This is Mother’s Day weekend and on Every Mother’s Day we have a “Baby Dedication”.  Our “Baby Dedication” is not really a baby dedication, it is a parent dedication. Each set of parents or parent come up on the stage with their baby and I read to them a five fold commitment or promise that they are making to God, to each other, and to their baby. I read what they are committing to do and they respond by saying “I will” or “We will”. God loves commitment, His power flows to commitment, commitment tends to bring the best out in us as we pursue the promise we made. The parents make five detailed commitments such as praying for their baby, reading the Bible to them, and taking them to church.  The desire on the part of each parent is to raise a champion for Jesus, and they all recognize that the job is to big for them to pull off successfully without God.

I have for most of my life memorized Bible verses, about 10  new ones each year and I would review the old ones as well. Two years ago I had about 150 verses total memorized well that I could think about and meditate on easily.  Because of the strong desire not to get senile as a result of getting older, and  because of the Parkinson’s  that I have, I started on a major increase in my memorizing. I started using the “App” on my IPhone and IPad called “Scripture Typer”, and I made a goal of getting the total number of verses that I have memorized up to 1,000 by the time I am 70 years old, which is about 18 months away. I have just about 700 verses down pat as a result of spending about 30 minutes every day working on them.  I have noticed a marked increase in my memory, but also in my ability to think clearly which has been an exciting experience.  My writing seems to have picked up in the sense that I don’t have the long periods of “writers block” where my brain seems empty of anything to write about. Also my ability to focus while I am praying by myself has increased to the point that I would say it has doubled.  Before this memorizing emphasis my mind would wander so much I couldn’t maintain a silent, private prayer time for more than a couple of minutes without my mind going to fishing, hunting or some other such super spiritual activity. Now, I can stay right on task  as I pray for the people in our church, my family, my goals, lost people, for an hour or more. The power of God’s Word in my mind and heart permently  has been amazing. When people ask my about my Parkinson’s I say, “best thing that  has happened to me in a long time”.  I ride my stationary bike for an hour a day, staying in the best shape of my life,  I read while I ride usually at least 100 pages a week, I listen to sermons, and I memorize Bible verses for 30 minutes every day. I wasn’t even close to that when I was healthy.

Jefferson Baptist Church has 4 “Five Day of Prayer” events each year, one about every 3 months.  During the five days that we pray, Monday through Friday, we pray 10 hours each day, 5 to 10 am and 5 to 10 pm.  As the pastor of JBC who has a very strong faith in the power of prayer I am always very  disappointed with the turnout of people from our church for prayer during these events.

So I am not going to just feel bad, and get irritated because many  people who attend JBC don’t have a strong faith in the power of prayer yet.  But I am going to do something as the pastor to lead, train, and teach people how super important it is to pray together as a church. My strategy is to remind, teach, send notes, teach, nag, teach, harass, preach, and send some more notes.  But I understand that my struggle is not against people, flesh and blood, but it is against satan and his demons.  They hate prayer because it destroys their hold over people and they have no defense against prayer  except to work hard to keep people from praying.

When I was 12 years old my Dad, who was in the Navy, was stationed in Alameda, California. We used to walk down to the docks where the ships were tied up and fish occasionally.  It usually was very windy whenever we went fishing on the docks, but one time it was dead calm, not a hint of a breeze was blowing, and the water in the bay was like glass.  Dad walked over to a big Navy ship tied to the dock, and he said watch this, and leaned out and began to push on the side of the ship with all of his strength. He pushed for 10 or 15 minutes without letting up, I was pretty sure Dad had lost it.  Just about the time that I was getting super bored with this effort in futility, the ship began to move away from the dock, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Dad sat down on the edge of the dock to catch his breath and asked me to sit down next to him. He said to me, “I don’t know how it works, but somehow as I pushed on that ship my energy was being stored in the molecules of the ship, and it finally moved when there was enough energy to overcome the resistance of the water. There are two things I want you to learn from this, first, if I had given up just 2 seconds before it started to move it wouldn’t have moved and everything I had done up to that point would have been wasted, so never give up.  Second, if you had helped me we would have moved it in half the time”.

