In 1968, I went to college at Biola College in La Mirada, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. I only attended for two weeks and then quit, returning to the college I had attended as a Freshman, Cascade College in Portland, Oregon. The reason I went to Biola was that Cascade had decided to close after my first year due to financial and accreditation problems. After I arrived at Biola, the leadership of Cascade decided to try to keep the school open. I received a phone call from one of the professors informing me of the change and asking if I would return. I was on a Greyhound bus the next morning. I loved Cascade, and I hated Los Angeles. One of the reasons was my job. I needed a reasonably well-paying job to stay in school, so, given my farming background, I applied for a position at a large veterinary clinic a few blocks from the college. They were overjoyed to get me. I was surprised and honored by their enthusiasm to have me come to work there. After my first day, I understood why. My job was to administer enemas to large dogs before their surgeries. I would put a muzzle on them, trying not to get bitten in the process, carry them to a bathtub, and lash them to the rails that were constructed on both sides of the tub to try and keep them from jumping all over the place, and then give them an enema with a garden hose with the end cut at an angle. After the enema was finished, I bathed them and dried them off with a hair dryer, then carried them to the dog operating room. My part was done, and I went off to get the next dog on my list. I could usually get six dogs done in a four-hour shift. It was a great blessing to return to Cascade for many different reasons. The major blessing was Patty. It was my sophomore year at Cascade that I met, dated, and got engaged to Patty. The school only stayed open for one last year. We got married at the end of it, and then went back to my parents’ dairy farm for five years before we came down to Salem to attend college at Western Baptist Bible College, now known as Corban. It was during our time there that we helped start Jefferson Baptist Church. From the time I graduated from High School in 1967 until I became the Pastor of Jefferson Baptist Church in 1976, it seemed like there were a dozen major decisions and changes made in my life. At this point in my life, 50 years later, it is easy to see that God was orchestrating the entire journey. I recall being extremely anxious and uptight over every decision I made, fearing that I would ruin my whole life with a wrong choice. I can’t imagine my life being any more blessed than it has been. Every decision was perfect, especially the one to quit that job. I left without telling them, and I never got paid for the most miserable two weeks of my life.

Saturday, I walked four miles out on the road in front of our house. I felt pretty good about the speed at which I walked the four miles and how I felt afterward. When I looked at my phone a few minutes later, I saw that I had a message with a big exclamation mark beside it. The message stated that my phone detected unstable walking and that I was at a significant risk of falling. I was highly offended, but it is hard to get seriously offended at a cell phone. I thought it was very weird to have a cell phone that counted my steps and determined how steady my walking was. I really didn’t like this feeling of being spied on by a stupid phone. I then thought of some Bible verses that I have memorized.

Psalms 11:4 The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.

Psalms 33:18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him.

Psalms 34:15 The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry.

Psalms 139:2-4 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all.

Using a cell phone feels like I am being spied on, resulting in a sense of irritation, but using God feels like caring and loving, resulting in a sense of security.

| I leave on my ten-day tuna fishing trip out of San Diego in one month. I am not sure how the trip will turn out, but the anticipation is consuming my thinking right now. I watch an hour of YouTube videos every night of trips like mine. There are a bunch of boats offer fishing trips out of San Diego, ranging from one-day trips to 16-day trips, and they all feature hours of videos advertising their boats and trips. If my experience is a fraction of what I have imagined in my mind, it will be amazing. Anticipation for a future event is the essence of the New Testament word of hope. I eagerly anticipate my entrance into heaven, my glorified body, my first experience with Jesus, and the joy I will feel. My fishing trip doesn’t have a chance of being as good as I imagine it will be, but my experience of eternity will be many times greater than my imagination makes it out to be. The more we imagine and hope for eternity now, the more we will run with endurance the race set before us. We will have more joy now, we will be stronger now as we go through trials, and our faith will be more attractive to those who are lost.

