Getting better is the goal of life.Becoming more like Jesus in character, becoming more and more mature. If you don’t consciously work diligently at it, growth will not happen. Everything in us, in life, in the world is pressing us toward status qua, Don’t get excited , life is good, just keep doing what you are doing, don’t rock the boat. If you are going to change, grow, become more and more like Jesus you have got to want it, and press on toward that goal with a relentless determination. That doesn’t mean that you can’t go on rafting trips, go hunting, fishing etc

The key is self examination on a regular basis. You ask yourself the question, “how am I doing”? and then you answer it very honestly, make adjustments and commitments accordingly. What are my character flaws, weaknesses, and defects? We naturally tend to protect ourselves, which results in a lack of transparency, excusing all of our poor choices, justifying, blaming others, and ignoring. Again, brutal honesty based on a very strong desire to grow is the key. It is so easy to say, “I am OK” and just keep doing the same old thing. Don’t do that. Press on to maturity, hunger and thirst to be like Jesus in every way. Want, want even more, want so much it hurts,

I will have 29 grandchildren pretty soon, and I enjoy being with them, and around them very much. They bring a tremendous amount of joy into my life. I am very proud of each one and glory in their accomplishments. Recently Wyatt who is 10 and Alexa who is 12 went hunting in Alaska with their parents and they both shot a caribou. Remembering back to when I was 12 years old and shot my first deer, and how special that was to me I feel very proud of both of them.

Today was a very productive day for me. I got my entire sermon written out for this coming weekend. I had all the study all finished, I just needed to put the information in a logical order and outline it so it was down to earth and easy to understand. Sometimes that takes forever, but today it really flowed as I wrote, I am excited to hear it😀. I also filled up a 10 yard dumpster at my house as we cleaned up the place in preparation for our “home inspection” by the people who are overseeing the adoption proceedings for Sherri and Thomas as they attempt to adopt a little girl from Liberia, West Africa. I also fixed a number of things that were not “child friendly” around our place. I shot my bow about a hundred times in preparation for archery season opening in two weeks. I also welded on my “Rotisserie ” for a couple,of hours, that I am building from downloaded plans from the internet to put my 1969 mustang on so I can turn it over and around to work on from all sides. I also got in an hour of work on my boat getting it ready to take out in the ocean. I road on my stationary bike for an hour and read while riding. Now I am reading my Bible, writing this blog, praying, writing in my journal, memorizing Bible verses, and eating popcorn. Almost time to go to bed and get rested up for another great day tomorrow.

Worldliness is a condition that many people have. It is being so involved, entangled, and addicted to the activities and stuff of the world that there is little time or energy left for things that really matter and have an eternal impact. It is quite amazing how easy it is for us to get addicted to things, to activities, and to fill our life so full of this stuff that we are literally living our life out of control. I have lots of people ask me about time management and make comments about my life and how do I manage to get so much done. Time management is not about getting more things done, it is all about doing things that matter and have lasting and eternal value. I watch zero television, I never play computer games, I limit my Facebook time to 15 minutes each day, I limit my reading news and current events to 15 minutes a day, I limit my random internet reading to 15 minutes a day. The average person spends 6 hours each day watching television, playing computer games, surfing the web, reading the news, and on Facebook. So I have a 5 hour a day advantage over most other people. It is pretty easy to get more done than most with a 5 hour advantage.

I don’t remember when the JBC radio ministry started, but it has been airing for quite a few years on 107.9. I consider it to be a major blessing that God brought into my life, and into our church’s life. He has also used it in many other people’s lives as well over the years. Jim Wise was a very active part of our church, and a very good friend of mine for years. A number of years ago he had a car accident, and died from complications from it. Jim had a very strong entrepreneurial bent and giftedness, and was regularly coming into my office with crazy ideas for ministry. One day he came in, and said, “I think we need to put your sermons on the radio”. I was not in favor of it because I figured that only Christians listened to Christian radio, and I was more interested in impacting non Christians. Jim wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, and said, “you won’t have to do a thing, I will take care of everything”, which he did. The radio program was going for months before I knew that it had even started. Over the years since it’s beginning we have had very many people start attending JBC because of first experiencing it on the radio. I regularly bump into people who recognize my voice and say, “you’re Dee Duke, aren’t you? I listen to you on the radio every morning.” On three different occasions at restaurants I would go to pay the bill and the response would be, “Oh, someone paid your bill already, they recognized your voice, and wanted to say thank you for teaching them via the radio ministry. Yesterday I went to buy some steel for a project that I am working on, and the owner of the business helped me load the steel in my car, and then said that he took care of the bill which was a couple hundred dollars. He said it was a thank you gift for the part the radio ministry played in his life as he listened to it every morning. I thought, how cool that a ministry that I didn’t want to start and didn’t start has had so much impact over the years. Thank You Lord for blessing me and using me for Your glory.,

That is me going over the edge is case you didn’t recognize me from this view. I do like adventure, and events like this one add tremendously to the level of high adrenaline times. I am not quite the adrenaline junkie I used to be, but I still really enjoy an event with some risk evolved in it, or challenge. It is funny how the word “fun” is interpreted differently for each of us.

