I wrote this blog 3 years ago, and I thought I would republish it to go along with the blog 2 days ago on deference.

I taught on the character trait of deference in my last leadership class lesson. Deference is putting others ahead of myself. Pretend there was a parking lot with 1,000 cars in it, and the people who drove there and parked them were all going to the same event. The event goes very late and when it is finally over everyone heads for their cars, and the parking lot has just one single lane exit. If Patty and I were there and she was driving we would be the last ones out of the parking lot, because Patty has mastered the character trait of deference. If we weren’t the last ones to leave there would be someone with more deference than Patty, and I doubt that person exists . Deference is also defined as limiting my freedoms, my rights, and my opinions so that I don’t offend another person, who may have different beliefs and opinions. This doesn’t mean that we are weak, in fact those who consistently practice deference are some of the strongest and most confident people there are, because they don’t have to be right to feel good about themselves. Our goal isn’t to be right but to influence people toward faith in Christ. God greatly blesses the person with deference with great authority and many opportunities to make a difference in the lives of people.

One of the 26 character traits that I think I have grown the most in is patience. That is not to say that Patience is a strength, just that I have grown a lot in that area, but I recognize that I still have lots of growing to do. It used to be that when there were relational conflicts around me, either that I was part of or between family, friends, or church people I would come to a conclusion about what the problem was quickly, who was the problem and fix it now or attempt to fix it. I would either apologize, or confront, or teach, or scold, but I would do something in an attempt to create peace and unity. Now I wait longer, pray more, relax and don’t get as uptight in the midst of relational tensions as I used to. It isn’t that I don’t care about unity and peace between myself and others, or in the lives of those around me, it is just that I give things more time for God to work, people to grow, and for me to have more wisdom and insight into the solution. It wasn’t uncommon for me in the past to create more relational problems than I fixed because my initial conclusions were inaccurate and my solutions were impulsive and reactionary. Some of the little “sayings” that I use in my self-talk in this area are, “don’t give God a deadline to change people”, “wisdom is as much about when to do something as it is about what to do”, “if I can wait without things getting to much worse, I will because I will probably gain a whole lot more information, insight, and wisdom if I do”, “If I wait and think about a situation, my part in the conflict will probably accurately grow in my own mind from 5% to 90%, and that will certainly change what I do to fix it, I don’t want to be guilty of attempting to pick a splinter out of someone else’s eye, with a log in my own eye”, “almost everybody is growing, and often conflict will promote growth in those involved, so don’t be to quick to try and take it away”, and one of my favorite verses in the Bible, Proverbs 16:7 “When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

So many people have conflicts with others. Husbands and wives have conflicts, kids and parents hurt and offend each other, and people in the work place are often bickering. Jesus prayed that we would be as unified as He and God the Father were. The Bible is full of guidelines on how to be at peace with everyone in your life. The most important principle is work very hard at it, do the hard things that need to be done to be at peace with those in your life.

Romans 14:19 So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.

A second principle is to continually practice deference. Deference is a very important character trait that most people don’t have, at least not much. Deference is putting other people and their needs ahead of our own needs. Deference is guarding our mouth so as not to say things that offend other people. Deference is limiting our freedom so as not to be a reason that those around us are hurt. There are certain character traits that especially please God, and deference is right at the top of the list. It takes a lot of work to successfully practice deference, it takes a lot of self sacrifice, a lot of giving, a lot of self-control and a lot of humility to be the one who initiates reconciliation.

I started a program today of trying to gain some more progress with my Parkinson’s using biofeedback. It was very interesting today sitting in a chair with electrodes stuck all over my head watching all these brain waves on a big screen that were coming from my brain. It was even more interesting to see how it all changed when I moved my leg or arm or had one of my Parkinson tremors take place. The fellow I am working with was super nice and seemed very excited about working with me and helping me. This method of dealing with Parkinson’s is brand new and I am being somewhat of a Guinea Pig in this study that I am now a part of. It was quite fascinating listening to the Neurologist explain how my brain worked and see the evidence of it working on the big screen. I thought of the verse in Psalms 139 that says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made by God”

I don’t do very much any more by myself. Life is all about relationships, and relationships are built stronger by time together. I get God’s Grace through others as I spend time with them, and others get God’s Grace from me when I spend time with them. That principle comes right from the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit together, one in essence and purpose, but still three personalities. We are created in God’s image and likeness so together with others is good. Humility is recognizing that I need others to succeed and be truly happy, and pride is saying I can do it by myself.

I wish that I had learned this principle earlier in my life. I spent so much time doing things by myself because I thought I would recover from my weariness from preaching quicker, and that is what I did for years, isolate myself. Now I recognize the truth about myself and how God’s principles really work.

By the way, several have asked about going with me up Mt Adams and my answer is yeh! You can do the Saturday one day climb or you can join me as I climb the mountains in two days.

The goal is to climb Mt Adams on August 8th this year. I climbed it for the first time way back in the summer 1965. Since then I climbed it just about every year up until 2012, and I have not climbed it since. That last time I climbed it was very difficult for me with my Parkinson’s being a big issue, and I decided that I was done climbing. I am not sure why I decided to give it a shot again this year other than stupidity based on forgetting all the issue the last time I climbed. I am going to try something this year that I have never done, and vowed as a young climber that I would never do. I am going to start climbing on Friday instead of Saturday and camp overnight at what is called the “Lunch Counter”, a flat spot about half way up the mountain where there isn’t usually any snow because it all gets blown off. It will require climbing with a back pack with a tent, a warm sleeping bag, some food and water, setting up a little camp, hoping not to freeze to death in the night, finishing the climb on Saturday morning, then breaking camp and coming down. The reason is to give myself more time to climb up and come down than one day allows, also to help get adjusted to the altitude by camping at 10,000 feet. As I said, I have never done this before thinking it wasn’t necessary for real climbers who could easily do it in one day without the hassle of packing up a bunch of stuff on your back then packing it back. The biggest negative is that it gets very cold on Mt Adams at night at 10,000 feet, at least that is what I am told. We will see. It should make for a good blog post anyway.

