldn’t help but wonder how some people end up like her when they become adults, and others end up rude and obnoxious and difficult to be nice to. I am sure much of it is personality, but I also know that we can choose to talk nice to people and work at honoring those we are with even if we don’t know them well or even if we don’t like them.
I think the best training for our self-control and discipline in how we talk to people is to work extra hard at being nice and gracious to those who are rude, obnoxious, and dishonoring to us. Many will exercise enough self-control not to return insult for insult, but we often will be anything but pleasant and gracious in return.

Luke 6:32-33 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

James 3:2 For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.

As I have struggled to figure out what God’s will is for my life over the last 60 years, I have wondered about His methods of guiding. One of them is circumstances that can act like traffic lights or direction arrows in traffic. Circumstances are tricky because the devil can mess with our circumstances, and also we often just read things into the circumstances that God never intended. I frequently recognize the circumstances after deciding, look backward, and recognize that I didn’t choose; God was pushing me in a particular direction.

When I was a senior in High School, I received a letter from the University of Washington offering me a full-ride scholarship. I was one of eight Seniors who met in Vancouver, Washington and rode in a van together to the University of Washington for a four-day school tour. We stayed in the dorm, ate in the cafeteria, went on school tours, and listened to presentations on how great the University was.

My mom bought me a new sports coat for the event. It was corduroy and green, and it had gold-colored buttons. A large fountain was in the center of a plaza with a pool all around the fountain. The pool was about two feet deep, and it had lots of money because of the various coins thrown in. As I walked next to it, one of the buttons on my coat popped off, and I went into the pool. I removed my jacket and long-sleeved shirt and reached into the pool to recover my button. A College Security guy on the other side of the pool started yelling and blowing his whistle as he ran around the pool toward me. Many people were around, and they were all looking at me and the security guy. I pulled my arm out of the water and waited for him to get to where I was. After he yelled at me for a few minutes, I pointed at my button in the water and explained what I was doing. After he yelled at me a little more, telling me I should Have gotten permission first, I asked him if I could retrieve my button, and he said yes. He even got a towel for me to dry off my arm before putting my shirt and coat back on.

Being a shy farm boy from a very small town and very introverted, the experience was a major embarrassment to me, and I am convinced that the experience was why I decided not to go to school there. I am also sure that an angel ripped my button off and threw it in that fountain.

The first time I remember struggling to figure out what God’s will was for my life was when I graduated from high school and was trying to decide where I would go to college. I had been offered a full scholarship to the University of Washington that would pay for everything. I went on a tour of the school that was supposed to attract me to it, but it scared the bazeebers out of me. There were 20 kids in my High School, with five in my graduating class. A good friend who graduated a year earlier than me attended a tiny Christian College in Portland. He played on the basketball team, and I went to several games with his parents. The college had an open house for high school seniors, and I went there and enjoyed the experience very much. The problem was that it was a private college, so the room, board, and tuition were significantly higher than at the University of Washington, and there were no scholarships. There were student loans and work grants, but I didn’t want to get a loan. I didn’t know what to do. I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it happen, and I didn’t know what God’s will was for my life. I agonized over that decision right up until the deadline for accepting the University scholarship, and I let the day go by without accepting it. The next day, I was so relieved; I would go to the college I wanted to attend, even if I hadn’t figured out how to pay for it. I knew I could figure it out and make it happen, and I did. I met Patty, my wife of 54 years, at that college; my Christian faith grew significantly during the two years I attended that college, and it was there that the seeds for being a pastor were planted in my heart. I was so close to deciding to go to the University of Washington with the full scholarship and the offer to enter into the Oceanography program with the possibility of being a scientist making lots of money. I often wonder where I would be now had I chosen to attend there. I wouldn’t have met Patty, I probably wouldn’t have had eight kids, I probably wouldn’t be a pastor, everything would have been different. That was just the first of many decisions that have come up in my life since then over the years that would have changed the direction of my life. Now, here I am at 75 years of age, and not very many big decisions left to make. It will be interesting when I get to heaven and see if I made the right decisions. I think I did, and I believe I couldn’t go wrong as long as I was committed to following the Lord.

