I have taught “Men’s Leadership Class” for 45 years, and several years ago, I also added a separate class for ladies. In the men’s class, one of my lessons is about how to meet the seven basic needs of your wife. I always enjoy teaching that particular class and get a good response from the guys in the class. Last week, I got a message from a guy who went through Leadership Class five years ago and moved because of a job change. He sent me a note to thank me for that class. He was 22 years old and single when he took the class, but he married about a year after moving. He said that his marriage was beautiful, and he was sure that the reason was because he went back and reread the notes from the class every month after he got married. He also said that many of his friends at his church and work associates would complain about their wives and bad marriages, and he would share the information that he had down pat because he put it into practice in his marriage. He said that God had given him a wonderful ministry of helping other married men know how to really love their wives. He related that no one where he lived knew me, so he just shared what he was doing without mentioning my name and wondered if that was right. I responded and assured him that he had way more clout with his friends than I did and that he was the one who validated the information by making it work in his marriage. I also told him that I had heard the information at a seminar shortly after I was married over 50 years ago and that I had put it into practice in my marriage, so it really wasn’t mine. I also thanked him for the note of appreciation and that he had made my day.

I got to thinking about the number of married guys who have taken the leadership class over the years, and hoped it had been as helpful to them as it had been to my friend who wrote me.

I am memorizing the book of 1st John in the New Testament. There are five chapters with 105 verses. My goal is to memorize three verses each week and to get it done in eight months. It is a difficult book to memorize. The main theme of the book is “don’t sin.” At the very beginning John says, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” But the only commandment he mentions is love one another and the only sin he mentions is hating others, and he mentions them often. John says, “if you hate your brother you are walking in the darkness and you don’t know where you are going because the darkness has blinded your eyes.” John says there are only two commandments, believe in Jesus and love one another. Pretty simple list of commandments. John says that we can love others because He first loved us. The more we think about, and meditate on how much He loved us, the easier it is to love others. Those who hate others have not really comprehended how much Jesus loves them. 

The most basic ingredient in loving others is to forgive them of anything just as God has forgiven us. To love others is to honor them, to be nice to them. To love others is to help them when they need help, to meet needs that we can meet. We know what it means to love another person, we don’’t really need to be taught, but often bitterness and resentment has blinded our eyes, and we are walking in the darkness just like John says. 

In the movie, “Chariots of Fire,” Eric Little makes the comment to his sister, “I sense His pleasure.” I remember sitting in the theater having that line grab my heart. I want to sense His pleasure in me when I do something that pleases Him, I thought. What a great way to know His will, sensing His pleasure when I did His will. That is the ambition of my life now, to do those things that please Him. I believe that as I work at sensing His pleasure I will get better and better at it, my heart will become sensitive to his pleasure in me. I also believe that when I please Him with my actions, choices and words that I will feel His joy in my heart. I will feel happy because He feels happy in me. 

1 John 3:22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.

Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.

John 8:29 for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”

2 Corinthians 5:9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.

My son-in-law from Alaska went elk hunting yesterday and shot a 5×5 bull elk. He carried a quarter back to the pick-up in the rain and the snow and came home, an hour’s drive, to get help with the rest of the elk. My son Sam and his son went back with him, and they got it packed out and home this morning at 2:00 am. We spent all day cutting it up, grinding it, and wrapping it up and into the freezer. They are leaving for Fairbanks, Alaska, tomorrow morning, taking all they can in four coolers. It was a delightful time for me, with kids hunting, retrieving, and processing elk.

It is interesting to think about hunting for elk, deer, moose, or whatever. You have this elusive goal, but it is not a sure thing because the target has a will of its own: not to get shot. So you get up early, walk in the cold and the rain, climb over trees and rocks, hike for miles and miles, looking through your binoculars until your eyes hurt, hoping against hope that you will see a herd of elk. In Oregon, about one hunter in ten is successful. And if you don’t kill something, you try again the following year.

People who don’t hunt don’t understand those who do hunt’s obsession with killing something. But an obsession it is. Why? Is it simply the meat and food you provide for your family? Most would agree that you could buy it cheaper than the hunting trip, the guns, and the ammunition cost. So why? I think that it is simply the challenge. God created us for challenge and accomplishment, and we aren’t happy unless we are tripping over logs trying to conquer something.

I love hunting, but I also love attempting to do something significant for God in His church. To start a ministry, plan an event, and persuade people that they need Jesus. God has given every person a passion, a gift, a strength, an ability to do something with their life that matters for all eternity. If you discover that passion and use your giftedness to accomplish it, you will be the happiest person in the world, or at least feel like it.

