Patty has enjoyed camping most of our 50 years of married life. On our first year anniversary I took her on 100 mile canoe trip in Canada and she has been a camping fanatic ever since. What appeals to both of us is the simple life style that camping, at least tent camping represents. We do have the modern convenience of a propane lantern, in fact we have 2 of them, and a propane 2 burner stove. We have a fairly large tent that we can get two lawn chairs in besides our air mattress and sleeping bags, and I do have a propane tent heater if it gets chilly. We walk about 50 yards to the outhouse, but there are no showers, so we do a “spit bath” using handy wipes, daily, and then after 1 week we will drive about 40 miles to a little town called “The Narrows” and pay $7 for a shower and use the laundromat to wash cloths. Worldliness is the number one problem with most Christians in their walk with a God. Christians get lukewarm, fall away, do nothing for the Lord because of worldliness. Worldliness is buying just one more toy, one more convenience to make life more enjoyable, but the problem is it doesn’t, it just takes away your time and your energy, and before you know it you are standing before Jesus at the Judgment Seat of Christ and you have nothing to offer Him as a gift, you have no rewards to take with you into eternity. A simple lifestyle allows you to serve Jesus with all of your heart, soul, and might, and life is so much more uncomplicated. Camping, every time we go camping we think of ways to simplify our lifestyle. Help us Lord to follow through.

I have been planning my and Patty’s camping/hunting trip to the Steen’s Mountains for months. You would think with all the time and thought I would have thought of everything and remembered everything, yep you would have thought. How do you light a lantern or a camp stove? With a match or a lighter, yep forgot those. How do you carry your arrows while hunting? On a bow quiver that fastens neatly to your bow, I own two of them, forgot them both! What do you put your deer or elk in after cleaning them to keep the flies off, a game bag, forgot those as well. There is about a dozen more things we have discovered that we have forgotten on our first day, but a quick trip into Burns solved most of the problems. I did remember my bow and arrows, my deer and elk tags, and Patty!

Yesterday was our 50th wedding anniversary and we had a celebration party at Lake Charles. It was a very blessed time for me for a number of reasons, one was the obvious joy that comes from my wife, Patty, at events like this, a second was the great fellowship with those who came to honor us, but the greatest source of blessing came from my 6 kids that were there and were part of the planned program. Each one of them had a part sharing things about Patty and I as their parents over the years as they grew up. The words that they shared were very honoring of us and it was very nice to hear their memories and impressions of us, but the main source of blessing wasn’t what they said about us, it was the obvious character, maturity, confidence, and wisdom that they each one demonstrated and portrayed as they shared and talked. I was very proud of each one of them, and was so impressed with who each one had become as a person. Afterwards I was chatting with a friend and they commented on what good public speakers each of my kids were, and I agreed, they were indeed. When I was a Junior in High School I was required to give a short speech in one of my classes. Afterwards my teacher was very complimentary about my speech, and said to me, “you should take every opportunity that opens up to you to speak in front of people, there are very few things as powerful as public speaking to develop your confidence, your ability to think on your feet, and your ability to communicate clearly to others.” That advice stuck in my head and over the years I did what she recommended. As we had our 8 kids we made that advice one of our parenting principles, we made them get up in front of people in school, church and other groups, gatherings, and events, and speak at every opportunity that opened up to them. The fruit of that parenting principle was very obvious yesterday. As I teach my Men’s Leadership Class and my Woman’s Leadership Class I share that principle with them often, but still a number of them refuse to get up in front of people and share, the fear factor is to strong. So, in conclusion, to you who are reading this, take advantage of every opportunity to speak in public, pursue growth, and public speaking is a major growth factor.

As we and our kids have been planning our 50th wedding anniversary they get to asking questions about our dating and courtship days. Tonight one of them said, “Mom said that you never proposed”! I thought about it for a minute and admitted that I never did propose. we only dated for about 3 months so things moved fairly fast, and one day we both assumed we were going to get married and started talking like we were. I did buy an engagement ring and presented it to her in the parking lot at Lloyd’s Center where I bought it with Patty helping me pick it out, it cost exactly $100. I don’t remember that I said much, I just handed it to her and she put it on. Probably the most assertive thing I did was when I was walking Patty to an evening babysitting job, the college we were attending was in North Portland and the streets weren’t very safe at night so I walked Patty to wherever she needed to go in the evening, as we were walking a little kid saw us holding hands and asked if we were married and I said yes. I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that I had great parents, but I didn’t choose them, it just happened, and as I think about Patty and I meeting, dating, and getting married almost every detail just happened without must choosing or acting on my part, I just got swept along in the events. So, I am very much a product of God’s sovereign working in my life, picking my parents, picking my wife, and picking almost every other significant event and choice in my life. I often sit and reflect on the different things in my life that were obviously not a result of anything I might have done, and then I thank the Lord for His wonderful blessings to me over the years.

