Of all the things that we have to deal with in life I think physical pain is the most difficult for me. Not low-grade pain, but the kind that makes you wince and groan involuntarily. Of late my Parkinson’s seems to be getting worse, and I have been having increasing pain in my muscles when I move. The pain ranges from feeling like an electric shock, to being stabbed with a knife, to a cramp. It moves around but so far nothing below the knee or below my elbow. I have really never had real intense pain before, at least not that I remember, so I am learning how to manage it without turning into a whining wimp.

A major blessing is that I have zero pain while riding my stationary bicycle or when sitting in my hot tub. My hot tub is my go-to therapy when I wake up in the middle of the night with pain in my legs or arms. I am looking forward to my two month, 4,000 mile bicycle trip that we start in just over a week because when I ride my real bicycle for ten hours a day my Parkinson’s doesn’t bother me at all.

Pain has a way of wearing me out, and making me tired even though I may not have done anything. But it is mostly mental fatigue so a key to managing the consequences of the disease is to manage my thoughts. I do this by setting my mind on some physical activity that I am involved with and doing it in my imagination. It doesn’t produce the results of actually doing the activity, but close.

We all have blind spots, sin habits, and addictions in our life. They are extremely hard to get victory over, and most people just live with them creating so much heart ache in their life and relationships because of it.

The best way to get victory over entrenched sin habits and blind spots is to have good people in your life who will hold you accountable and reprove you for your lifestyle and decisions. In fact those who are humble enough to receive correction from wise people in their life will grow amazingly fast.

The problem is that most people are to proud, defensive, stupid to receive any kind of advice, correction or reproof, so they grow very little in character most of their adult life. The Bible has a word for those people.

Proverbs 15:5 he who regards reproof is sensible.

Proverbs 1:25 And you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof;

Proverbs 1:30 They would not accept my counsel, hey spurned all my reproof.

Proverbs 5:12 And you say, “How I have hated instruction! and my heart spurned reproof!

Proverbs 10:17 He is on the path of life who heeds instruction, but he who ignores reproof goes astray.

Proverbs 12:1 Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

Proverbs 15:31-32 He whose ear listens to the life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. He who neglects discipline despises himself,
but he who listens to reproof acquires understanding.

This weekend was super full and busy. Friday I attended and taught a 15 minute devotional at Jim Lee’s graveside service, Saturday I preached at the “Memorial Service”for Jim at 11:00 am, then I taught my “Leadership Class” at 5:30 pm, and preached at the Saturday evening service at 7:00 pm. Sunday morning I taught my “Ladies Leadership Class” at 8:00 am, then preached at the 9:00 am worship service, next I taught my parenting class, then I preached again at the 11:30 am worship service, then my 1:00 pm “Men’s Leadership Class, then at 3:00 pm I taught my “Leadership Class II” class, and then we had a Church Elder’s meeting at 5:00 pm. And then I went home and played pinochle with my brother, his wife, and Patty until 9:00 pm and ate Rocky Road ice cream between games. Today we started our “Five Day Prayer” event so I was up at 4:00 am and prayed from 5:00 to 10:00 am. Then I went out to lunch with a friend, then I had a short appointment with another friend, and now I am home writing this blog and writing fast so I might have a 20-minute nap before I head back to the church for the evening prayer time from 5:00 to 10:00 pm

I lot of people complain about busy, but I like busy. There are several reason why I like busy.

1. I am busy with things that matter, that positively influence and impact other people.

2. I thank the Lord constantly for the tremendous and incredible privilege of serving Him. No one does anything significant for God unless He gives them the opportunity, takes them off the bench and puts them in the game as it were. I certainly don’t want to think or talk negative about such an awesome privilege.

3. At 73 years of age I probably don’t have a lot of time left to earn rewards from the Lord when I stand before Him at the ”Judgment Seat of Christ,” at the end of my life, so I appreciate very much the opportunities given to me to earn more eternal rewards.

4. Whenever I start feeling a little bit tired I pray and ask God to give me His strength to serve Him well. He loves to give His supernatural power to those who ask and ask a lot, that’s me.

