A major principle of life is that a group of unified people working together will tremendously out perform the same number of people who are working independently of each other, no matter how educated, talented, and determined they might be. The biggest barrier and obstacle to this principle working in businesses, schools, and even churches is pride, our egos constantly work against and sabotage the power of a unified group.

The Bible uses the “Body” as the perfect illustration of this principle. My body has hands, feet, eyes, a heart, lungs and many other parts, none which can survive outside of my body. I was watching Duke University and North Carolina play basketball tonight, and they have some amazingly athletic and coordinated players. The term ” coordinated” means that their body parts are all in synch with each other.

When we had our first child of eight we went and got counseling from a father of twelve every Wednesday night for three months. His first piece of advice to us was to have as many kids as possible. He said it with such passion, I asked why he said that, and he said, “when you have a lot of kids you are forced to teach them to get along, to live together in unity, and to work towards common goals as a family, kids that learn that are almost always champions in every area of life.” So we had eight.

One of my regular statements that I make is, “People who grew up on a farm, are farmers or were farmers, have a huge advantage over non-farmers in life”. Some would think that I say this simply because from the age of 12 to 28 I was a farmer. I say this because I can recognize in my own life character traits and attitudes that serve me well that were formed in me during those 16 formative years of my life.

One of the things that I got as a farmer that I see many people struggle with is an understanding that life comes in seasons and requires us to be flexible as we make adjustments to our schedules, routines, and priorities, and that we do that with a positive, “life is great attitude”. The hours we worked on the farm went up dramatically during haying season. Growing and harvesting our own hay as apposed to buying it was a key to our success on the dairy. There were so many factors working against us on getting a lot of hay in the barn for winter, and the main solution to the problems was hours and hours of hard work. We understood that the intensity of our work week would be over when October rolled around. The advantage we had dealing with the seasons of life was that it was somewhat predictable which made it much easier to deal with mentally. We all have these seasons of life where we have to work very hard to get everything done and we still don’t finish it all, and these seasons spring on us out of nowhere. These seasons can be very powerful times of character growth, learning how to depend on the strength and guidance of the Lord, being positive and gracious to those around us in spite of weariness, and gaining skills in time management and self-leadership. Most don’t grow during these intense times because they don’t control their self-talk. They think “self-pity” thoughts, “I am so tired” thoughts, “life isn’t fair” thoughts, and on the list goes. Obedience to the command from God in scripture to “Rejoice always”, and “grumble about nothing” are crucial. We can do it if we constantly ask God for strength as we praise Him for our blessed life. Being aware of His presence, working at pleasing Him with our behavior and attitude, continually asking for strength and wisdom as we struggle is called walking with God. Choose to be an overcomer.

Monday through Wednesday was the “Annual meetings” for our denomination at Seaside. Mostly pastors, senior pastors, youth pastors, worship leaders, associate pastors, fat pastors, skinny pastors, and a few smart pastors. The meetings tend to be boring but the fellowship with the other pastors was super good. A lot of the pastors I only see once a year at this event so it is always fun to chat for a few minutes catching up on “news”. I really enjoyed my time with Mike Dedera my associate pastor here at JBC. We see each other all the time here at JBC, but driving over together, staying in a motel room together and eating together we had lots of time for good conversations about our vision for the future. Also my son-in-law, Mike Hatfield roomed with us and I had a wonderful time with him talking church and family.

One of my favorite verses is in Proverbs 27:17 “Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another.” This verse is so true for me, the more time I spend with guys who are faithful, hard workers, devoted to the Lord, and in love with Jesus, the more passion I have for ministry. It is such a great gift from the Lord to have really good friends who give me grace as they spend time with me.

I am at our denominations annual meetings Monday through Wednesday this week with lots of pastor friends to talk to and hang out with. I have to be extra careful in these kinds of settings that I don’t sin with my mouth as I would attempt to project an image of a super successful pastor. When I choose to relax and not get caught up in talking ministry I can do good, but occasionally I take the bait of the enemy and say some really stupid thing in an attempt to be cool, and I regret it so much as I recall for hours and even days how dumb I was. Well, I in just 10 seconds of conversation spoke badly of another pastor, and I wish that I could reel it in, but I can’t. I am hoping that the dumb thing I said doesn’t get back to the person I slandered. Why do I do that? I know better and I always am so angry at myself after I say something as stupid as I did tonight. Well, I am confessing my sin, in fact I have confessed it about a hundred times in the last hour, and I am praying that God gives me strength not to do that any more. ” Oh, Lord, please forgive me, and cleanse me, and wash me from my sin, and please help me never to do that again, please Lord, I desperately want to please You, and I messed up royal tonight, apart from You I will mess up my life and everybody else’s around me, please help me and strengthen me, I want so much to please you”.