So that is my mental picture as I try and convince people to give up time working in their yards to come down to the church and spend time praying with me and other church family. Just keep pushing and never give up and try to get as many other people to push with me as possible.

I have 10 passages that I have identified as my key verses to guide my life and influence my decisions. I have them memorized , and I meditate on them almost daily so that they are right on the top of my head, to help guide me during the day.  One of them is   Matthew 7:13-14. Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.  These verses are not talking about heaven and hell, they are talking about this life. “Life” is success, and “Distruction” is failure.  So the principle is this, all day long I will come to a “T” in the road of my life, and I will need to choose the right or the left. The right is the hard way, the narrow gate, and the left is the easy way.  Today in our culture the god that is worshiped by most , is the  god of comfort.  We are all born lazy, our flesh is easily addicted to comfort,  the devil constantly pushes us toward the easy way.  I want to bear much fruit with my life, and the hard way will be the way of success.  Every  day as I am faced with choices over and over, I think, which way is the hard and narrow way, I want success so let’s choose that way. It takes a bit to train your brain to think “choose hard” , but once you do, it becomes the right way for you. The main reason Christians are so unfaithful to the basic disciplines of the Christian life is that they are the “hard way” and the easy way is the default choice of most. 

The thing that those who choose the hard and narrow way discover is that the hard way becomes the easy way. What?? Jesus says in Matthew 11:29-30 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” When we choose the hard way Jesus helps us, and it becomes the easy way.  Only those who consistently choose the hard way as a matter of principle discover this truth. 

This week is one of our “Five Days of Prayer” events.  We have about 20 people in the prayer room from 5 to 10 am and from 5 to 10 pm Monday through Friday. We are praying for people, events, and ministries.  I have a goal to be in the prayer room 40 hours this week, which is the goal I usually make for this prayer event when we hold it every three months. It makes for a very full week doing my normal responsibilities at church and home as well as the praying, but in spite of that these “five days of prayer” are probably my favorite weeks of the year.

One of the promises in the Bible is that when we gather together like we are doing to pray and seek God’s presence that He does indeed manifest Himself in such a way that in our spirit we can sense His presence, and the result is an incredible peace and joy that sticks with me for some time after the event is over.  The more I participate in these prayer times it seems the more sensitive I become to God’s presence, and that seems to stick with me after the five days as well.

Joshua 1:9 say, “Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go”  I know that to be true by faith, but it is so nice to experience His presence in reality. With the presence of God courage does indeed increase, as well as joy, and peace.

There are some who think that because I am in the prayer room for 40 hours that I am a super saint, but I am just very addicted to God’s blessings of joy and peace, so I am there more for what I receive, and secondly for all that God does for others in response to our prayers.

Friday evening and Saturday morning I am speaking at a “Men’s Retreat”. I think that is my favorite thing to do, of all the things I do in ministry. Everyone has unique roles and responsibilities depending on age, gender, job, and other circumstances in their life. Being a responsible man means you understand what your responsibilities are and you are faithful in doing them. A responsibility is something you do that impacts and influences the joy, the success, the growth, and the security of others. The Bible teaches that those that are faithful to what they have been given, will be given more responsibility. Men are created by God to want more responsibility, but some have had that desire crushed and squeezed out of them by life events. I wake up every morning and ask the Lord for more, and for His strength to be faithful. I enjoy teaching men and challenging them to be faithful and to aspire to being useful to God, and bearing much fruit for Him. 

It has been so nice the last two days working outside in the warmth and sunshine.  I knew it was coming sooner or later. One of the “big three words” in the Bible is Hope, and the other two are Love and Faith. We tend to define hope as “maybe it will, maybe it won’t”, but the Biblical word, Hope, means “the positive expectation of a future event”.  The book of Hebrews says “We have a hope, both sure and steadfast and is the anchor of our soul”. I knew it was going to get warm and that we would see the sunshine, I just didn’t know when.

