We went and saw the movie “The Boys in the Boat” on Christmas Day, and since then, I have been watching YouTube videos of various history stories of the different guys in the movie in real life. It is so interesting to see the histories of different people across multiple time slots. I wrote out the history of my Mom from a variety of sources we found in her archives after she died. I read through that again the other day. She had a fascinating history that resulted in me being a person.

So many people traveling through life intersecting in various ways, meeting people, getting married, having kids, and going on in the journey. It fascinates me to think about an infinitely wise and loving God planning, watching, causing, tweaking, and hoping as He watches it all unfold.

Psalms 33:13-15 The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; From His dwelling place He looks out On all the inhabitants of the earth, He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works.

I am one person in a sea of humanity, but I have a story, a history, and I am self-aware of myself, almost as if I am the only person because I am the only one who is me, that I live in, that talks to me on the inside. I have never won a gold medal in the Olympics, and I didn’t live during the “Great Depression,” but I have done a bunch of other things that are unique to me.

It seems like from God’s perspective, it all fits together, all these different people with their own unique story, somehow fitting together like a bunch of varied colored threads in a big quilt. God, the quilt maker, is fun to think about and write about.

I got your attention on the title, didn’t I 😜. I am not dying right away, at least not that I am aware of, but I am getting older every day and wearing out rapidly!

Years ago, a middle-aged person in our church received news that they wouldn’t live longer than three months. I went to visit them, and they said to me, “I am so scared!” They were a believer, but the unknown about what happens at the point of death freaked them out (their words).

I have thought about death a lot in the last couple of years, partly because of my age and partly because so many people that I know have died. I can genuinely say that I have zero fear of dying, and I am looking forward to it. I am asking the Lord to move the date up; I am more than ready to come home unless there is some significant job He wants me to do.

I got to thinking the other night as I was sitting in the hot tub there isn’t much I haven’t experienced or done in life. My kids are raised, the grandkids are all doing well, the church is cruising along, and things pick up whenever I am gone for several months in a row.

I have lived a full life and enjoy sitting in my recliner doing nothing. I still enjoy preaching, teaching, fishing, hunting, writing, and working on my old cars, but I have to take more breaks and naps now, so it takes a long time to get any project done.

I know I am going when God decides, but it is nice to be looking forward to the day I die rather than dreading it. I look forward to going to Alaska for a month this summer to fish till my arm falls off, but I look forward to seeing Jesus and getting my new body more!

There are many mysteries in the Bible. A mystery is a previously unrevealed truth or understood truth. One mystery is God becoming flesh and blood, just like us, with all our weaknesses. That is truly incomprehensible.
Hebrews 2:14: “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same,”
Another mystery is us being transformed into the image of Jesus. Wow, that one is hard to grasp, for sure.
Philippians 3:20-21 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”
But the greatest mystery is Jesus living in us now. It is easy to say and write, but do I really get it? Almighty God is living in me.
Colossians 1:27: “To whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode in him.”
As I ponder that mystery to try and get it clear in my thinking, I wonder what that means practically for me in my day-to-day living and if I am experiencing the full power and blessing I should be experiencing as a person walking around with God in him.

Starting on January 2nd, one of my new goals is to get up Monday through Friday at 4:30 am and go to the YMCA in Albany with Patty. She will do “Swim Aerobics,” I will run on the treadmill and lift weights. I got up fine yesterday, our first morning, to do this new routine, but last night, I didn’t get to sleep very early, and when the alarm went off, I was dead asleep. Patty said that the first words out of my mouth were, “Oh, Crapp.” I talked her into letting me skip and sleep some more. She is a wonderful wife, but I will try hard to get to bed by 9:00 tonight.

I made this goal for three reasons; the first was to do something with Patty. It is a thirty minute drive in and a thirty minute drive home, so we can talk during that time. If we pick up a cup of coffee in the snack area of the “Y” I will call it a date, and get two goals knocked off at once. The second reason is to get more faithful in my exercise. At home I kept missing and was sporatic in keeping my exercise goals because there was always something else that needed doing that was certainly more enjoyable than running on a treadmill or lifting weights. The third reason is that I was slipping a bit in my time management and was wasting more and more time watching YouTube clips of news and sports in the evening and getting up later and later in the morning. That is why I was late getting to bed last night.

I taught a class in Leadership Class this weekend on “Time Management,” and one of the key verses was, “Make the most of your time because the Lord is coming!” Yikes, how can I teach that and not do it!” So, if I miss a few times writing this blog in the next month or so, it is probably because I wasn’t disciplined enough to get it done before 9:00 pm

And the forth reason is to grow in self-control.

I like new beginnings. No matter how well things went in the past and how well I think I did, there are always a ton of things that I messed up on and many areas that I could do so much better in. As I look at all of the failed goals and poor decisions of the past, I can think of dozens of ways to do better, so with a new beginning, here is my chance to at least improve, if not knock it out of the park.

The desire to improve, get better, and grow is a very good desire and one I believe God put into us by design and creation. Over the years of living, we can cause that desire to increase, and we can cause it to decrease, even to the point that it is almost dead. In Revelation 3, Jesus is talking to the church of Laodicea, and He says that because they are lukewarm, He will spit them out of His mouth. A person is lukewarm when their desire to grow and to accomplish more is mainly gone.

That is a sad place to be, but many Christians are there. One main reason is that many people fear personal failure, and striving to get better at anything is extremely intimidating, so they coast and stay lukewarm.

A very effective way to increase our desire to grow and improve is by writing goals for our lives and then reading those goals every day. It is a simple thing to do, and it works very well. Give it a shot this year.