.

I do a lot of counseling, teaching, coaching, leading accountability groups, and preaching as a Pastor, that is my job, but more than that it is my calling from God for my life. A major goal of mine is to teach principles of successful living that are found in the Bible, but even more than that is simply to motivate people to obey and live out the principles that I teach. Many people already know in their head many times more principles than they are putting into practice because they don’t have the motivation or the self control to do what is best for themselves and others in their lives. Kids usually don’t have the ability to faithfully do the the best thing and make right choices because they are influenced by their emotions, the pull of immediate gratification as apposed to long term success and fulfillment, the pressure of peers and other outside influences in their life, and simply the lack of wisdom to know what is best. We expect that kids will act like kids and that they will usually make poor choices in life, but there comes a point when as the Bible says, we put away childish behavior and start acting mature and grown up. As I over the years have worked with many people attempting to move them to the point of “mature” I have realized and observed that many people have a huge advantage in life in that they were well parented. It obviously doesn’t guarantee success, but it is a very real advantage in life to have been taught and coached at a young age to be self controlled, to be a wisdom seeker, and to have the healthy self worth so as not to be constantly making choices to impress others. I was very well parented by a great Dad and Mom, and I thank the Lord almost daily for that huge blessing in my life. I didn’t choose my parents and I obviously didn’t do anything yet to deserve or earn the awesome parents that I had, it just happened by God’s sovereign choice. As I work with adults now who didn’t get all the training and teaching growing up that they needed, especially men, I work hard to get them to be humble enough to admit that, not to feel bitter towards their parents, or to feel like they are stuck and destined to be losers, but to find mentors that can teach, train, and coach them now. There are a lot of older men who are wise, successful in living life, who have strong character, and have the ability to mentor and coach others. This model of the older, mature, and wise mentoring the younger is a major emphasis and teaching of the Bible. The problem is that those who need the coaching are to proud to seek it, and those who have the maturity to give it are to busy or distracted with life to take the time or make the effort to establish a relationship to give it.

Patty and I have a really good marriage, but it hasn’t always been good. How does a marriage become really good? A major key is lots of good teaching on how to have a good marriage. That is something that few married couples do because of the time that it takes and often the money. Patty and I went to the same 5 day seminar every year for over 20 years. It wasn’t primarily a seminar on marriage, mostly principles on how to have a good relationship with God and others. We went to a variety of marriage workshops and seminars that were offered over the years, and read lots of books.

If someone asked me how to have a great marriage this is what I would say;

1. Go to marriage counseling often. You don’t have to have a major problem to go to counseling, you just want to grow. Counseling almost always results in couples talking about things they normally don’t talk about. JBC has free marriage counseling, and it is very good.

2. Take the time to go to any and every Christian seminar on marriage and the family offered within driving distance. This would include marriage retreats that your church or other churches in the area offer

3. Read books together on marriage. There are dozens of excellent books available. You can get many books that are audible so you can listen to a book together for 15 minutes once a week and then talk about what you heard. This is a great thing to do when driving together, makes the time go by very rapidly.

4. Establish a relationship with another married couple who are older than you, have a great marriage, and are willing to meet regularly and share principles that have helped them. JBC has a number of older couples who have great marriages who have offered to mentor others who want to grow.

There are way more resources available today than there was when Patty and I got married, but very few married couples take advantage of them because they are to busy. It is sad that so many spend hours watching television and won’t take the time to learn how to have a great marriage.

We all talk to people all the time. Some is just chit chat, in that it is just being polite, but the goal of talking with, and listening to people who are important to us is that we would understand them. Understanding the full meaning and intent of the words that my wife, Patty speaks to me is not easy, it takes attentiveness and thought. I often don’t understand what she is saying and don’t realize I didn’t get it, until a problem comes up later because I didn’t follow through on that previous communication. I have a responsibility when I speak, to work at being understood, there is a learned skill in being a good communicator so people understand exactly what I am trying to say.

