It was a nice evening fishing. The temperature was about 80 degrees, the wind was minimal. Nice sitting here thinking about God, and my relationship with Him.

One of the reasons we came to Hawaii was to help our daughter and son in law work on the house they just bought. It needed quite a bit of work before they could move in, and another son in law and his family who live in Fairbanks , Alaska are here as well. Phillip the Alaskan son in law is a professional builder so I just do what he tells me to do. Today we got a lot of work done, and now I am trying to decide between swimming, fishing, bicycling, or laying in this chair taking a nap. I am not sure which one is going to win, but I have a good guess.

I went snorkeling this afternoon and saw a spotted Eagle Ray, 3 sea turtles, and a bunch of very colorful fish. It is quite relaxing swimming along slowly with a mask and snorkel looking around amongst the coral looking for fish. When I saw the first  turtle swimming along below me just a couple of feet I remembered that tiger sharks hunt for sea turtles and wondered if any ever came this close to shore. About then another fellow snorkeling swam right across in front of me about 2 feet away and startled me big time!

I sat in a lawn chair for a couple of hours taking a nap this afternoon after we got back from going to church and sun burned my feet, whoooeee that hurts.

I always enjoy attending church in other places. Today we went to the church our youngest daughter Sally, her husband Aaron and their 3 kids attend regularly. It was a very good service, and I was blessed to know that our kids go to such a solid church that teaches the Bible accurately and well.

Tomorrow we are back to work remodeling Aaron and Sally’s new house.

I have enjoyed fishing today. I have had lots of little ones pulling on my bait and getting me excited, but nothing so far worth taking a picture of. I enjoyed watching my two son-in-laws surfing more than I did fishing. They tried several times to talk me into trying it, and though I like to do challenging things I know my limitations. I am going to swim out to the reef with a snorkel, fins, and a mask this afternoon though. Aaron has a kayak that I will paddle out there if I see many fish while snorkeling and do a little trolling with my rod and the kayak.

This house that we are staying in for free while we are here in Hawaii is almost close enough to the beach for me to spit in the ocean while I sit here in this Beach chair. We also have 2 daughters, 2 son -in-laws, and  8 grandkids here with us as well, though Aaron and Sally and their three are sleeping in their own house at night. With all that traffic going down to the beach and back up here to the house umpteen times there is a lot of sand everywhere. It is in my shoes, in my pants, and in my bed.

I am memorizing Psalms 139:1-24 while we are over here. Verses 17-18 are particularly meaningful with the daily reminder of the message that God thinks about me as a person many times, in fact more than the number of grains of sand, not just in Hawaii, but all over the world. These are thoughts of love, planning, affection, and adoration. I am not lost in the crowd or in the history of mankind.

Psalms 139:17-18 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.

I ride a stationary bike at home an hour every day as my main therapy for Parkinson’s, and often when I travel I get worse because there is no bike to peddle. Our daughter Sally who lives here rounded this bike up for me to ride while we are here. I don’t believe I have ever had the view while riding that I do here! It has been very stormy and rainy so far but supposed to get better. So far just like Oregon except much warmer. Note the IPad on the console of the bike which I do my Bible reading on and I have my Prayer App on it as well. Notice the surf fishing rods that the fellows in the house next door have out. I went over and talked to them and they said they were fishing for bone fish, but that the fishing hadn’t been very good of late so they didn’t think it would be worth it for me to go and buy what I needed to fish. They caught one this morning and brought it over for me to see.

I am writing this sitting in a Beach chair about a 100 feet from the beach in Oahu, Hawaii. We are staying in this beachouse for the next week free with two daughters, two son in laws and 8 grandkids. Now that is nice, no two ways about it. Went swimming this evening and now just sitting watching the waves roll in. While we are here hanging out with family I plan on praying a lot, writing a lot, and reading a lot. I will do most of it right here in this Beach chair while watching the ocean. Life is good. God is good.

I went Steelhead fishing today on the Siletz River with a good friend. We caught about 10 between us, and 4 of them were fin clipped hatchery fish that we got to take home. It was a good day of fishing. Sometimes when I go steelhead fishing we don’t catch any fish, we don’t even have a “bump”. Those days are good days of fishing as well. It is only the ones who enjoy the “no fish” days who persevere long enough to have a “limit out fish day”, that seems to be a law of life.