At the JBC Sportsman’s Show in Albany several weeks ago there was a beautiful wooden 10 foot pram that was in the foyer of the main Pavilion that was being raffled off. It looked like this except that it had bench seats I thought wow, that would be a great little boat to float the Willamette in and fish for small mouth bass in. So I ordered the plans for this boat and I am going to build it. One sheet of 4×10 plywood 1/4 inch thick for the sides, one sheet of 4×8 plywood 1/4 inch thick for seats, braces, bow, and the stern, and one sheet of 4×8 plywood 3/8 inch thick for the bottom. The sides and bottom are temporarily connected with bailing wire every 4 inches, and then when the sides and bottom are permanently connected with resin and fiberglass cloth the wire is pulled out, and the entire outside is covered with fiberglass. Then I will paint it, get some oarlocks and oars and put it in the river and catch a bunch of fish.

There isn’t much that I enjoy more than building things. I often think how much fun it was for God to build the stars, the planets, the animals and me.

Psalms 139:13-14 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.

I can’t imagine how any right thinking person can think that an unborn child is not a human being created by God with the right to live and grow.

One of my life purposes is to treat every person in my life as a creation of God whom He wove, and nurtured, and planned, and created with a future and a purpose. When I get my new boat done it will be well built and look very nice and I will be proud of it, and if you say to me, “wow, what a beautiful boat” I will feel very honored. How much more valuable are you to God as His creation than a boat is to me. I will treat you as His son or His daughter.

I have a list of a dozen things I do every day, I call them my “Daily Dozen Duties”. I try to get all 12 done every day, but often things come up that I didn’t plan on, or events that I really need to go to, and the result is that I don’t have enough time to get everything done – now what?

First thing for me to do is to remind myself that even though I use the word “duty”, it really is the “daily dozen desires”. If I don’t get every thing done I am not breaking some kind of law so I don’t have to feel guilty unless I have just been lazy and done a poor job of planning my day.

The second thing is to establish a priority list of the dozen things I want to get done every day, what are the ones that I have to do and the ones that I would like to do. At the top of my list is read the Bible and second would be to pray. Several things on my daIly dozen list that if I don’t get done it won’t be the end of the world is exercising, writing my blog, and reading 20 pages in a good Christian book.

The third thing is to look at the reason for not getting everything done. That will be mostly planning issues and time management principles. Once I have figured out why I can work on trying to keep that from happening to many times in the future.

And the last thing that I do is consider shortening the list if I consistently don’t get everything accomplished so I don’t start getting used to not checking everything off. Once I get used to not getting all my “daily dozen duties” done it will get easier and easier to not push to get them all checked off.

In case you were interested here is my list of the duties I strive to accomplish each day: (1) read 12 chapters in the Bible, (2) spend 15 minutes memorizing Bible verses, (3) pray for 30 minutes, (4) pray with Patty for 15 minutes for our kids and their families, (5) first thing in the morning to pray a prayer of commitment and present myself to Jesus as Lord of my life, (6) exercise for one hour minimum, (7) write my blog for the day, (8) read 20 pages in a good book, (9) write down everything I did that day and the time I spent doing it, (10) listen to a sermon online, (11) read my goals for the year and, 12) just before going to sleep to think through the day and confess all know sin to God.

Pretty much every waking minute of my life now I am thinking about God, what His will is for my life, asking Him to bless someone, save someone, give someone bad diarrhea, and how to influence others to love Him like I do. If I am not thinking directly about God, I am thinking about eternity and what it will look like, sound like, and what it will feel like in my glorified body. I think about fishing a lot, but always with Him in the picture. I think about Patty, my kids, grandkids, my Mom, my sister, and all those in the church, but any thoughts about them always include a prayer for them. My confidence and faith in the existence of God, His personal love for me, and my very strong desire to please Him is as real and fixed in me as my awareness of Patty is.

