One of the disciplines that I picked up years ago is journaling. I write a bit about the events that occurred that day in a mater of fact way, and then I write about my dealing with the events that I just wrote about, problems I solved or didn’t solve, lessons learned, wisdom gained, and then I usually write out a prayer, praying for the people that were in my day, and for myself to be used by God to bear fruit for Him.

In my journaling I try to write reflectively, looking at my day and behavior as a third person attempting to be honest and transparent about who I am, why I do what I do, and how to grow.

Writing is a great way to pull stuff out of our sub-conscious mind that we didn’t know was there, and then writing it down with thoughtfulness and clarity is a way of owning who we are, and also gives us the insight to figure out how to change.

Writing is a discipline that few develop as a skill, but it is well worth the effort and time it takes to get good at it. God wrote the Ten Commandments on a stone with His finger the Bible teaches. If God wrote it must be important. We are created in His image and likeness and the more we do what God does the better we will do in life in general.

Another reason I journal is because I forget what has happened and the emotions that I experienced as a result of an experience. So many of the events that I have lived through are so rich, but I forget them and they get lost in the sea of experiences over the years.

Once a month I take an hour and read past journal entries. It is amazing how the combination of writing and then reading what I wrote preserves the memory of my life in my head and the lessons learned and the character gained in my heart.

I went fishing today with some friends. We drove to Newport and went surf fishing for red tailed perch. I had a wonderful day. The weather was so nice and sunny, and there is something hypnotic about standing in the ocean with chest waders and hearing the roar of the waves and seeing them constantly rising up with all this white foam. We would follow the waves out and cast out as far as we could aided by our 3 oz lead sinker, and on the 2 hooks that we had we would put plastic little worms. We got there at low tide and fished up to high tide. The fish follow the tide in because sand worms come out of the sand as the surf comes in and the fish gobble them up.The fishing was ok for the first couple of hours but about an hour before hi tide they went on a feeding frenzy, and we were catching fish just about every cast, and then as the tide started out the fishing just stopped cold, no more fish. We loaded up and went to a public fish cleaning spot and filleted fish for an hour then went to a restaurant and had clam chowder and fish and chips. What a wonderful day!

Pastor Mike is on a series in his preaching, “the top 10 fears of our life”, and how to manage them. Tonight he talked about our fear of death, and he will preach the same sermon tomorrow at both services. As he was preaching tonight I was thinking of people who I knew who had come close to dying either by sickness or accident and the wide range of reactions to that near death experience that they had. Some became almost hysterical as they faced death obviously in great fear, and then I thought of my daughter Sally and her husband Aaron who live in Hawaii who recently got a phone message from the state government that they were about to be hit with a nuclear missile and that this wasn’t a drill. It turned out to be a false alarm, but when Sally and Aaron read the warning on their cell phones they said that they felt a great peace as they faced their immanent death. I think a lot now about my death because I am getting closer to it at almost 70 years of age. I imagine what I will feel as I leave my fleshly body and head to heaven. I wonder what the first thing I will see will be. I wonder what the first words will be that Jesus speaks to me. I wonder what my first words will be and who I will say them to. I wonder how long I will be there before I see my Dad. I don’t fear death and I am looking forward to the new body and adventures, but there is the nervousness of the unknown, sort of like the first time I went sky diving. I know people who believe that when we die it is over, we cease to exist, we just turn to dirt and that is all there is. That seems so sad to me, I can’t imagine that I would be motivated to do much that required sacrifice or effort, I think I would just turn into a melancholy introvert. But an even worse scenario would be the person who acknowledges that, yes, there is life after death, but I have no clue what it will be like, where I am going, or if there is such a thing as hell will I be in it? Now, that would result in great fear if that were me. But the cool thing is that it is not me, I have an absolute assurance in my salvation and my eternal home.

The Bible has laws, rules, guidelines, and principles depending on what you want to call them. I like the word rule because that is what we call them in football, basketball, and most other sports where we compete with others. The purpose of the rules in sports is to make the event enjoyable for all, to positively enhance the relationship between those competing, and to create an environment of justice or fair play among those competing. In life the rules are made or determined by God, and He is also the enforcer of those rules. When we know the rules of God and obey them we will be rewarded with joy, peace, strength, success, awesome relationships, and we will accomplish a lot with our life. When we violate the rules of God we experience just exactly the opposite. Those who break God’s rules and are living in despair, broken relationships, and little success usually don’t recognize or acknowledge that they are reaping what they have sown, instead they blame anyone and everyone as the cause of their unhappiness.