5. I take little 15 minute breaks to sit and rest all through the day when it is possible to do so.

6. Tuesday and Wednesday I was at Klamath Falls shooting my Savage .17 caliber HMR rifle, at Belgium ground squirrels, known as sage rats, that were destroying an alfalfa field. I shot 900 bullets in two days, and thinned them out considerably. So when I started into this busy four days, my emotional gas tank was clear full.

7. I faithfully read the Bible every day for 30 minutes and also spend 30 minutes talking to the Lord in prayer. I ride my stationary bicycle for an hour every day, read 20 pages in a good book, listen to a great motivational speaker on a podcast while riding my bike, I spend 30 minutes memorizing and medtating on scripture, I write my blog, and I end the day spending a few minutes reviewing the day, examining my life and confessing all known sin to God. Those daily disciplines keep my soul healthy, and healthy souls enjoy life, whatever it might be.

There is a lot in the news about the war in Ukrain, but a more important war is the one that will be fought in the prayer room at JBC in the next five days. We will be praying for the next five days for ten hours each day for the souls of people who don’t know Jesus as their savior and are destined to spend eternity in the Lake of Fire with the devil in eternal torment. The war will be a spiritual one fought in the heavenlies all around us by the angels of God and the demons of Satan. The prayers of believers are what prompt God to commission His angels and it is also the source of their energy. So when we pray God commissions angels to fight and they are given energy as it were to successfully overcome the demonic enemy.

People are blinded by demons so that they can’t understand the truth of the Gospel. When we pray God delivers them and they are able to hear and understand the truth of God.

Come and join us in our prayer room.

When I was ten years old my Dad who was in the Navy for 20 years got stationed on Midway Island. He was also in the Naval battle of Midway during the Second World War on an aircraft carrier. Midway is a small Island, about 600 acres, the weather was warm, the water was warm, and because of the reef that went around the island there were only very small waves so swimming in the ocean was like swimming in a heated swimming pool. The depth of the water stayed relatively shallow for a long way out because of the reef. There was lots of different kinds of beautiful plants and trees and literally thousands of different types of birds, with the gooney bird being the biggest and most famous. There was about 100 people on the island with only about a dozen kids. There were no cars except a firetruck, an ambulance, and a car for the senior officer. Everybody road bicycles but the island was so small you could walk anywhere in 30 minutes or less. I would get up most mornings before school and walk around the island looking for Japanese fishing balls. They were round heavy glass balls, about the size of a basketball, that Japanese fishermen blew for floats for their fishing nets. They would break free of the nets, and because Midway was in the middle of the Japaneses current they would often end up on Midway’s beach. Midway was a ten-year-old boy’s dream place to live.

Dad left about three months before we did because they hadn’t yet finished the family housing. Mom took us to the Library and we checked out a bunch of books about Midway. As I read all the books and looked at the pictures of Midway I thought of “Swiss Family Robinson,” a book I had recently read, and got so excited about going, I could hardly stand it. It was like a dream and I got very envious of my Dad because he was already there. He wrote lots of letters describing the island, and he made it sound more wonderful than the books I was reading.

The day came for us to leave and I was so excited. On the first leg of the flight to Honolulu I got very airsick. So when we took off for Midway Mom loaded me up with some kind of motion sickness medicine. I promptly fell dead asleep and didn’t wake up until the plane landed. I remember waking up and looking out the window and yelling “we are here, we are here, we are here!”

So, that has become my description of death, “it is like falling asleep on an airplane and waking up in the most beautiful place ever.” We read all about heaven in the Bible, no death, no sickness, no politics, no war, no sin, a body that is better than superman’s, a mind smarter than the most intelligent person on earth, nobody feels anger, or jealous, or resentment, gets hurt feelings. But we have never been there so we get nervous about the unknown. We all have family and friends that are already there but they haven’t sent us any letters. We tend to think that those who die before the age of 99 have been shortchanged by God which is a totally stupid way to think in light of what heaven is like compared to here.

Death is like falling asleep on an airplane and waking up in the most beautiful place imaginable. I am looking forward to my airplane flight with great anticipation.