Self-control is a character trait, and it is mentioned in the Bible often. When we are strong in self-control, our flesh, the devil, and the world around us don’t control us; we do what we know is right. The Biblical title for those with self-control is “overcomers.” Almost every sin we commit is because of a lack of self-control. I have worked at growing in self-control in my life over the years in reading my Bible every day, spending time with God in prayer every day, memorizing hundreds of Bible verses, controlling how I speak, not getting angry, and not letting myself get addicted to TV, computer games, or any substance. Nothing causes me to get disgusted with myself more than a lapse in self-control. Recently, Patty and I were eating dinner with several other people. Dessert was a beautiful Marion berry cheesecake. I knew it would taste delicious, so I had a small piece. I discovered several months ago that I am very allergic to gluten and white sugar. They cause my muscles to jerk, get cramps, and spasm uncontrollably as soon as I quit moving and relax; it is a frustrating experience, especially when I am trying to go to sleep. Cheesecake has both gluten and sugar, and I knew it before I ate it, so why did I eat it? I thought it was just a little piece; it had been some time since I had eaten any gluten or sugar, and I forgot how irritating the consequences were. The result is that I didn’t sleep all night. That is a simple little slip in self-control, but the fact that I did something I knew was not a good choice, but I did it anyway for the sake of the immediate gratification of the wonderful taste is what frustrates me about my lack of self-control. I journaled about the experience and am now writing my blog about it, so hopefully, I have grown a little bit in the character trait of self-control.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

Proverbs 18:13 He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him.

In many relationships where people struggle to maintain a strong unity and oneness with each other, the problem is often communication. The problem is that we don’t communicate or speak clearly to be understood, or we are not good at hearing what other people are saying, even if they communicate very clearly. Accurately hearing what other people say is a skill we all need to grow in.

A Biblical principle is that we will not do better with God than with people. The New Testament apostle John writes, “If you don’t love people whom you can see, you will not love God whom you can’t see.” People talk about “listening” to God and learning to hear His voice within us. If we do a poor job of listening to people, we will not be able to hear God’s voice.

People with poor listening skills have some common, observable characteristics. A major one is that they interrupt others when they are talking or cut others off in their haste to give their answer or opinion on something. Let’s read Proverbs 18:13 again;
He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him.

Another key Bible verse is in James 1:19;
This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak.

Poor listeners talk too much; they put more value on what they have to say than what the other person is saying.

When I say “I love you” to Patty, I am making seven commitments. I remind her of those commitments periodically so that she knows what I mean when I say, “I love you.” One of the seven is, “I will honor you by paying sincere attention to your words.” I have to work at that because talking is much easier than listening.

One of my personal rules in communication with Patty is, “Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.” Sometimes, I will do well at that, but most of the time, I focus more on what I plan on saying than what she is saying. Good listening requires focus and attentiveness.

Sometimes Patty will say, “I told you,” and I will say, “No, you didn’t!” And she will say, “ Yes I did!!” and I will say, “NO YOU DID’T!!!!” Oops, there is that communication thing again, but you all know, that it is Patty’s fault😜”

Proverbs 17:22 A joyful heart is good medicine.
One of the things about myself that I discovered years ago is that when I am feeling down, depressed, or sad, I can choose to act happy despite how I feel if I work at it. If I successfully act joyful, it is not very long before my emotions rise to the level of my behavior. There are many benefits to acting happy and then being happy despite circumstances. One is good health, at least better health than if you had remained sad or moody. Happy people have much better relationships than those who are down much of the time because they are enjoyable to be around. A result is that those with a merry heart lift those around them out of their despair and give them a merry heart. Another major blessing of choosing to be happy despite the lemons life has served you up is that you have more energy and your mind works better; at my age, those two are significant.
Some people will object to acting differently than you feel because it is being phony or hypocritical. Our motives, not our actions, determine phoniness. If my motive for acting differently than I feel is because it is the right thing to do because of the benefits to myself and others, then I am not being phony but wise.
Most people follow their flesh and emotions because it is easier and more natural. Jesus said, “Choose the hard way, not the easy way.” We are at a crossroads all day long: the easy or hard way. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of times, we must choose easy or hard. Train yourself to see the crossroads in everyday life, and then remind yourself of the words of Jesus. Memorize Matthew 7:13-14.

One of the key verses for my life is Proverbs 16:9;
“The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”
In Hebrew literature, the word “but” doesn’t mean contradictory statements but parallel statements. So, this verse is saying that I plan my life, and at the same time, the Lord directs my steps with me.
I love to plan my life. While writing goals and strategies, I am fully aware of this verse. I acknowledge my trust and dependence on Him the entire time I plan and write. I am praying and asking for wisdom and guidance as I think and plan events for my life; today, I spent several hours writing out my and Patty’s plans for the next six months. Patty is not really into planning, strategizing, and goal setting like I am, so she is very agreeable to going along with my leadership for us.
I listen carefully to my thoughts, promptings, and ideas while writing my plans and goals. Over the years of practicing this verse, I have improved at listening and discerning as I write. Now, I feel very confident that my final product is the perfect will of God for our lives.
It is an enjoyable way to plan the future. It brings confidence and security to decision-making. Sometimes, I begin to doubt the accuracy or wisdom of a decision or plan I have made, often right in the middle of living it out. Still, if I go back and read what I wrote, I usually come away with renewed confidence in the decisions and direction.