Of all my disciplines, the hardest for me to be faithful in is my exercise. I have a goal to walk, to ride my stationary bike and my real bike, and to lift weights. I want to do at least one of them every day.  I know how important this area of my life is to my energy level, weight management, and overall good health, but I continue to struggle to maintain my commitment to it. The reason is the same for me as for most people my age: it hurts. Even with the exercise, my joints hurt from arthritis, and my muscles ache whenever I strain them —I guess because they are old. Ibuprofen is my main cure. So I have to overcome those deterrents every day mentally. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. The key to getting over the hump in any discipline is to write down the goal I want to accomplish clearly and read it every day. Many people ignore all reminders of failure in any discipline in which they are not doing well. That may take away the sting of failing, but it certainly won’t motivate us to grow or change. Reading a goal every day that you are failing miserably at will, for sure, make you feel like dirt, but it is that feeling that keeps pushing me until I do it. I usually miss a couple of days after the initial success, but I keep reading the goal every day and do the exercise again and again, and before long, it becomes a habit.

Sometimes I fall away from the habit when I am on a fishing or other kind of trip and have to redo the faithfulness process, but I do, and I get back to the discipline. On the exercise goal, I have set some public benchmarks. I am committed to running a half-marathon on November 29th, and I don’t want to embarrass myself by not finishing or by taking 20 hours. I have set a goal to go on a 30-day bicycle trip in June. I have also set a public goal to climb Mt Adams on July 11th with several other climbers. The key to success in those three events is training and preparation without waiting until the last minute. The older I get, the more difficult it is to maintain my exercise goals, but I will work hard at it because I don’t want to become a vegetable.

 

On our drive home from San Diego from our fishing trip, we drove through central California on Highway 395 to Reno, Nevada, back into California, into Oregon on Highway 97, West on Highway 58 to I-5, and home. When we were driving through NE California, we saw miles of fence running parallel to the road, only about 18 inches tall. I googled it and found out that it was built to keep tortoises from going out onto the road and getting run over. As I continued to read, I read that the fence project was declared a failure because the tortoises, when they got to the fence, would walk back and forth trying to get through, and would continue this pursuit until they died from anxiety. The entire thing seemed so strange to me that money would be spent on fencing to keep tortoises from getting run over, but they died anyway from tortoise anxiety. I saw hundreds of armadillos killed on the road when we bicycled through the Southern States several years ago, but there was no fence to save them, and there wasn’t one around here when possums were dead on the road everywhere. There are several places in Alaska where fences are built to keep moose off the roads, and they even have big culverts under the road so they can get through without dying from anxiety trying to get to the other side. I think the moose fence was built to protect motorists, but I am not sure. The tortoise fence reminds me of Proverbs 14:12: “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” I make a lot of choices in life that seem right at the time, but later on, I would call them a tortoise fence. The big question for me is how to reduce the number of foolish choices I make. The answer from Proverbs is to be a wisdom seeker. If we seek wisdom like silver and gold, we will find it, and when we get wisdom, Proverbs says we will know every right and wise choice in life.

 

I got home from my 14-day fishing trip yesterday. We drove two days down and two days back to San Diego, where we went out on a ten-day fishing trip on a 100-foot boat. I caught about 20 fish total, including yellow fin tuna, Dorado, yellow tail, wahoo, ling cod, and rock fish. It was a very enjoyable trip with lots of new experiences. I fish a lot and usually do well, but this was a new fishing experience for me, and I think I caught the fewest number of fish of anybody of the 25 other people on the boat, including two ladies, so I went from the world’s best fisherman to the worst!

With the boat constantly rocking back and forth from the waves, you adapt by walking with your feet spread apart and swaying in time with the boat. The most challenging place to manage the rocking was in the shower, with my eyes closed. I managed to keep from falling while showering, but came close several times. Now that I am home, I am still walking like I am on the boat, and last night in the shower, I found myself swaying back and forth.

One characteristic of those with wisdom and character is their ability to adjust quickly to different situations and environments. It isn’t that we compromise or become phonies; instead, we recognize which behaviors foster unity and strengthen our witness among diverse groups and kinds of people.

It didn’t take long on the boat to discover that most of those on board were very wealthy and made this fishing trip at least once a year, and many several times each year. I think my friend Scott and I were the only first-timers on the boat, and I found myself constantly being scolded and coached by the others around me on how to fish. With 25 people all fishing at once around the boat as it drifted and turned in the current, you had to adjust to the others around you; it was almost like dancing. I regularly got tangled up with others because I was out of step, and I got scolded for it. At first, I was very intimidated by this, but I soon learned that they enjoyed coaching and teaching me if I responded in humility as a learner. I asked one of the guys if I could buy a 12-ounce weight from him, and he gave me three and said his payment was watching me work hard at learning to fish.

There are approximately 30 people on the Excel, including eight crew members and 22 fishermen. The boat is about 2,500 square feet, about the same as our house. We have 11 living in our house, and we often think it is crowded. The crowded condition in our home is not a problem because we are a family and get along well. There are small groups of friends on the boat, but most of the people on the ship don’t know each other very well. There are some very nice individuals and some not-so-nice ones, so at times it can be a bit stressful for me. I have never done this kind of fishing before, and several people on the boat have done it frequently. Some of the experienced guys are very gracious in their teaching and explaining to me how to fish for various species of fish, but some are arrogant know-it-alls who make my temperature rise. I have developed six guidelines for these ten days of fishing on this boat, to be a positive influence on the others and to make the trip personally enjoyable for me.

1.      Smile a lot. Several people in the past have said that I have a nice smile, so I am going to use God’s gift to me of nice teeth to connect positively with people.

2.      Honor each person by paying sincere attention to their words as they talk, maintaining eye contact, even if they cuss a lot.

3.      Ask questions about fishing and their personal lives.

4.      Pray for people silently as I listen to them, that God would bless them and bring them to Himself, and help me to love them.

5.      I haven’t caught nearly as many fish as I thought I would on this trip, and I have had numerous seals steal my fish, and I have caught a bunch of junk fish that we throw back. But I am committed to rejoicing always, grumbling about nothing, and rejoicing with those who catch more fish than I do, though that is hard.

6.      Make the trip about growing closer to God rather than about catching fish. Sitting out in the ocean, taking in the beautiful sunsets, has been a great reminder of God’s power, His attributes, and His love for me. The time I have been able to spend praying has been great.

Today, I had a seal grab my fish and almost pulled all the line off my reel. I didn’t lose my line or my jig, but I did lose my fish, and by the time I was done fighting that seal, I was totally exhausted. Another guy lost most of his tuna to a shark. We fished for yellowtail most of the day, and the boat caught 79 of them. We had another beautiful sunset as we watched the sun sink into the ocean. Being on the sea is a constant reminder of God’s creative power, and I have been blessed by my times of reflecting on God as I observe His creation.