It is interesting to think about how my faith has grown so strong over the years considering I have never seen God, heard Him, or had any kind of “supernatural” experience with Him. I am pretty sure that it is because of the steady diet of God’s Word over the years. My parents, especially my Mom, had us kids in church every Sunday with very few exceptions, Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, Summer Camp, Youth Group, and whatever else was going on. When I was 13 years old at Fir Point Bible Camp in Glendale, Oregon my camp counselor was a young bachelor, 28 years old, named Mr. Titus. For the entire 5 days of camp he repeated over and over again how important it was to read the Bible everyday, and to read it all every year. He said anyone who would promise him that they would read it everyday and all the way through, that he would give them a new, leather covered Bible, so I made the commitment, got a nice Bible and haven’t missed a year of at least reading it once for the last 57 years. Yep, I am pretty sure Mr. Titus is the reason for my faith in God and my relationship with Him.

I am at a point in my life and ministry when it would be nice to slow down and relax a bit, but I doesn’t seem like I can yet. I get so agitated when I am not doing something significant, and pursuing some outlandish goal.

John 15:1-2 I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

Every night I pray and ask the Father to prune me so that I can bear more fruit. I am not exactly sure what that means, “prune me”, but I do know that it results in more fruit and that is what I want. I want to do more, accomplish more, learn more, grow more, I want more. God said to Abraham in Hebrews 6:14 “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.” That is what I want, for God to bless me and to multiply me.

The Apostle Paul was like this it seems for in Philippians 1:21-22 he says “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose.” He says, “going to heaven would be nice, but bearing more fruit would be nicer”.

I am pretty sure that I am past the ego thing, the personal quest for significance through accomplishment, though I am always checking my motives to make sure that I haven’t drifted over that way even a little bit. I am motivated by people’s need of salvation and growth, but I am mostly motivated by my desire to please the Lord with my life.

In my Blog yesterday I wrote that one of my tendencies is to “project an image” to people, that is act and talk like someone that I am not because I think it will impress them. Being real is so much more relaxing, being free of thinking about what people think about me is so, so, well so freeing. As I thought about it after writing yesterday’s blog, I asked myself the question, “what is the predominate character that you tend to pretend to be?” Easily the first place prize goes to the mask of “macho man”. That is the mask I wear when I am trying to convince people that I am tougher than I really am, that I am always on my “A” game when dealing with difficult people and always have the perfect response that puts them in their place. The truth is that I am a bit intimidated by aggressive talkers, and usually think of the perfect response an hour after the conversation. In my journal where I write about my journey in life and my struggle to grow to be like Jesus, I call this my “John Wayne” mask. As I reflect on the day I often recall times during the day that I was wearing the John Wayne mask, and as I replay the event I usually feel silly at best and stupid at worst for playing those games as I attempt to impress people with my leadership command. Growing in character is a tough, slow process and if you relax a bit in the fight to grow in purity of motive you can lose everything you have gained in a fraction of the time it took to gain it. Praise the Lord, I am way better than I was, but, my oh my, I have so far yet to go.

One of my life purposes is to be entirely motivated in all my behavior by my love for Jesus which will result in seeking to please Him in all that I do instead of the people around me. I am very aware of the fact that because my job is to minister to people, to preach to them so they know God’s will and His way for their life, to counsel them, and to pray for them, that I can become a people pleaser, that is I would seek the approval of people for what I do. I also realize the fact that I would not become a people pleaser on purpose, but it would happen gradually so that I wouldn’t even notice the change. One of the practices that I watch out for that would indicate a major infection of people pleasing in my heart would be “projecting an Image”, that is pretending to be something and someone that I perceive that people will like and admire. I work at being transparent, real, and genuine in an attempt to keep from being controlled by people’s opinion of what is good, acceptable and cool. Every evening I review the day, examine my life, and confess all known sin to God. This is one of my ministry disciplines. As I think through the day the sin that I commit more than any other is saying things specifically for the purpose of impressing someone with my godliness. As I replay the day and recognize the number of times that I have been a “show off” I get so discouraged with myself, thinking “how can I be an influencer of people when I am so controlled by them”. It is a slow process of becoming and growing into a mature person, that is someone who is secure enough in who they are they don’t have to try and be someone else, but I will work on it becoming more and more that person every day.