This morning, at 4:30 a.m., my alarm went off because I was going to attend prayer that started at 5:00 am as part of JBC’s five days of prayer, and I jumped out of bed to turn it off. When I did, I got this awful vertigo. I didn’t know which way was up. I grabbed the counter’s edge where my alarm was on and asked Patty to help me get back into bed. I stayed in bed, slept until 10:00 am, and cautiously got up. After showering and dressing, I looked back in my journal because I remembered this happening before but couldn’t remember the details. I discovered this same thing happened in the last two five-day prayer events, both on Wednesday morning. I thought maybe it was the devil trying to keep me from prayer, and then, as I looked back in my journal, I saw where this also happened in Alaska last year while fishing. It looks like I have this reaction whenever I go two days in a row with five hours or less of sleep. There was a time in my life when five hours was the normal amount of sleep I got, and I functioned fine. Oh, the trials of getting old! Oh well, I will plan and adjust accordingly. I wonder if we will sleep in heaven. We will have glorified bodies like Jesus so that sleep won’t be needed for health, but maybe there is another reason; we will see when we get there. Sleep is a reminder of death and resurrection. When we go to sleep it is a picture of our dying and when we wake up, it is a picture of our resurrection to new life with a new body in heaven. That is going to be so wonderful and I am anxiously waiting. Easter is our celebration and reminder of the basis for our faith in that amazing day in the lives of those who are fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. 

Today was the second day of our “Five Days of Prayer.” We pray from 5:00 to 10:00 am and 5:00 to 10:00 pm Monday through Friday. We do this four times a year. My goal is to pray for 30 of the 50 hours of prayer. It has been a very good prayer time. Last night and tonight we had about 90 people in the prayer room. During those prayer times, many people would pray out loud, so I didn’t feel compelled to pray out loud as much as usual. I listen and agree in my heart with those who are praying out loud. During these times, my mind doesn’t wander, but it goes into this sort of spiritual mode where I am thinking about God, heaven, angels, eternity, and my past life, reminiscing on how much God has blessed me. Even though I work hard to stay focused on what those around me are praying so that I can enter into their prayers mentally, I enjoy these wanderings off into spiritual bliss. I don’t try to go into these times of spiritual daydreaming; it just happens periodically. However, it isn’t that surprising because of the strong sense of God’s presence in the prayer room. I often switch my mental meanderings to thinking about people I know who have no faith. I feel very sorry for people who don’t have the peace, security, and joy I have in my relationship with the Lord. If you live close enough to attend part of these prayer events, you should give it a shot to see what happens. 

Today was the second day of our “Five Days of Prayer.” We pray from 5:00 to 10:00 am and 5:00 to 10:00 pm Monday through Friday. We do this four times a year. My goal is to pray for 30 of the 50 hours of prayer. It has been a very good prayer time. Last night and tonight we had about 90 people in the prayer room. During those prayer times, many people would pray out loud, so I didn’t feel compelled to pray out loud as much as usual. I listen and agree in my heart with those who are praying out loud. During these times, my mind doesn’t wander, but it goes into this sort of spiritual mode where I am thinking about God, heaven, angels, eternity, and my past life, reminiscing on how much God has blessed me. Even though I work hard to stay focused on what those around me are praying so that I can enter into their prayers mentally, I enjoy these wanderings off into spiritual bliss. I don’t try to go into these times of spiritual daydreaming; it just happens periodically. However, it isn’t that surprising because of the strong sense of God’s presence in the prayer room. I often switch my mental meanderings to thinking about people I know who have no faith. I feel very sorry for people who don’t have the peace, security, and joy I have in my relationship with the Lord. If you live close enough to attend part of these prayer events, you should give it a shot to see what happens. 

I wrote about pain yesterday because of some physical problems that I am going through presently. I thought I would repost a blog I wrote several years ago on a long bicycle trip on the same subject. 

