In less than two months, I am leaving on a 4,000 mile, 60-day bicycle trip from coast to coast with four other people. One of the daily questions and discussion points among us will be “how far have we gone?” and “how far do we have to go?” We have every day of the trip mapped out in detail and we will soon have every camp sight reserved. I have a little computer on my bicycle that I put the destination in every morning before we hit the road, and it tells me all day long how far we have pedaled and how far to camp. It estimates the time left based on past speeds. It also tells me how many feet I have climbed that day, what my top speed was, what my average speed was, what my total miles ridden since the beginning of the trip is, and how many miles left before we get home.

My two-fold purpose in life is to grow to be as much like Jesus Christ in character as is possible in the time I have left before I see Him face to face, and to accomplish as much with my life as possible before I stand before Him at the “Judgment Seat of Christ.” I renew my commitment to those life purposes every morning. What I wish is that I had some little computer that would tell me how am doing. How much did I grow in character, in maturity last week? Did I grow? How much have I accomplished with my life that matters, that Jesus will praise me for when I get to heaven. I love keeping track of progress, but it is so hard to know for sure in life.

I write in my journal several times each week examining my life, trying to discern my strengths, weaknesses, growth areas, accomplishments, sins, character flaws, and blind spots. But I know that it is very hard for us as people to be honest with ourselves, our heart is self-centered, biased, prideful, and very deceptive.

I want more than any other desire of my heart to hear Jesus say to me at the end of my life, “well done, good and faithful servant,” not “you wicked, lazy servant!”

I don’t really, just seeing if the title would prompt more people to read my blog! But let’s pretend that God did give me a very clear revelation of the exact day and time when Jesus was coming back to take us all to heaven with him. Now that I have that information what am I going to do with it.

Maybe it would prompt more people to trust Jesus as their Savior if I told them when Jesus was coming back. In my witnessing to them I could tell them that if they didn’t trust Jesus as their Savior before He came back then they would spend eternity in hell. The problem is that there are quite a few people who already claim to know the date and time of Jesus return, just check YouTube, but nobody believes them. The same is true of Christians, if I would tell our church the date and time of Jesus return so that everyone would get excited about witnessing to lost people they wouldn’t believe me either. Probably because in sermons in the past I have said that if anyone comes to you with the time of Christ’s return don’t believe them, they are a nut case.

Well, I guess I will just use the information to motivate myself to live for Jesus and to witness faithfully. Do I really need to know that information to be motivated to serve Jesus with all my heart and to seek Him with all of my might? I shouldn’t need it, not if I am faithful and obedient.

OK, I guess I will be content not knowing exactly what God is going to do in the future, I know that I am in the family of God and headed for heaven, so I will call that good and choose to be highly motivated to live as a bright light and influence people every chance I get.

I ate a small piece of delicious chocolate tonight and then Sherri brought in a bowl of sauerkraut for me. I love sauerkraut but right after that piece of chocolate it tasted terrible. When the kids were small Patty put a piece of black construction paper in the freezer and when it snowed we took it out and caught snowflakes on it. Because it was cold the snowflakes didn’t melt and because it was black the white snow flakes stood out and it was very easy to see their shapes and designs. Contrast magnifies differences.

One of my regular “lines” to people who complain about life and wonder why God doesn’t make things better is, “ this is life not heaven!” When we get to heaven God will make everything perfect, but now we are on earth living life, and God purposely designed life to be hard, very hard. Because life is hard we grow and when we get to heaven we will be so grateful and thankful to God that we are there, and one of the reasons will be because of the contrast.

I was supposed to go fishing on the Siletz river for steelhead today but it got cancelled because of the weather. I am sitting here in my recliner feeling very disappointed that I didn’t get to go fishing. We feel disappointed when what we wanted and expected to happen did not happen. Sometimes our disappointment is because of an event that failed to happen, sometimes it is because an unrealized goal, and sometimes it is because a person failed to do or be what we expected and were planning on.

We all feel negative emotions such as disappointment, sadness, and grief regularly, but when we do we need to manage them. If we let these emotions of loss stay in us we will become pessimists. A pessimist thinks and expects mostly bad things are going to happen, at least not very many good things. Disappointment is painful, and many in their pain management eliminate most dreams, goals, and desires because if they don’t happen there is disappointment, so in their mind it is better not to hope than to be disappointed.

Pessimists are low on fruit-bearing for God, they are low on joy, low on healthy relationships, and they are low on faith.

I have a lot of dreams for the future, I have a lot of goals, and I have high expectations for most of the people in my life, so I experience a lot of disappointment. My desires for the future tend to be intense and passionate so my disappointments are the same.

When I have a disappointment I rejoice over what did happen that was good and what was accomplished, and then I reschedule, set another goal, adjust, or adjust my thinking. Today, I looked at the rain and wind and thought, “boy, I am glad I am not fishing!” Then I started thinking about the next fishing trip coming up.

I do so many things wrong, make so many bad choices, say things that weren’t edifying, spend money on things that I don’t need, get lazy when I should be working hard for the Lord.

Regret by itself is a paralyzing emotion and thought pattern. It makes you feel like a failure, a loser, useless and good for nothing. But regret as a stimulus for other things is highly profitable. One of the most important things for us to do in this life is to grow in character, to become like Jesus. Regret should prompt us to think about and examine our life and to learn. Mistakes are a great source of wisdom if we learn from them. Life long learners and wisdom seekers make the most of every wrong choice they have ever made so they don’t make them again, and they learn from their mistakes.