I am teaching a parenting class at our church, and one of the fundamental principles or I guess words is that effective parenting is training and coaching our children not raising them. A parent who follows the training/ coaching model sees themselves as a coach teaching a five-year-old kid how to play tennis and become the world champion by the time they are 20 years old. The one doing the coaching would have a plan, a system for training basic skills and a way of measuring or determining how things were progressing. Very few parents have goals for their kids or strategies on how to achieve those goals.

Patty and I had at least ten goals for our kids, and one of them was that our kids would be tough. There are other words that are used by various authors such as grit, strong, and tenacious but I like the word tough. Tough means that they make adjustments to unexpected difficulties with grace and dignity, turning the trial into a challenge to be conquered and enjoyed instead of a crisis to be whined about.

Our main tool for training each of our eight children to be tough was camping. We went camping for at least a week twice a year. The basic principle in camping is that everything that can possibly go wrong does and so we learn to adjust, fix, or ignore the unexpected problem and turn it into a contest, a challenge to be won. The problems and the unexpected is what makes camping exciting and fun. It is those challenges that become the family stories that are told for year’s.

One of our daughters is getting ready to move into a school bus with her husband and six kids because they sold their house and they will live in the bus while her husband builds a new house for them. My son-in-law has done this numerous times as a professional builder who enjoys the challenge as well as the profit from building and selling houses. They have lived in a one room log cabin, a canvas wall tent, a garage, a little bitty camper, and now a bus. She sends videos to us and to all of her siblings of the remodeling taking place in the bus to make it a home, even if it is a small one. Her words and her tone of voice make it clear that she is not feeling sorry for herself but enjoying the ride. I am sure her kids, our grandkids will grow up to be very tough adults who will manage life and the unexpected well.

We are living in an age when change and the unexpected is becoming the norm. It will be the tough people who bring stability and security to their families, friends, and those around them. The problem is that tough-minded people are becoming very rare.

Pride is a very subtle character flaw. It grows in us and we don’t notice it at all. I see it in people all the time, and I am sure they have no clue. Pride completely disqualifies us from God using us to do His work with His blessing.

On the engine in the 1969 Mustang that my grandson and I are rebuilding are some gauges, an oil pressure gauge, a temperature gauge, and a voltmeter. As we were running the engine after we rebuilt it we paid particular attention to the oil pressure gauge and the temperature gauge, because if we made a mistake in our rebuild, it would show up there.

We have some gauges in our life that indicate that pride is becoming a problem in our life, and we would do well to pay attention to those gauges.

1. How do we respond when someone corrects us, criticizes us, or tries to tell us how to do something that we feel we already know.

When God sees pride growing in our life He will prompt someone to become extra critical and judgmental of our life and performance in some area. If we respond with defensiveness, irritation, arguing, or returning the criticism back on the person who corrected us, know for sure that our pride gauge is in the red area.

The Apostle Paul had many critical, judgmental people in his life, and his response was, “I am well content with insults and criticism because when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2. A person with a pride problem will get their feelings hurt easily. This is often a big problem in marriages, and in families. It is tough being married to a person who you feel like you are walking on eggshells when with them.

3. Prideful people struggle with getting irritated and angry at others because the other person did or said something they didn’t like. Anger is a major blinking red light on the dashboard of our life.

4. Those who have had pride grow in them like a cancer are often argumentative, because they usually think their opinion, idea, or methods are right.

5. In a conflict between two people, if reconciation is going to happen one of the two will need to initiate that reconciliation. Prideful people rarely are the peacemaker in conflicts with others. And along with that they rarely admit that they were wrong.

The longer pride remains in our life the harder it is to conquer it, and become a humble person that God loves. Self-reflection using these five warning lights is a good thing to do if you want to be used by God.,

Here is a great Bible verse to memorize and meditate on.

Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God.