One of the things I do periodically is go someplace by myself for a few hours up to a couple of days to study, renew myself by being away from people, and spend time with the Lord. It is hard for me to think or focus when I am around people a lot. So I am over at Neskowin at a beach house which belongs to a friend. My son Sam, son-in-law Philip, and grandson James are here with me hunting elk. My original plan was to hike with them as they hunted, but I took a fall the first evening we were here and sprained my thumb, twisted my hip and back, and I am now walking like an old man. I am sure everything will be fine in a few days, but I can’t walk around in the woods with my boys just yet. So I am sitting in the house by myself as they hunt, having a very relaxing time. They are out in the wind and the rain, cold and wet, climbing up hills and over logs. I am contributing to their hunting success by praying they have a great time and will kill a couple of elk.

That is an interesting theological discussion. Is it okay to pray that my boys are successful in elk hunting? Jesus blessed the disciples while they were fishing, but I am sure the reason was more than just having a lot of fish; He was proving to them who He was. James 4:3 talks about wrong motives when we pray. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Does an elk fall under the category of pleasures?

I don’t know the answer to that one so I am going to go ahead and ask for two elk, big elk, two 6×6’s. I will let you know if my praying was successful or not.

As I wrote yesterday, I fell on Friday while out in the woods scouting for elk with my son Sam, his son James, and my son-in-law, who flew down from Fairbanks, Alaska, for this elk hunt. I didn’t go out with them this morning because I was so stiff and sore from my fall. As I sit here reading, writing, thinking, eating junk food, and drinking coffee, while they are out hunting, I have been replaying my embarrassing fall in my mind. The worst part was lying there on the ground, struggling to get up, feeling like a beached whale, with my kids helping me as I finally got back to my feet. 

While I was helping my Mom with my Dad the last couple months of his life, as he was dying of liver cancer, I did a lot of journaling about our conversations. One day, I wrote, “I think the last thing that will die in my Dad is his sense of dignity, or rather his desire for dignity.” Dying from liver cancer was such an undignifying experience for him. I wrote, “Dad is experiencing a lot of physical pain, but that is nothing compared to the amount of shame he is feeling because of being so helpless.” My Dad was very tough all through his life, growing up during the Great Depression, going through World War II, working hard to become a successful dairy farmer, and raising a good family. Now, he can’t take care of himself, let alone take care of others. 

I wrote in my journal, “I understand now why God instructed us to honor the aged; it is their greatest need at this point in their life.” I was very sad to think back and remember the many times I had dishonored my Dad with my words to him. The Bible says we are to honor our wives, parents, bosses, leaders, and each other. 

Psalms 71:1 The Prayer of an Old Man. “In You, O Lord, I have taken refuge; Let me never be ashamed.”

We live in an age where everyone seems to be trying to outdo those around them in shaming each other. Everyone is competing to see who can say the most humiliating thing about someone else. I guess they think they are the smartest, the toughest, and the most powerful if they do. I don’t want to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by living for the Lord, and doing things His way. It is embarrassing to me to think of all the times I have done things the way the world does. 

I will be careful to always give worth and dignity to all that I talk to, and to never embarrass or humiliate anyone. Please help me lord to remember and keep this commitment I am making to You. 

I am over at the coast hunting elk with my son Sam, his son, my grandson, James, and son-in-law Philip who flew down from Alaska for the hunt. I fell down yesterday when we were out scouting for elk in preparation for this morning’s opening. I killed an elk in September so I am here for the fellowship and fun. When I fell, I sprained my left thumb, I thought at first that I had broken it. I also twisted my left hip and back, and I am now walking like an old man. I decided not to tag along with the boys this morning when they left so I wouldn’t slow them up, and have them worrying that I was going to fall again, so I am sitting in the house that we are staying at in Neskowin eating Ibuprofen. Every time my phone beeps indicating that I have a text message I think it might be them telling me that they got an elk. I am not sure why I am thinking that because they don’t have cell service where they are hunting. I am sitting here drinking coffee, eating chips, reading, writing this blog, and memorizing Bible verses. 

I fell as I was stepping over a down tree. There was a limb leaning against the tree and I thought it was a branch fastened to the tree so I grabbed it and put my weight on it to help me as I stepped over the tree. Because it wasn’t solid, over it went and over I went with it. The worst part of falling down is having Sam, Philip, and James, see me and gathering around worried that I was seriously hurt. I may not be a macho hunter any more, but I like to pretend I am, and have my sons and grandsons think I am as well. My cover was blown. 