My Dad used to say, “just because you get old doesn’t mean you get wise, there are a lot of old fools running around”. There are 5 areas in my life in which I am terribly discontent, and one of those areas is the level of wisdom that I have, I want so much more than I have. Wisdom is knowing what to do and say in any situation, those words and actions that are most pleasing to God. Every morning I pray and ask God to give me more wisdom, “Dear Lord, please give me Your wisdom today so that I will know what to do and say in every situation, so that my life today pleases you, glorifies You, and I bear much fruit that is eternal. I pray that prayer every morning, but He isn’t just going to pour wisdom into my head like filling up a salt shaker, but what He will do is bring people into my life who are wiser than I am and who will share their wisdom with me if I am humble enough to ask for it.

Proverbs 1:3-5 To receive instruction in wise behavior,
A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,

A lot of people my age stop seeking wisdom because they think they are wise enough, after all they are 71 years old. Solomon as a young man was the wisest man alive because he sought it diligently. He wrote the book of Proverbs as a wise young man. Then his heart became proud and he soon lost all the wisdom that he had, and as an old fool he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity”. It doesn’t seem reasonable that wisest man to ever live would die an old fool, but that is exactly what happened.

Much of our married life was devoted to raising our 8 kids. Our goal and desire was that they would be champions for Jesus, and that they would not cool off in their walk with Christ and backslide. Another major desire and goal was that they would all marry a spouse at least as devoted to following and serving the Lord as they were? A verse that is one on my life verses now at this stage in my life is

3 John 1:4 I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.

This last week Patty and went to Twin Falls, Idaho and visited our son Seth and his new bride Amie and their 4 kids. Amie’s husband was killed while riding a bicycle and hit by a car, and she has managed her life and raised her kids by herself for several years, and Seth, the last of our 8 kids to get married, was 35 years old and pretty set in his ways of doing things, so I wondered how they would adjust and do in their marriage. I anticipated that there would be some significant struggles as they adjusted to living together. We had a wonderful time with them and we both enjoyed getting to know our new grandkids a bit better.

We have 8 kids, 6 son-in-laws, 2 daughter-in-laws, and 27 grandchildren. So far all of them are walking with the Lord and their marriages are doing well. In our day and age that is a major miracle, and as the verse says,

3 John 1:4 I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.

When I was in grade school learning about early American history our teacher told a story about an early explorer named Ponce De Leon whose efforts at exploring the new world were motivated out of finding the “Fountain of Youth”, which was a spring whose waters would check aging and renew health in those who drank from it. One of my favorite movies, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was about “The Holy Grail” the cup that Jesus supposedly drank from during the last supper and that Joseph of Arimathea used to catch the blood of Jesus as He hung from the cross. This cup was supposed to be supernatural and whoever drank water from it remained eternally young. The popular movie “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” also revolved around the discovery and control of the “fountain of youth”.

The Bible has several activities that God loves so much that He blesses those who do them with good health and long life. First on the list because it is mentioned 16 time in the Bible, twice as many times as second place, 3rd place and 4th place put together is, “Honor your father and your mother”.

Ephesians 6:2-3 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.

My Dad had problems and quirks like any other human being, but I don’t think I have ever told a story or any other information about my Dad that was anything but honoring. There are other factors that contribute to our long life or early departure, especially the sovereignty of Gods but everything else being equal this is a big deal to God.

The Apostle John in his last Epistle says in 3 John 2, that our physical health is an outgrowth of our spiritual health. The healthier our soul is the healthier our body will be.

1 Peter 3:10-11 For, The one who desires a long life, to love and see good days, Must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

Talk nice and you will live longer is another principle that is repeated in the Bible often by God so that we would be sure and see it.

There are another half dozen principles through out the Bible that work together with the ones already mentioned to create a “proneness to health” that God uses to reward us and to motivate us to good living.

Three time a day we put a foreign substance inside of our bodies that is supposed to energize us, and provide the nutrients to renew our bodies and minds to continue to function. But obviously if we ate dirt, or coal, and drank gasoline we wouldn’t do well, those substances would be basically poison to our bodies and kill us. Our daughter Sherri had lots of foods that she was allergic to and several times she almost died in the hospital because of the food that we gave her as a baby. January 1st 2019 I decided to quit eating all refined sugar and wheat products. My reason was to help in my goal to lose weight. After only 2 weeks my Parkinson’s had improved incredibly, to the point that I cut my medication in half. That was a very nice surprise and made my life so much easier. I have not eaten any of either for almost a year and a half with a couple of binges which the result of those couple pieces of cherry pie convinced me further that I was so much healthier without them. So now I jokingly say to people that I have cut out the 4 white poison powders, heroin, cocaine, sugar, and flour. I have often thought about what else I may be eating that is causing problems in my body and mind. One of my new goals that I have been reading about is intermittent fasting. I am going to experiment with various lengths of fasting, also with the frequency of the fasts, and with partial fasts where I eat only a few simple foods. There is a lot of quackery in this area so I will research thoroughly and experiment and keep good records of the results. It takes a great amount of self-control to exercise an hour every day, and it took a lot more to cut out sugar and wheat products, but this intermittent fasting thing I am anticipating that it will come close to maxing out my self-control level. Hopefully all of this will work on my character and build my self-control level to super human levels.