As I discover the rules for successful living in the Bible and in life, I write them down so I don’t forget them, I make sure I understand them, and I make a commitment everyday to obey them. Several of them are so very important that I review and commit to obey them several times each day. Most of the super important rules seem at times impossible to ever keep successfully.

One of the super important and incredibly hard to keep rules is this one; 1. When someone says something or does something that hurts my feelings, offends me, or makes me angry, even a little bit irritated, I will quickly forgive them, I will not allow negative thoughts toward the person or about the violation of my personal rights to stay in my mind, I will choose to think of something else that is positive and good. If the self-pity feelings and thoughts continue, I will proactively pray for God to bless them and I will do something nice for them.

In the evening when I examine my life for sin and character flaws and confess them to God and ask for His forgiveness, this rule is the one most often broken. When I confess to God that I have messed up once again, I end the time by praying to God and making this commitment, “I will never allow myself to become offended or hurt again”. Then I remind myself of these truths, “children are easily offended, because they are children, but I am a man and I will think and act like a man”, “weak people are easily offended, but I am a man, a strong man, and I will think and act like one”, ” selfish and immature people are easily offended, but I am pressing on to maturity, so I will think and act like I have arrived”. “Oh Lord, I have no chance on my own, I declare You Lord of my life, please grant me Your strength to keep this commitment to You.”

Some question the commitment I make “to never allow myself to become offended or hurt again”, and wonder if it would be better to say, “I will try”. It is my experience that the absolute commitment results in much quicker growth, because as soon as we give ourselves permission to fail, we will.

I have been working on this boat since October 27th. I bought the plans and built it from scratch using 2×4’s, 2×6’s, plywood, epoxy, fiberglass, bondo,  thousands of screws, and paint.  It is 23 feet long, 8 feet wide, and weighs about 1,500 lbs. I was given a boat trailer but it needed some work and I just finished doing the needed repairs on the trailer. I am planning on launching it out of Pacific City in the summer, but first I am towing it up to Alaska and going to fish for Halibut out of Ninilchik on the Kenai Peninsula in July. I am going to do the maiden voyage in a local lake or reservoir this next week to see if it floats, and if it does and the motor runs good I will take it up for a spin in the Colombia. I enjoy building things and have had a blast building this boat. After taking it to Alaska and catching a bunch of Halibut I will probably try to sell it this winter and build another one for next summers fishing.

5. If you work twice as fast you will usually get twice as much done, that is really what time Management is, getting a lot done. In order to work fast and hard for long periods of time you need energy. A major source of energy for followers of Jesus is that which God gives us. “God gives strength to the weary” is a statement repeated many times in the Bible. One of the reasons I write as much as I can think of regarding my goals, and plans is because when I get everything written down, I pray over it giving it to the Lord, and asking for His wisdom and strength to do it. Psalms 37:5 says, “commit your work to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it”.

One of the lessons that I have gleaned from Leviticus is that God likes ceremony. So the presentation of my plans to God is more than just a casual “please bless my plans, Lord”.

So far we have covered 3 principles;

1. Choose to spend your time doing a few things that really matter rather than a lot of things that don’t. Just because you are busy and working hard doesn’t mean you are managing time well. What matters is how much you accomplish that is truly significant.

2. Choose to stay in your sweet spot. We all do a few things very well because of giftedness, passion, learned skill, and natural talent. The more time we spend doing what we do best the more we will accomplish.

3. People who grumble, complain, blame, and feel sorry for themselves never accomplish much. Stop it.

4. A straight line is the shortest route between two points. The more interruptions we have, the more meandering we do, the more we start and stop a project, the more we get distracted, the less we will get done. People who set goals and write them down, and have todo lists that they check and review often, will always do much better at getting a lot done that matters than those who operate out of their head, from memory. It is like the old days before google maps when a guy refused to look at the map or stop and ask for directions because he was sure he remembered how to get there. Goal setting and todo lists is basically planning your life and activities before you act. Premeditated decision making, thoughtful planning and strategizing, that are written down and referred to often maximize efficiency in our use of time tremendously. Only the proud, the lazy, or the indifferent would refuse to do such a key discipline of effective fruit bearing.

Almost everyone wishes they got more done with the time that they have. There are those very few apparently time management geniuses who get done it appears at least double what everyone else squeezes out. I govern my life on the basis of rules or principles so I can accomplish a lot with my life.