A bicycle is an instrument of pain; the Seat makes your butt hurt, the handlebars make your hands, wrists, and neck hurt, the peddles make your feet hurt, and the whole bicycle makes your legs burn. Why would anybody in their right mind choose to expose their body for 8 to 10 hours a day to such a machine of pain? I played various sports in High School and College, and the training and practice sessions were intense and hard and brought a lot of pain. I remember guys stopping and throwing up in a garbage can as we ran the bleachers in the gym. Many friends chose not to participate in sports because it was too hard. The coaches repeatedly quoted several mottos to quote to us: “No pain, no gain,” and “Pain is the gas peddle or the brake pedal in our life; we choose.” I hear some people say of themselves, “I have a low threshold of pain,” and I wonder if they think that they were born that way and that they are stuck there. Our threshold for pain goes up as we choose to move over the line a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more, and a little bit more. As our pain threshold goes up, so does our character growth rate and our potential for accomplishment. Pain is not our enemy, nor our friend either, but it is an adversary we compete with. Pain wins if we quit because of it or avoid important choices because of it, but I win if I endure despite it, if I grow because of it, and if I accomplish more as a result of it. The challenge is doing something hard and winning. Someone asked me if I enjoy the pain that bicycling long distances brings, and I responded, “No, I hate the pain, but I love the challenge.”

There is a lot written in the Bible about pain. The Book of Job is all about pain. Jesus’ crucifixion is all about pain. We all experience physical pain and emotional pain. I have an arthritic hip, and it hurts a lot. I had surgery on my arm Thursday to remove some squamous cell skin cancer. The place they cut and the incisions hurt like the dickens. My Dad used to say about such injuries, “Just rub some dirt on it, and it will quit hurting.” He didn’t really mean to rub dirt on it; it was his way of saying, ignore it, and it will disappear. I have some pain pills that were prescribed for me, and they help a lot. My Dad refused to take pain pills when he was dying of liver cancer; he just figured the pain was part of life, so you endured it. In my current circumstances of pain, I have written some guidelines and meditation statements.

1. Unlike my Dad, I will take pain pills, but not in excess or beyond the prescription level. 

2. I will discipline my thoughts so I don’t feel sorry for myself. Self-pity is a thinking pattern that does not please God and doesn’t help me grow. 

3. I will rejoice and thank God for helping me to grow. 

4. I will use my pain to remind me of all that Jesus went through for my salvation. 

5. I will remind myself that many Christians have gone through many times more pain than I have and conquered it, so I can as well. 

6. I will not grumble or complain to anyone except Patty, who will make me feel loved, comforted, and relieved with her gift of mercy as my wife. 

7. I will ask God for strength to endure, not escape from pain outside His will. 

Keeping Jesus’s commands is essential. We emphasize his forgiveness to the point that obeying him doesn’t seem that important. It is like obeying His commandments or disobeying them doesn’t make that much difference. It makes a lot of difference. 

Matthew 7:24-27 Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

Many people break the commandment in Philippians 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing.” In Psalms 37:8, it says, “Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.” Fretting is when we let a little fear become a big fear because we allow it to go around and around in our brains. Most don’t consider that a commandment because it is in our heads, and no one knows, and it doesn’t hurt anyone but ourselves. As the verse says, fretting leads to evil-doing, even if it is just being grumpy. When a little fear pops up in my head, I replace it with, “Do not fret!” If it continues to pop up in my thinking, I keep kicking it out by thinking, sometimes even saying out loud, “ Do no fret!” The cool thing about choosing to obey is that God gives us the power to succeed. The rest of Philippians 4:6-7 says,”Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” So, when an anxious thought pops into my head I replace it with, “Do not fret,” and then I pray about what was bugging me, and before long I have an amazing peace and freedom from fretting. It is a wonderful gift from God if we would do it. I think some people just enjoy fretting.

Psalms 100:3 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.

I was talking to a person the other day who said that he was mad at God, and because he was mad at God he was going to choose not to believe in him. That has to be the most arrogant statement a person can make. 

Isaiah 45:9 Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker—

An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!

Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’

We live in a time when people get angry at the government, at bosses, and at parents. If we are upset at our parents, our spouse, our boss, or our government, we can say things and do things that may help, but God? People who think that they can shake their fist in God’s face, bully Him, or rebel against Him have a very low view of God and aren’t thinking very clearly at all about all His creation around us and His power. We are not talking about Zeus, Baal, or some other pagon god that can get whipped by another god on a bad day. God is all powerful, there is no other God besides Him. 

I have concluded that the thinking of some is so strange that it must be demonic deception.

1 Timothy 4:1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,

How did that happen, and how could they escape? Discussions that I have with these people go no place fast. I will pray for them that God will remove blinders and set them free from their anger. 

Psalms 2:1-4 Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together

Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us tear their fetters apart

and cast away their cords from us!” He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.

We had prayer tonight at the Jefferson Evangelical Church. About eight people attended, and we prayed for an hour. My goal as the Pastor is to grow the church. The most powerful way to do that is through prayer. It is easy to count the number of hours of prayer happening in a month and the number of people praying. I call that prayer hours. Tonight, we had eight prayer hours, eight people for one hour. As the number of consistent prayer hours in the church grows, so will the church. It is simple. It isn’t rocket science. So, the strategy is simple. Increase the number of hours of prayer times and events happening each month in the church. Then, through preaching, announcements, and reminders, increase the number of people attending the prayer events. It works because God said it would. We pray, God works, and the more we pray, the more God works. Amazing. 

Patty and I are both on a diet. She counts calories, and I count carbs. Whatever we are counting, the main ingredient is self-control. I got overweight because I couldn’t say no to donuts, cake, ice cream, candy bars, etc. When I discovered that I was allergic to sugar and gluten, I gained some immediate self-control. Because if I ate what I was allergic to, the consequences would be almost immediate. That has helped me now that I am officially on a diet. I am controlling what I eat; I am exercising at least 30 minutes five days a week, I am getting at least 8 hours of sleep every night, I am taking some essential vitamins, I am putting sunscreen on when I go outside for any length of time, I am visiting my dermatologist every two months, my regular doctor every six months, and my urologist every two years. Besides that, I change the oil in my pickup every 3,000 miles!

All of that is to try and stay physically healthy, except for the pickup. But much more important than my physical health is the health of my soul. A healthy soul requires the same kind of discipline and routine. I read my Bible every day. I spend 40 minutes every day memorizing scripture verses. I spend time with God in prayer every day. I read good Christian books five days a week, journal daily, examine my life for sin, and confess all known sins to God daily. I read my goals two times a week and commit my life to Christ as Lord of my life daily. Why? Because I want a healthy soul that is growing to be more like Jesus every day of my life. Self-control is easy when there are immediate rewards or consequences, but most of the rewards and consequences in my life, both physically and spiritually, are delayed. Those disciplines take much more self-control. The important thing for me is to remind myself why I am doing these disciplines; I try to do that almost daily. “This is what I truly want, and this is what I need to do to get it.”

I bought a hot tub, which was delivered today. I have it all hooked up, filled with water, and blowing water. I have been struggling for the last year with hip pain, so I decided to give this a try. It is about three steps from our bedroom door on the back porch, so it is only about six steps to my bed when I am limp like a rag from the heat and water jets. It sort of reminds me of the old pickup we had on the farm when I was a kid. We were always fixed it to get a few more miles out of it. Even with my aches and pains and the various body parts that have quit working, I am functioning quite well. I can study, read, memorize, write, and teach as well as ever. I can fish, hunt, and work on projects around the house. I am starting on a big chicken house this week as soon as I get the chicken fence done, and I spent a couple of hours today buffing the paint job we just finished on the 1969 Mustang. I move much slower than I used to, take a lot of ibuprofen, and take rest breaks regularly, but I still get almost everything crossed off of my to-do list every day, even though there is less on it now than there used to be. God is good, and I thank Him all day long, every day, for my blessed life. My daily goal is no grumbling, complaining, feeling sorry for myself, and saying thank you all day. Jesus is coming soon.