I am going to get a new, brand new, never to get old, perfect in every way, body.  That is not a “maybe yes, maybe no” kind of hope, that is a “positive expectation of a future event” hope, I just don’t know when. The more my old, creaky, stiff, achy, sickly body goes downhill the more I think about my future hope. My hope gives me joy and peace, it is the key to the endurance in my life because it is just a matte of time.

Hebrews 12:1, “Run the race with endurance.” It seems like the older I get the more tired I become, and the quicker I get tired. Endurance as a character trait is running tired, and not quitting because of weariness.  Endurance is mostly a mind thing, it is disciplining our mind not to dwell on the tiredness, but on the goals we have set to glorify God and accomplish something that really matters. Endurance is learning to think about the things in my life that are fun, enjoyable, and noble. 

Patty has this obsession with her chickens. She talks about them like another set of grandchildren. Whenever we go out to eat she gets a little box for everybody’s left over food to go in, and if someone asks if she is bringing it home for a snack later or for Seth, Patty says “no, it is for my chickens”.  So, we have a major crisis at our house!! Something has killed and eaten 3 of her chickens. I set up a “live animal trap” with the remains of one of the chickens inside the trap to lure the killer in.  Tomorrow I will set up the 2 trail  cameras that we have. They are activated by motion to take a picture of whatever walked in front of it, so we will be able to see what the culprit looks like.  If another chicken gets killed and the trap doesn’t catch anything I may be asked to parole the chicken yard with my Savage .17 HMR and new scope!! 

When I was a kid I heard a preacher teaching  and explaining the book of 1 Peter and when he got to the verse that says, “the devil is like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour”, he said that verse reminded him of the big dog that was killing his chickens. One of the titles for the devil is “the devourer”, and also the one who “destroys”.  He doesn’t kill us like a chicken, but he does all he can to make us miserable, to get us to sin, to get us to destroy ourselves with our dumb choices. The biggest advantage the devil has over us is that we can’t take a picture of him with a trail cam, we can’t shoot him with our rifle, and we can’t even see him coming so we can prepare ourselves. 

The Bible says that if we resist him, firm in our faith that he will flee from us. We resist him by praying and asking God to beat him up, by reading the Bible and trusting the promises in it. One of the most powerful weapons against the devil and his demons is corporate prayer, that is the church praying together. The church has “authority” as the “Body of Christ”, and we exercise that authority when gathered together, when we are unified and agree, and when we pray. We will trample Satan under our feet. 

I am pretty sure that tomorrow I will be writing about the raccoon that “was”. 

On Thursday a friend and I did some last minute planning and decided to leave at 4 am Friday morning and drive 4 hours to Eastern Oregon and go Sage Rat hunting, and then drive back that evening getting home around Midnight. It would be a long day but worth it if we got to do some shooting with our .17 HMR’s at those ground squirrels that tear up the hay fields of the ranchers back there.  I had sighted in my gun with a new scope that Inhad just purchased that went up to 20X and I was hitting a 2 inch bullseye at 200 yards just about every shot.  I couldn’t wait to get over there and do some shooting. We had a great day, and we headed home. We didn’t have cell reception where we were so I had turned the phone off and put it away. About at Sisters on the way home I turned it on and saw that I had a voice mail from Patty so I listened to it. I could tell right off that I was in trouble. We had left at 4 am when everybody was still asleep, and I thought I had told Patty what I was doing but evidently I had forgotten, so she was frantically trying to figure out where I was. My friend had picked me up so my car was still there, my toothbrush was still there, but she couldn’t find me. Someone went out and looked on the back side of the shed I was building to see if I had fallen off the roof and was laying dead over there. So I called and I had a tense conversation with Patty that consisted of 4 word sentences from her. I considered stopping and buying some flowers but it was so late by then I didn’t think any place would be open. So when I got home I did what any intelligent husband would do, I confessed my total thoughtlessness, groveled, begged for forgiveness, begged for mercy, and promised I would never do it again. Patty was so relieved that I hadn’t gotten run over by the train that goes by our place that she had a hard time being upset for very long, and we hugged and I told her about my wonderful day. As I was telling her about the day I realized I hadn’t told her about that very nice scope that I had bought! Oops!