1. I spend most of my time doing things that results in very significant accomplishments. 20% of the things we do results in 80% of the significant accomplishments, so I discipline my choices so I only do those high return activities.

2. I have spiritual gifts,talents, special abilities, and skills in a few areas of life. When I am working in these areas of strength I work with more passion, joy, and energy, and I easily get way more done in these areas because of the fire I have while engaged in these areas.

3. I exercise self discipline over my thinking, and don’t let my mind drift into negative thinking about life or circumstances. In order to get a lot done a person has to work fast which requires energy, and negative thinking is a major cause of weariness. Grumbling and complaining verbally is a result of grumbling and complaining mentally in our thoughts. We all tend towards selfishness so when things don’t happen the way we think they should we react negatively. Most people in our culture and country grumble and complain about just about everything so we will easily pick up that bad habit from those around us. Whenever I hear myself thinking negatively I quote and meditate in my mind on psalms 100, “Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.” Try quoting those 5 verses 10 times throughout the day and see what happens to your thinking and your talking. You will feel happier, more energetic, you will be much more patient with people all around you, and because people like being with happy, positive, high energy people you will be very attractive to others, they will want to be around you and will imitate your life.

Time Management is basically concerned with getting things done. I have over the years written some principles down that I use to govern my life that I have discovered from others that work very well. Most of these guidelines are summed up in a easily remembered motto or “saying”. Let me share a few with you;

1. “The goal is not to just get a lot done, but to get done that which is most significant, most important, that which has the greatest impact on the most people. ” A few significant things done, results in more lasting and important accomplishments than a lot of insignificant things done in the same time frame. People fool themselves into thinking they have been productive because they did a lot, stayed busy, and crossed off everything on their todo list. Choosing to do only or mostly the high impact, and most significant things is very difficult because they aren’t what most around us would choose for us, and we all tend toward pleasing people. Also high impact activity usually requires more thought and planning, more effort, and more focus so we naturally move away from it to the frivolous. A wise and disciplined person who chooses to work at a few very high impact tasks will easily accomplish a hundred times more truly significant things that really matter than the very busy, hard working person who accomplishes a lot of things that have low significance. Another way of saying this guideline is, “Choose to do a few things that really matter rather than a lot of things that don’t”.

2. “I am really gifted and good at a few things, so I major on those activities”. The short, easy to remember motto would be, “Stay in your sweet spot”. God has given us gifts, abilities, temperaments, and talents. Some we were born with, some we acquired as we grew up because of the influence of key people in our life, and some God gave us at the point of our salvation which we call Spiritual gifts. When we work and serve in the area of our giftedness we work with so much more passion and fire. When we are working in the area of our giftedness it is the power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity that is working in us so we don’t get tired as we serve, in fact we often find ourselves getting energized. When I travel and speak in churches the person who is planning the seminar or event will usually ask how many times I am willing to speak, they usually assume 2 or 3 times. But I tell them to work me like a dog, I don’t mind speaking 8 hours a day, the more I teach the more energetic I feel. Working and serving in my sweet spot not only results in a lot more fruit in my life, but I enjoy myself so much more, I have fun.

I will give you some more tomorrow.

Tonight at JBC’s Saturday night service Pastor Mike continued his series on “The Things We Fear”, and his sermon was on the fear of rejection. It brought back memories of when I was a freshman in college asking a girl to go to a concert, and she declined because she had to much homework so I went to the concert with three guy friends, and when we sat down I saw the girl I asked there with another guy. I didn’t ask another girl out for anything the rest of that year for fear of the same thing happening. The point of the sermon was if we accept Jesus and don’t reject Him, He will accept us and never reject us forever. In John 14 Jesus tells His disciples that He is leaving and that He will be preparing a place for us so that where He is there’s we may be also, and that He will come back and receive us to Himself so that we will be with Him always, forever. That is an incredible statement of acceptance and love. In His life here on the earth as a man Jesus was constantly rejected by the world until they finally crucified Him. He said that He would take our fears, our shame, our guilt, our rejection upon Himself, that is He would experience it and He would feel it to the max in our place, and when we accepted Him as our Savior and Lord He would accept us, forgive us, give us joy, and peace, and love in spite of what the world would do. It is quite amazing the contrast between the world’s system and the kind of life those who are submerged in that system experience, as apposed to those who follow and love Jesus.