 Hebrews 9:28 Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

1 Corinthians 1:7, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Romans 8:23-25  we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

1 Peter 3:15  but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;

One of my upcoming goals is to walk a half-marathon. I am planning and hosting my own event on November 29th. That is the Saturday right after Thanksgiving. It will start at my house at 9:00 am and end at my house whenever you get back. I am going to rent one porta-potty and set up a table with water and sports drinks. It will be free. My goal is to have at least 40  people take part. I used to run a dozen half-marathons a year, as well as one full marathon. It has been over ten years since I did that. Besides November 29th, I have also made a goal to walk a total of six half-marathons before July 11th, which is the day I am going to climb Mt Adams. A number of those will need to be solo events if I am going to reach that goal.  I have discovered that walking for over an hour appears to improve my thinking significantly. I have noticed that as I have gotten older, I have times when my thinking is foggy. It kind of comes and goes. During those times, I have trouble focusing and thinking in a straight line. I particularly notice it if it happens when I am trying to write my blog. I don’t know if it is a blood sugar issue or what, but the more I exercise, especially walking, the less it happens. With long sessions of memorizing Bible verses and exercising, I have pretty much eliminated those bouts of thinking like an older man. The desire to think clearly and to have knowledge, understanding, and wisdom be strong and abundant in me up until the day I die, gives me great motivation to be faithful to these disciplines.

I went salmon fishing on the Columbia River a couple of days ago and decided to smoke the fish I brought home, as we have a lot of fish in the freezer from my Alaska fishing trip. I tried a different recipe for the brine and smoked it in my Treagor, and it turned out so good. I also made some salmon dip out of some of it. I am going to take it down to Monday Night Football, and I expect both the smoked salmon and the dip to be a hit with everyone who comes. I hope no one asks me for the recipe for the dip. I looked in the fridge and added a few spoons of various ingredients, including the smoked salmon, and stirred them all together. Then, I checked the spice cabinet and added several different spices. It tastes delicious. When I looked into the spice cupboard, I couldn’t believe the number of spices there were. There were millions, well, maybe not millions, but a substantial number. There are several spices mentioned in the Bible, and their use was often an indication of a person’s wealth. That means we should be millionaires with all that we have. Spices are added to make food tasty and flavorful. I have spices that I add to my life to make it more exciting and less boring. Fishing and hunting are great ways to spice up life. Bicycle trips and other dangerous activities, such as skydiving, are like hot sauces and cayenne pepper. I have a long list of activities that I enjoy, which add excitement to my life. Still, the single most powerful spice is attending worship services on Sundays or Wednesdays with other like-minded believers. I am sure the reason that it is such an enjoyable experience is that God is there. He promises to be in the midst of those who gather together to seek Him, worship Him, pray to Him, and learn from Him. Not everyone experiences Him; only those who expect to and genuinely want to. I do.

I am going on a ten-day fishing trip for bluefin tuna in about five weeks. I will live on a 100-foot boat with 20 other fishermen for the ten days, and we will leave from San Diego. I have been watching YouTube videos of previous trips on this boat that I will be on, along with others, for about an hour every day. I have also been watching seminars on how to catch the tuna and what gear to use. They fish with big reels that hold over 500 yards of line, so you don’t run out of line when the fish go on a run. On the reels, they have braided line, which they then tie onto with monofilament line and then fluorocarbon line. I won’t go into the reason for the different kinds of lines here, but they fasten these lines together with knots, not with barrel swivels, which I have done all of my life. The knots must be at least as strong as the line, which can be up to 100 lb test, and they must be small enough or streamlined enough to pass easily through the eyes of the rod when cast. I have been watching instructional YouTube videos on how to tie these various knots. There are about a dozen different knots used. Each instructor claims that his particular knot is the best and is the only one you need to learn to tie. So I have been tying the various knots, trying to decide which one I will use. I am rating them on strength and ease of tying. I don’t want to go with a knot that takes forever to tie or is so complicated I can’t remember how to tie it. And I don’t want to go with one that will come apart with a hard pull from a 200-pound tuna. I have tied every one of the knots numerous times and have tested them by tying one end to our back porch rail and the other end to a one-inch diameter dowel that I can pull on with two hands. In between the porch rail and the dowel I have an inline scale that I can read while pulling on the line so I can see at what poundage the knot fails. I have decided which knot is going to be mine, and now I am practicing tying it every day. I want to be able to tie it in well and quickly.

When Patty and I got married, the pastor said, “ We want to  tie this knot good so it doesn’t come undone.” I have forgotten most of the details of our wedding, as it was 56 years ago, but today, while watching a YouTube video, I remembered the statement by the pastor. I thought, yep, he must have used a good knot, no signs of slippage. Thank You, Lord, for binding us together for all these years.