It is also my responsibility in a relationship to work at understanding the other person’s communication to me, not to be a lazy, inattentive listener. If I don’t quite understand, to ask questions to help clarify. The desire to clearly understand another person is an expression of love and of honor. Being a lazy listener and inattentive is very dishonoring to the other person, communicating clearly that what they have to say is not important to me. Learning how another person communicates, the definition of the words they use in their mind, the logic that they use in putting together sentences and stories is another part of being a good lister to people I care about.

I have tended towards being a poor listener over the years because I am usually in a hurry to do something, so I just give enough attention to get the basic gist of what is being said. I made a commitment a number of years ago to Patty as my “I Love You Commitments” to her, it was “I will listen attentively to your words, and honor you by paying sincere attention to what you are saying to me, and diligently seek to understand you completely“.

I work hard at eating healthy, no sugar and no gluten, and I exercise just about an hour every day. I also work hard at resting appropriately for the things I have done, resting to recover physically, and emotionally. I do that so I will have energy and strength to serve the Lord my entire life effectively. But I recognize that if I don’t receive God’s strength I won’t do anything that matters. God gives strength to the weary. To get God’s strength I need to ask for it often, I ask daily. To get God’s strength I need to be faithful to the disciplines, bible reading, prayer, gathering with my church family. But a major key to get God’s strength is to do something that matters, that has eternal significance and that requires God’s strength in order to succeed. If you don’t make a choice and commitment to do something great with your life there will be no power or strength from god.

A fellow said to me once that the reason he didn’t believe in God was because of all the bad things that happened to people, and he couldn’t believe that a loving God would let that happen. I asked him what life would look like if God prevented every bad thing from happening to everybody. He thought for a minute and said, “well I guess it would be heaven”, and I responded, “exactly“. So the question is, “why did God put life on the planet earth with all its problems in front of heaven, because that is exactly what He did”. Let me suggest several reasons:

1. God wants heaven populated with people who really love Him. Real love is not a result of perfect circumstances, everybody “loves” then. Real love endures, has toughness as part of its DNA. Life is a test to see who gets to live in heaven forever. The test isn’t perfection or performance, it is love, love that endures.

2. If we started out in heaven we would have zero appreciation for heaven’s beauty, for it’s joy, it’s perfection. Heaven is heaven because of the contrast between it and life. When the kids were young we put some black construction paper in the freezer having heard that it was going to snow. When it began to snow we took the paper out of the freezer and let some snow flakes fall onto the black paper. It was easy to see the design, the beauty and the difference in each snow flake because of the contrast created by the white snowflake against the black paper.

3. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is community, family, and They are expanding the family to include us. That is amazing to think about, we will be part of the family of God. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that God would like His expanded family to be like Him in character so that He can enjoy our fellowship and we His. Character can not be created in a moment of time, only trials make character.

There are so many people in our church right now going through very rough times. Cancer, death of loved ones, kids going sideways, marriages struggling big time, and on the list goes. Why? That was the question Job asked repeatedly, why? It is interesting to note that when a God does respond to Job, He never answers the question, He simply points to His greatness. As I have gotten older I have gotten very comfortable with a simple line, “I don’t know, and I probably won’t know until I get to Heaven, and I am OK with that”. I trust God totally with my life and my future. It may be that I live to be 100 and I preach 5 times a week and never miss writing my blog, or it may mean that I get the most painful disease known to man and die before I am able to kill a monster buck this Fall. When I get to heaven it won’t matter, why won’t enter my mind.

I know the answer though, Paul tells us in Romans 8. Tough times make us grow to be like Jesus and that is what matters. Life is all about growing to be like Jesus, and tough times accelerate the growth if we don’t grumble and feel sorry for ourselves. The more we can handle the faster we will grow.

I pray so much, and so hard for people in our church family that I love. I pray, “Dear Jesus, give ,so and so, great joy in their heart in spite of their life right now, give them a peace that passes all comprehension, give them great strength to manage life well, give them a powerful sense of your presence, give them wisdom to understand Your purpose, and use them as a powerful witness for You as they live life with courage and enthusiasm for You.

Sometimes my praying for people is do intense that I get a chest ache, and I often wish I could take some of their pain for awhile to give them a break and a rest. I do that in a way by my praying for them. I almost daily feel guilty for not praying more. It won’t be long now and I will be in heaven, and that will be glory.