One of the problems many have is that they never admit that they made a mistake, made a bad choice, sinned, it is the other person. One of the surest ways to stay a fool in life is to blame everyone else for your bad circumstances and relational conflicts.

God is delighted with the person who sincerely, accurately, and humbly examines their own life, owns their mistakes, confesses them to God, apologizes to people, and learns what not to do.

I owned a Jack Russell for 15 years; his name was Russel. He died about nine years ago. He was a perfect dog, though he was very aggressive. He would fight anything and usually win the fight. He killed several coons that were twice as big as he was. He was an excellent watchdog and could hear cars drive in the driveway and deer that would eat apples in our orchard. He wasn’t afraid of anything.

We have another dog now. He is a jack-a-poo, half Jack Russell and half poodle, and his name is Roscoe, but most of the time I call him Russell. He is a wonderful kids dog, the grandkids all love him. He acts like a good watchdog in that he barks a lot at noises, but he is afraid of his own shadow. There was a sack of chicken food sitting in our back yard waiting for me to carry it to the chicken pen. Roscoe wouldn’t leave the back porch while that sack was out there, I am not sure what he thought it was, but he wasn’t going out there to check it out.

My first Jack Russell was totally fearless, I am sure he would have fought a bear if he had a chance. My present Jack Russell is pretty much afraid of anything that moves and some things that don’t move if they look suspicious. Dogs are mostly who they are by inherited temperament, they don’t choose or change much. They are who they are, and that is all that they are.

People as a whole are born fearful, and a long list of psychological words have arisen that describe the various things that we are afraid of. In the Bible, God commands us not to fear, worry, be anxious, or fret over 50 times. In our present world it is easy to observe that people who are fearful are easy to control, that is why the devils main tactic is to create fear in our life.

1 Chronicles 28:20 Then David said to his son Solomon, “Be strong and courageous, and act; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you.

Jesus by His death on the cross has freed us from the ultimate fear, the foundational fear, the fear of death.

Hebrews 2:14-15 that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

It appears from reading Old Testament prophets like Isaiah and Ezekial that Russia is a major player during the end times. Russia is now in the news a lot and in the last couple of days has become the most talked about and written about nation in the world. A key to running the race of life with endurance is keeping your eyes on the finish line, and now it seems that the end for the church could be any day now. All day today I have been imagining hearing a trumpet and hearing a loud voice say “COME UP HERE!” feeling my body change, feeling the energy surge through me, and imagining the sensation of leaving the ground and zooming off to heaven. That will be glory, indeed.

What makes the end of the race getting closer motivational to me is the thought of standing before Jesus, looking into His eyes and hearing Him recount my life, and declaring me an overcomer or not.

When we get weary we lose heart. When we lose heart are passion is gone, our emotional energy is gone, our desire is gone, our vision is gone, and we quit.

Hebrews 12:1-3 let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. . .so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Galatians 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

2 Thessalonians 3:13 But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good.

The weariness being talked about here is not caused by physical work and physical tiredness, it is caused by discouragement, despair, fear, trials, pain, failure, and emotional exhaustion. In the Hebrews passage the believers were suffering from great persecution for their faith.

In Hebrews 12:1-3 there are six suggestions given to prevent weariness. One of them mentioned in several other passages in the context of trials is to “rejoice always,”, especially amid problems and hard times, and not allow ourselves to fall into self-pity. Self-pity will suck all of our inner strength right out of us, and leave us weary.

It is tough rejoicing in hard times, but if we want to run the race before us with endurance, we have to develop the discipline of rejoicing when we don’t feel like it. To rejoice is not acting like we are enjoying our experience or having a good time when we are miserable in our pain; it is saying to God, “I don’t understand, but I trust You, thank You for loving me, causing all things to work together for my good in my life, giving me the strength to endure, and molding me into the image of Jesus. I love You.”

Hebrews 9:27
And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Every believer will stand before Jesus Christ at the end of their life and give an account of how they lived their life here on earth. The result of that judgment will be rewards from the Lord or loss of rewards. Most Christians rarely think about that event and imagine what it will be like to be greatly rewarded or to receive zero rewards.

There is a special award given to those who run the race of life with endurance and finish well.

James 1:12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

Revelation 2:10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

2 Timothy 4:6-8 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

I don’t know what difference being awarded the “crown of life“ and the “crown of righteousness” will make in my experience for eternity with Jesus, but I am thinking that it will be very significant, a true reward, one that is worth aiming for and running the race of life with endurance for.

I ran twelve marathons between my 50th and 60th birthday. I also ran 25 half marathons during those same year’s. In all of those races I never quit one, but in everyone of them I wanted to quit in the worst way. I was pretty sure that if I kept on running I would die! I can proudly say that I finished every race that I ever started. In Hebrews 12:1 it says “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

That race is the race of life, and the finish line is when we stand before Jesus at the end of our life and give an accounting of our life to Him. Each of us has our own unique race given to us from God, and His admonition to each of us is to finish well, finish strong, finish at a sprint. When the apostle Paul was near martyrdom he wrote in 2 Timothy 4:6-8 “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”

In our culture today many who begin their journey with Christ strong plateau and then fall away. My observation is that more quit than finish. Even though the number of people walking away from their faith is growing it has always been a problem demonstrated by all the warnings given in the Bible about running with endurance.

I have identified a dozen reasons why people don’t finish the race with endurance, but I will give just one of those reasons in this blog, they run the race by themselves.

Hebrews 3:12-13 Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

“Encourage one another day after day.” Those who run the race of life together with other believers giving and receiving encouragement finish well, those who think they don’t need others never finish well, but crash and burn somewhere before they cross the finish line.