I saw where there is a website that will give you the names of people who put something on Facebook or one of the other public sites that was negative toward Charlie Kirk and information about them, so that people could work at causing them to be fired from their jobs or lose business in their businesses. My goal with every person in my life who is not a believer in Jesus is to influence them towards faith in Christ. I don’t think making them pay for saying negative things about Charlie Kirk would do that. It doesn’t seem like a method that Jesus would approve of in my life. It would certainly feel good, because my flesh is drawn to vengeance, but I don’t want my flesh to control my life or my behavior. In Romans 12:2, the Apostle Paul says, “don’t be conformed to this world.” That means that the world’s way of doing things should not be the standard I follow. My flesh will pull me into the ditch if I allow it to, the world will try to influence me to live the way they do, and the devil will continually tempt me to be unloving to people. I desire to do only what Jesus would be pleased with. I fail at that, but I am getting better at following Jesus’ will.

The word fool is used 37 times in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs is the book about wisdom, what it is, how to get it, and the blessings of being wise. You can’t write about wisdom without writing about the opposite, a fool. None of us is considered a total fool or a person as wise as Solomon; we are all somewhere in between. We want to be moving towards wisdom and away from being a fool. We tend to think that the primary definition of wisdom is being smart, but in the book of Proverbs, a wise person knows how to act around and with other people. A fool does not know the right way to act, the godly way, the way God blesses. God blesses the wise person, but fools have nothing but trouble in life. I read one chapter daily in Proverbs, and I take special note of verses describing how a wise person acts and the blessings they receive. I also take note of verses that describe a fool and how he acts. I highlight those verses and have memorized many of them. I think about my life, behavior, way of talking, and things I do, asking myself, Am I becoming wiser and less foolish? Becoming wise is a journey of choices and habits.

Proverbs 10:18  he who spreads slander is a fool.

Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.

Proverbs 14:16 A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is arrogant and careless.

Proverbs 17:10 A rebuke goes deeper into one who has understanding then a hundred blows into a fool.

Proverbs 18:2 A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind.

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

Proverbs 26:11 Like a dog that returns to its vomit Is a fool who repeats his folly.

Proverbs 29:11 A fool always loses his temper, but a wise man holds it back.

Years ago, I was listening to a pastor speak who pastored a church in Romania during the Soviet years. He described his life as a pastor in a country where Christians were terribly persecuted. He said that there were many Christian martyrs in the country because of their bold testimony. The Communist government did everything it could to silence them. Many were tortured, some were in prison because of their faith in Jesus, and some were killed. He made a statement that grabbed my attention, he said that every time someone was martyred for their faith, there was a fresh ingathering of new believers, and he quoted John 12:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” I have been asked numerous times what I thought would happen due to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and my answer is “revival.” I am not a prophet, and I am not dogmatic about it, but that is what I truly believe will happen. We will see. Jesus was crucified at 33 years of age, and millions of people will live in heaven because of His death. Charlie Kirk was not Jesus, but he was a godly man who was not ashamed of his savior.

I just finished an hour of weight lifting and am totally wiped out. I have been lifting for an hour every other day. I am using a program that keeps track of everything on my phone and automatically increases the weight on the bar by five pounds if I successfully lift today’s designated weight. Back when I started, it was easy, but now it is getting harder and harder for an old wimpy guy like me.  There are six different lifts, and I alternate three on one day and the other on the next day. You might wonder why I am doing this self-torture. I am going on a ten-day fishing trip out of San Diego at the end of October.

We will live on the boat and travel a fair distance to catch bluefin tuna. I have been watching YouTube videos of previous trips, getting all excited about going. I have noticed on the videos that several overweight guys and older guys struggle reeling in those hundred-pound-plus fish and often have to get help from one of the deckhands. I am determined that I am going to reel in all of my own fish. I have also noticed several guys quit and enter the lounge after catching a fish or two; they are all tuckered out. That won’t be me; I will fish as long as anybody else is fishing. I have 43 more days before we leave for the trip, so with a five-pound increase each time I lift, I should be ready for those monster tuna. The boat has a record of a tuna weighing over 400 pounds. I don’t expect I will catch anything that big, but I will be ready if I do. The basic principle in weight training is just a little bit more. That is the same principle the Bible discusses in our spiritual growth, just a little more every day. The key is faithfulness; don’t miss a day, or you will miss another, and then more and more, and then you are plateaued in your spiritual growth, and someone will have to reel in your fish for you. How sad!