While I was over on the Deschutes River rafting I camped with a group from our church who were doing the guiding for those who were coming over each day to raft. There were about 15 or so who were there for the full three days of rafting, many of them young people. On Wednesday morning I got up at 5:30 am to read my Bible and pray a bit for the day. When I got up Pastor Mike was already up reading his Bible and while I sat in my lawn chair reading next to the Deschutes River in the next 30 minutes I think every person got up and sat and read and prayed for a bit before they started the day. As I sat listening to the roar of the river and watched the sun come up, I thought, what a wonderful culture we have as a church where we highly value the Word of God and have established the discipline of reading every day, even on a camping trip. I am so thankful to be part of it. I am so thankful that I am an integral part of it, like my hand is part of my body. I draw grace from my relationship with my church family, I give grace, I pray for every person in our church family each week and God does life changing things in the life of every person because of my prayers. Many people pray for me, and God does great and amazing things in my life because of the prayers of many in our body for me. In my physical body, my heart, lungs, liver, brain and all the various parts work together for my health. That is the way it is supposed to be in a church. I am so thankful for JBC, we are not a perfect church, but we are moving in that direction every day.

These last two days I have been over at the Deschutes River white water rafting with Pastor Mike and others from our church. It was a lot of fun rafting, and it was even more fun camping on the river with great people. Today on one of the trips when we went over the rapids called Oak Springs, I got thrown out of the raft and while under the water one of the oars swung up and whacked me right under the chin. It made a gash that went to the bone, and now it is swole up pretty good. It whacked me so hard that it loosened a couple of my teeth, and gave me a bit of whip lash in my neck. When it hit me I had this immediate sensation that I was going to pass out, and I knew that wouldn’t be good so I immediately opened my eyes to help keep myself conscious. I saw the raft above me so I backstroked away from it, talking to myself saying, “hold your breath”, “keep your back down”, “keep your feet downriver”, “backstroke to the shore”. It wasn’t to long before one of the other rafts paddled to where I was and rescued me. It always adds to the adventure and excitement of an event like this to have an unexpected crisis of sorts, and to conquer it. I am home now getting sympathy from Patty, she is such a good wife, and I have taken a bunch of ibuprofen, sitting in my recliner feeling pretty good. I am part of the team that is going to raft the Colorado River this time next year, and it is a much bigger River than the Deschutes with some really big rapids, and for a few minutes I started thinking, Dee, you are to old for this kind of stuff, let some young guy take your place. Then I remembered one of my favorite passages in the Bible in Joshua where Caleb who says on his 85th birthday, “I am as strong as I was when I was 40 years old, give me that mountain to conquer and I will drive those giants out of the land”, and he did.

Today was a very good day, I had a very long todo list and I got just about everything checked off that was on my list. Shot my bow a bunch, finished my sermon for this weekend, wrote some birthday notes, did some clean up in my shop, and bought my deer and elk tags. I won’t be writing a blog for several days in that I am leaving in the morning to go with a group from our church who will be rafting the Deschutes River tomorrow and Wednesday. I also went golfing this morning and got my best score ever using my sister in Laws clubs. I still don’t know what happened to my clubs, but if I have to replace them I will get what Annie Duke says is good. Life is busy, but that is good.

I am supposed to go golfing tomorrow morning with my brother and some other friends. It has been about 3 months since the last time I went golfing, and I went out to get my clubs and I can’t find them. I looked in every square inch in every building, corner, closet, attic, car trunk, under the beds, in the boats, every conceivable place I can think of at least 3 times each, and they have disappeared. The problem with going golfing once each 3 or 4 months is I can’t remember where I put them after the last time I went. I guess I will have to borrow some from the other guys I am golfing with. You know how it is when you lose something and you can’t find it, you get more and more frustrated, and then the frustration turns to irritation, and then someone says something about if I were more organized this wouldn’t happen, and then I get angry. 😤 Now I am sitting down writing this blog, and talking myself back into being cool and calm. It kind of reminds me of the story Jesus tells about a lady who loses a coin and sweeps the whole house and finally finds it, and then He declares that He has come into the world to seek And save the lost, those who are spiritually lost. To be spiritually lost means you don’t have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. You don’t know Him, love Him, serve Him, follow Him, you aren’t guided by Him, and you won’t live with Him forever after you die. Jesus left heaven, stripped Himself of all that He was as God, and died on a cross so lost people could be found. Many refuse to come to Jesus, they hide, as it were, from being found. I wonder how frustrating that is for Jesus?