The Bible says, “do not grow weary of doing good, for in due time you will reap, if you don’t  get discouraged and quit.” The only way I can keep fishing after many days of “no fish”, is to find many things in the fishing experience to enjoy besides just catching fish. I enjoy just being on the river, I enjoy the the beauty of God’s creation, and thinking about Him as I contemplate creation and what it tells me about God’s character. I enjoy the challenge of trying to make the perfect cast into the perfect place that might be holding a steelhead. I enjoy the good natured banter that takes place all day between friends. I enjoy just being away for even 8 hours from the pressures and responsibilities of life, getting refreshed in order to go right back at it doing and accomplishing something that matters, really matters with my life.

Much of life is like fishing. There are lots of bad days, where nothing goes as planned. But I work at enjoying those days as much as the days where many victories are gained and good things just role in. There are many things to focus on that will bring great joy into my heart. My marriage, my kids, my grandkids, my eternal life with God, my new glorified body that I will get someday soon, and on the list goes.

I am a happy fisherman, I choose to be.

Pastor Mike Dedera was preaching on love this weekend at JBC. The kind of love that Jesus had when He died on the cross for each of us – self sacrificing love. There are a number of definitions for love which would correspond to the different kinds of love.” I love ice cream ” would certainly be different than “I love Patty”. The average person loves others with a conditional love, which really means I really, really like you a lot because you make me happy. So as long as you make me happy my “love” continues, but if you no longer make me happy I will “fall out of love with you”.  It is a good thing that isn’t the kind of love that God has for us or we would all be in trouble. God’s love for me endures, it is unconditional, that is it doesn’t depend on my performance, God’s love is always giving and sacrificing for my needs. The admonition for husbands in the Bible is “husbands, love your wives the same way Jesus loves the church and gave His life for the Church”. I am supposed to love like Jesus loves, whooooooeeeeeeeee!

I have been praying every day with great fervency since our anniversary celebration last October of me being the pastor for 40 years at JBC , “Lord, I want to bear more fruit in the next ten years of my life than I did in the previous 40 years”. When I started praying that prayer I was the main preacher at JBC, but Pastor Mike has taken that over because of difficulties I am having with my voice. Now I am in charge of Small Groups, leadership training, staff, and following up on visitors. The challenge of accomplishing more in the next 10 years than I did in the previous 40 has gotten to be much more of a challenge. Last night at our Saturday night service as I was listening to Pastor Mike preach on self sacrificing love I decided that I was going to stop praying that prayer, instead I am going to pray “Dear Lord, I pray that Pastor Mike will bear more fruit in the next 10’years than I did in the previous 40”. That feels good, and right.

1 John 1:9 in the New Tesament of the Bible says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and  to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. To confess means that we admit that we sinned, broken God’s law, that we totally own the responsibility of what we did without blaming others, justifying, or excusing what we did. That is a hard thing for us to do because of our pride that we were born with, and seems to get stronger in us with each passing year. But the promise in this passage is quite amazing, God will forgive and He will cleanse. That means that God will forget our sin never to remember it against us, He will remove the guilt of that sin out of our heart, and He will weaken  the hold that particular sin has on us to continue to do it. All we have to do is say, “I did it”.

I know that because admitting we sinned is so hard for us to do, we will just forget to think about our life and confess our sins. If we have unforgiven sin in our life because we have failed to take advantage of this amazing gift of God, God will not answer our prayers, we will not understand the Bible, we will be tired, we will feel guilty, we will be sad and depressed, our relationships with other people will suffer, and we will drift away from God and our faith.

Because I want all the blessings from God of being totally forgiven washed, and cleansed of all my sins I have established a daily habit, ritual, and discipline of examining my life carefully each and every night before I go to bed and confessing all known sin to God. I journal  as a tool for helping me to remember what I did that day that was wrong, unloving, selfish, and hurtful to others.

It doesn’t take long to replay the day and examine my life and to confess to God where I blew it that day, but the rewards and benefits are amazing. I never forget to brush my teeth, and I never forget to take a spiritual bath every night.