I was reading the other night in my Bible in 2 Peter 3:10-14, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.”

And I thought, after reading those verses, we get all in a tither about the order of the various parts of the future, prophecy. Still, the multiple writers of the Bible didn’t seem to care about the sequence of events and often made it even more of a mystery by the way they wrote it. ‘why would that be? They were much more interested in the life change that would take place in believers as they thought about the end of all things as we now know them and standing before Jesus the King. The thought of standing before God and giving an account of my life makes me very nervous and apprehensive. That fear motivates me to be faithful and to work hard at serving the Lord; I want to do well when I stand before Him at the end of my life.

On Christmas Day, our son Sam, his family, Patty, and I watched the movie ” The Boys in the Boat.” It was the story of eight young men struggling financially to attend college at the University of Washington during the “Great Depression” in the 1930s. They were living in abandoned cars, putting cardboard in the bottom of their shoes because of the holes in them, and eating in the public soup kitchens prevalent during the Depression. They entered the group tryouts in an attempt to make the eight-man crew team for the University because of the offer of a full scholarship, and successfully made the team. The story revolves around their hard work and practice to qualify for the 1936 Olympics in Munich, Germany, and win the gold medal. The main thing in their long hours of practice and training wasn’t as much in their physical strength but in the team’s unity while rowing. The oars had to enter the water at the same time; each man needed to pull hard but the same as the rest of the team and then exit the water together. One of the guys was struggling with family issues, and it messed with his head to the point that he wasn’t focusing on his part in the team’s unity, and they were doing poorly because of it. He overcame the problem because of the encouragement he received from a team member. Another guy got so sick on the day of the big race that he could hardly row, but again, he overcame it because of the team’s encouragement.
The movie was an excellent example of what God intends a church to be like. The power of a church is in its unity. The unity that the Bible emphasizes between disciples of Jesus isn’t simply the absence of conflict, but the presence of proactive working together to win the prize. The prize is reaching people with the gospel and seeing them become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus talked about the unity of encouraging the weary, praying for those struggling in life, and fitting in humbly with others as we strive for common goals.

For most of my years as a Pastor, I was always in a hurry, pushing to get as much done in a day as possible. I have been obsessed with accomplishing as much with my life as I could before I stood before Jesus at the “Judgment Seat of Christ,” gave an account to Him for my life, and was rewarded for what I had done with my life for Him. It wasn’t necessarily an obsession motivated by fear, but similar to what an athlete would go through in his quest to win the Olympic gold medal. The verses that described me best were 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore, I run in such a way as not without aim; I box in such a way as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”
Sam, our son, his family, Patty, and I went to a movie on Christmas Day. The name of it was “The Boys in a Boat.” It was the story of eight young men struggling financially to make it through college at the University of Washington during the Great Depression in the 1930s. They turned out for tryouts to make the rowing team for an eight-man crew because of the offer to get a college scholarship. The story is about the work they put in once they made the team in an effort to win the Olympic Gold during the 1936 Munich Olympics. It was a very inspirational story of the power of the desire to win. I just about tore the arms off the theater chairs as I attempted to help them win in the races during the movie. When I was younger, I would get down and depressed when things weren’t going well in the church, and I felt like quitting and giving up. I would rent all of the “Rockie” movies, watch them all in one sitting, and get all jazzed up again. The desire to win is a God-given desire, and when it doesn’t get contaminated with selfish pride, it is an incredible motivation and power to accomplish great things with our life for God.
One of the sad things for me now is that the emotional drive I had in my 20s through my 60s to win in life is mostly gone now. I still have an intellectual understanding of what I need to do, but it is so much harder to get motivated to do it than it used to be. Now, I do what I am supposed to do and what I believe God wants me to do, but I do it much, much slower.

I like breaks and a change of pace for a little while. The time between Christmas and New Year is the kind of break I like; it’s not a total shut-down, just a little slower pace for a week. I have been sleeping in until 8:00 am, visiting with family a bunch, playing some mindless games, painting on my paint-by-number picture, and reading a frothy novel that has absolutely no redeeming value.
These breaks from the usual schedule result in renewed energy and passion for me when they are over. I have a really busy January, February, and March coming up, and I was not looking forward to it, but now I am with gusto.
Back in the days when I ran marathons, I found that taking a one-minute walk break every mile resulted in a faster finish time than if I ran continuously.
Mondays are my usual weekly break; once a month, I try to figure out an extra day break like steelhead fishing, working on my car all day, or driving someplace fun for the day with Patty. During the summer, I take a month to ride my bicycle on a more extended trip and usually also take a trip to Alaska to fish for salmon and halibut.
Right now, I have all of 2024 planned. Every day of the year has at least one thing written in the square. It can change, but it usually doesn’t change much.
One thing that would change everything is if Jesus came back and took us to heaven now, that would be a break.

2 Peter 1:5-8 “Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Notice the word “useless” in the last sentence in this passage. I am memorizing the book of 2 Peter, and I am now just finishing up chapter one. I am reviewing these verses every day. There are four different places in the New Testament that talk about being useless or useful for doing God’s work, and every time I review this verse, I get a bit melancholy thinking about how I am doing in my growing as a child of God, and if I could do better than I am. I know that being useless or useful is not an either/or situation, and that I can be on the useful side of the line, but I also know I could be way more useful than I presently am. The key is the phrase, “if these qualities are yours and are increasing,” I might have these qualities , but are they increasing? It is easy to be self-deceived, thinking I am doing fine, when in fact, I am really plateaued. I do not want to be satisfied, plateaued, content with where I am and with what I have done. “Increasing, increasing, increasing, increasing, that word haunts me.