A lot of people today are falling, not physically as I did, but spiritually and morally. I fell because I put my weight on something I thought was solid, but wasn’t. People today are putting their confidence in government, leaders, jobs, money, and a host of other things they think will give them security, but won’t. 

Our only real security in life is in Jesus Christ and His Word, the Bible. So trust in Jesus, read His Word everyday, and live it. The result in our life will be security, confidence, high self-worth, peace, joy, and strength. 

I can point to several defining moments that happened in my life that have significantly shaped the rest of my life. Last night in our Wednesday service, I preached on the importance of reading our Bibles daily. While driving home from JBC, I thought about the events that made daily Bible reading a crucial part of my life. When I was 10 years old, I had a young guy who was my Sunday School teacher. One Sunday, he came into class and gave every person in our class a New Testament. He said that he was trying to quit smoking and that a package of cigarettes cost the same as a single New Testament. So, he bought another New Testament for every pack he didn’t buy and smoked. When he purchased the number in our class, he gave them to us. Each week after, he would assign a portion for all of us to read and then ask us next week if we had read it. That was my first accountability group. When I was 13, I had a cabin counselor named Mr Titus at summer Bible Camp. He was probably in his early 20s, single, and took time off from his job to come counsel junior high boys at camp. He had a big box of very nice, leather-bound Bibles. About a dozen boys were in our cabin, and in our first night’s devotions, he taught us how important reading our Bibles every day was to our spiritual growth. I was an impressionable young boy, and Mr Titus was a tough, buff college-age young man that I idolized, and I wanted to do everything he did. He said anyone who committed to him to read their Bible every day and read it through the next year he would give one of those very nice and expensive Bibles. I committed to it, and he gave me a Bible. I read it daily, made it through the Bible, and was very proud to announce my accomplishments the following year at camp when he was again my counselor. I have not missed a year since then of reading through the Bible; most years, I have read it several times.

(I shared this about seven years ago)

This is a picture of the aircraft carrier the Wasp before it sank in the Battle of Guadalcanal during World War II. This battle lasted over 6 months being fought on land by Marines and supported by numerous ships. My Dad was on this ship when it sank. The Yorktown sank in the Battle of Midway and my Dad was on it. The Hornet was in many battles and was the aircraft carrier that launched the “Doolittle Raid” when Tokyo was bombed for the first time in the war. It was sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. My Dad was on it when it sank. He had four ships sunk under him in the war. When my Dad died in 1991 a friend of his who had served with him through the war sent us this letter and story about my Dad.

“We were sitting in a gun turret which is mounted on the side of the ship under the flight deck. We were letting our gun cool off from much rapid firing, if the gun is loaded while hot the powder will ignite before the projectile is loaded. We had loaded it successfully before we decided to let it cool. While waiting a Japanese kamikaze plane came in low around the ship headed right towards us, Duke stomped on the foot firing mechanism and blew that plane into little bitty pieces 200 feet from us. It was funny when it was over, but I can tell you for sure that both Duke and I thought we had bought it that day. We served together on the Hornet, the Wasp, the Yorktown, the Enterprise, the Saratoga, the North Carolina, the O’Brian and others. We spent many hours together sometimes 2 and 3 days straight in battle at our stations. Please allow me to say to you that Delbert Duke was a good man.”

Col. Tom Kirk spoke Saturday morning at JBC’s Men’s Breakfast. He told his story of being shot down as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War and spending over five years as a prisoner of war being terribly tortured. What was amazing was to hear him say that he has no bitterness toward anyone about anything. He said that when he was released from the Hanoi Hilton and flown home, he was free from prison, and he was free from any resentment or hatred toward his captors. He said that a person who harbors bitterness in his heart towards anyone is in a prison as real as the Hanoi Hilton because that bitterness controls him as much as guards with clubs and guns do.

I was reading a Facebook entry by a psychologist who recommended that those who were disappointed by the election cut out from their life any family or friends who voted for Trump that they never speak to them again. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could do such a thing. Jesus’s words to the woman caught in adultery, “I do not condemn you,” are our standard for living in this world with people all around us who disagree with us and hate us because of that disagreement.

We often manage the big things against us but fail in the more minor things when people say things at work, community, church, friends, and family that hurt us. We hang on to that bitterness and resentment. We need to forgive anybody of anything quickly because God has forgiven us of everything as followers of Jesus Christ.

Col. Tom Kirk was an incredibly strong person, demonstrated by his ability to endure the torture that he went through. Today, an incredibly strong person is one who can navigate through life without picking up resentments and wounds from others who disagree with them, treat them poorly, and violate their rights. Strong people will run the race of life with endurance and will finish well with significant accomplishments as champions for God.