Going back to the NCAA College Championship Basketball game between Kansas and North Carolina last night. As I wrote in yesterday’s blog Kansas was behind by 15 points at halftime, and in the second half of the game they erased the deficit and won by 3 points. Kansas was a totally different team in regards to effort and focus in the second half. Coach Bill Self in his halftime speech to the team told them to double their effort on defense, and he must have delivered that speech with enough passion to motivate his players to do just that.

Words have tremendous power to influence those who hear them if the message is clear and delivered by an excellent communicator. There is also a law of God that comes into play in regards to excellent speech that positively influences others. This law is as sure as gravity. God not only created observable physical laws, but He also created social and relational laws. One of those laws is stated in James 3:11-12, which says, “Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.”

A person who talks to others hurtfully will not be able to speak words that bring out the best in those same people. A father who scolds and humiliates his kids will not be able to build confidence in them or encourage them to higher achievements in life. A husband who dishonors his wife by how he talks to her will not be able to communicate convincingly that he loves her.

Those who want to influence others positively to higher achievement and more excellent performance must work hard at eliminating as much negative, demeaning, hurtful, and dishonoring speech from their vocabulary as possible.

God makes rules for life like basketball has rules for playing the game. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:5, “No athlete wins the game unless he competes according to the rules!”

I watched college basketball’s championship game tonight between Kansas and North Carolina. North Carolina had a 16 point lead after 15 minutes of play. They were stomping Kansas who was highly favored to win. At halftime, North Carolina was ahead by a whopping 15 points. No team in the history of College basketball has ever come back and won in a NCAA championship game when 15 points down. But Kansas came out after half time and erased the lead and won the game by three points.

I wish I could have been in the locker room at half-time and heard the speach that the coach gave to his players. At the start of the second half of the game Kansas was a different team. Something ignited in each player an incredible will to win that drove them to play exceptional basketball. Words have almost supernatural power, and really good leaders have discovered that fact, but they have also discovered how to communicate those words to those they are leading.

It has been said that everything rises and falls on leadership. John Wooden was one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time. He started coaching UCLA when I was born in 1948 and he retired when I graduated from college in 1975. In those years, he won ten national championships, and an even dozen books have been written about his leadership philosophy, practice, and skills.

There are a few people who are gifted leaders, they lead intuitively, but most have to learn the art and the skill of leading. The most significant barrier to most people in leadership positions becoming good leaders is their pride; they think they already know how to lead well and have the skill when in fact, they are total novices.

The best way to learn how to lead well is from those who obviously do, but again pride keeps most from seeking counsel and input from others, no matter how good they are.

Husbands, look around and see what men have great marriages and ask for them to give you counsel. Fathers, look around and see who has raised champions and ask for them to mentor you. Wives do the same; Pastors do the same; Youth group leaders do the same; employers do the same, and on and on. God is particularly impressed with those who humble themselves to learn from others. He blesses them and uses them.

Leadership success is to important to let our personal pride keep us from learning and growing in this skill. When we lead well, everyone we influence benefits.

A New Jersey university is launching what it called the world’s first “Master of Arts in Happiness Studies,” and it only costs $17,500 for the 18 month program.

I don’t know for sure, but I am guessing that in the program you are supposed to learn what will make you happy in life. The Bible can tell me that for free, and I am sure it will work much better than the information in the University study program.

Psalms 128:1-2 How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
Who walks in His ways.
When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands,
You will be happy and it will be well with you.

Jesus preached what is called “the sermon on the Mount,” also called the “Beatitudes.” This sermon could also be called “How to be Happy in Eight Easy Ways.” Let me paraphrase four of them.

Those who are gracious in their speech, who work hard to be kind and gentle in how they deal with a problem or difficulty with another person so as not hurt or offend them will be extremely happy in life.

The person who wants to be righteous and holy in all that they do, and diligently pursues a righteous lifestyle will be very happy.

A person who can’t stand being at odds with another person and does everything possible to reconcile with anybody who is angry or upset with them will be as happy as a duck on a pond.

Anybody who forgives anyone of anything because Jesus has forgiven them of everything will be filled to overflowing with happiness.

Now that didn’t take 18 months to learn in our head, but it probably will take much longer than 18 months to learn in our heart so we actually live it.