My Dad was in the Navy for 22 years, he went through World War II and was involved in some major sea battles such as the “Battle of Midway” and saw and experienced a lot of “action” as he called it. He had lots of stories about his experiences that I used to enjoy hearing him tell as a boy. My Dad had a very strong character trait of being responsible.  He served his country well because that was his responsibility, he worked hard and served his wife and children and took good care of them over the years because that was his responsibility, and whatever he was involved with he did his part and was faithful. I once wrote in my journal a couple of weeks after he died of liver cancer as I was writing as much as I could remember about him and his life before I forgot it, “My dad was duty driven”, he was a patriot”, and “he did the right thing because it was the right thing”.

During the Vietnam War when I was in High School and College there were lots of demonstrations by people who were against the war. A resident in the valley we farmed in hung the American flag upside down. I remember how angry my Dad got as he watched the news and saw the flag flying upside down. He didn’t say much about it all, but I could tell it really bothered him. I asked him once why the demonstrations bothered him so much and he said, “No country or government is perfect, and ours certainly isn’t, but you don’t fix things by dishonoring, you fix things by serving”.

I want to be like my Dad.

I was sitting in my office today thinking about myself, ministry, family, the future, and life in general, and I came to the conclusion that there has never been a time in my life when I have felt more joy and peace than I do right now.  As I thought about it I came to the conclusion that the joy that I have now is “an all the time joy” in my heart that isn’t up and down, and also the peace that I have is a deep, anxiety free, sense of security that permeates my soul and doesn’t go away.

Most people, I think from observation are victims of life, that is they have joy when circumstances and events around them are good, and loss of joy even to the point of despair when life is bad. Their peace comes and goes on the apparent stability and predictability of their future.

Right now, post-election, it seems there is a lot of despair and anxiety in people. Most people, when they are unhappy and anxious become “blamers”, that is, as they attempt to figure out why they are so miserable and they blame others for what they are feeling.

So why am I feeling so wonderful in spite of lie? Philippians 4:4-7 is a passage of scripture I meditate on and work hard at practicing faithfully in my life. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men.  The Lord is near. 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 your minds in Christ Jesus.”

So I work hard at never grumbling or complaining about anything, but instead rejoicing always, thanking God for everything, and if I begin to feel anxious I pray to God about the situation and He gives His joy and peace. I pray all day long in my head while I do life, and I also have a date with God every day where I give Him undistracted time alone talking to Him about what is bothering me.

God is real, He is all powerful, He does indeed love me and desires time from me, and He is big enough to put His joy and peace inside me as a blessing when I give Him my life, my time, my trust, and my love. Try it.

As Patty and I raised 8 children probably the most often stated command to them as they grew up was “talk nice”. It was easy to anticipate when they would speak mean words instead of nice words, right after they didn’t get what they wanted, and the mean words would be directed to a sibling who did get the coveted last piece of chicken or the choice of a television program. Our goal as parents was to raise and train champions who had godly character. As we pursued that goal we knew that the best way to measure the success of our parenting goal was to listen to our kids talk. Jesus said that the words that come out of our mouth clearly reveal what is in our heart. Patty and I knew that children talk like children, they are children after all, but as they grew older we wanted them to grow inwardly strong, mature, confident, caring, self controlled, full of joy and peace, and it was easy to know how are parenting was going, the mouth is the window of the heart. We knew that as we trained them how to talk to others, the effort to do that was the discipline that was molding and shaping their character. If I get on a scale you know how much I weigh, and you can know my character and my maturity simply by listening to me talk. “Talk nice”, that is a good life motto.

1 Timothy 2:1-4. First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

I have a App on my IPad where I have the names and pictures of every person that is part of JBC  and I pray for everyone in it each and every week, faithfully. I am adding Donald Trump to this list of people, and I will pray for him every week.

These are the prayer points that I will have under his name and picture.  L

1. I pray  that Donald Trump grow spiritually and in his walk and relationship with God.              2. I pray lord that you will bring some strong spiritual leaders into his life to coach, mentor,, and disciple him.                                                                                                              N n n n n n n n n        3. I pray, Lord, that You will work in DonaldcTrumpa heart and remove the pride and that you would replace it with a gracious and humble heart.                                                                               4. I pray that you will fill him   with a knowledge of your will  in every area of his life and ourselves

On our hunting adventure yesterday we were riding horses up this canyon looking for deer, and it was long and it was very steep. The horses were working hard, puffing and panting, and very sweaty. We would stop periodically to look with our binoculars and spotting scopes for deer, then we would get back on the horses and ride up the canyon some more. On one of those stops when Seth got back on his horse, he was about half way on when his horse decided he had enough for the day and started at a run back down the trail the way we had come. As Seth attempted to get fully seated and stop the horse he started bucking. Seth held on for a bit and then flew off the horse and hit the ground. As I watched this whole thing unfold I thought surely he broke something, but Seth jumped up and started chasing the horse down the trail and caught him, and got back on. Tough kid.

I commented in my last blog on how important the character trait of contentment was in wanting, really wanting, dreaming big dreams, super big dreams, and setting big, hairy, audacious goals, and then experiencing the disappointment of not pulling it off. A key passage of scripture for me is   Psalms 37:7-8  “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him;  Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.”

The word “fret” is a cool word. It sounds a bit like worry, but worry and anxiety are about the future, and fretting is about an event that happened in the past, like a few minutes ago past, that we don’t like, the final score is in and we lost. “Rest in the Lord” another cool set of words full of meaning. “Rest” doesn’t mean sit in your recliner, it means we have a safety net in life. Go out and risk big, try something that is hard. If it doesn’t happen “don’t fret”. God still loves you, you are still going to heaven, you  have grown in a number of ways because of the effort, you are much more apt to win the next time, you had a great adventure, and life is good.

we hunted hard all day yesterday and saw lots of does, but no bucks. After getting back to our room I sat down in a chair to read, pray, and write my blog and promptly fell asleep sitting in the chair and woke up at 3 am so got up on crawled into my sleeping bag. We slept in to 8 am this morning, got up, packed the pickup, and now we are on our way home. It was a good three days of hunting in the wilderness of Wyoming seeing lots of gorgeous scenery and country, having great experiences, and having a very enjoyable time with my son Seth (he did get bucked  off his horse, but I will tell that story tonight). One of the key things that any person who wants to bear much fruit for God, accomplish a lot with their life, change the world, and be a “winner” in life must learn is how important it is to have big dreams and desires that are getting bigger all the time, always want more, and then they must learn how to manage the disappointment of unrealized dreams, desires, and goals. If that is not learned the dreams, desires, wants, and goals will shrink in pursuit of joy, comfort, and self worth. Contentment is one of the 26 character traits that I am pursuing. Contentment is not a ho-hum, oh well, whatever attitude that results in lack of drive, low passion, no dreams, and a negative opinion of goals. My definition of contentment is “want more and more, dream big and bigger, work as hard as you can, sacrifice significantly, trust God with the results in the process, and thank Him for the results when the hunt is over, repeatedly until it is sincere. Then think and ponder about what could have been done better, ask others if appropriate, write that information down, and begin planning the next big thing in your life!

today was our second day hunting in Wyoming for a mule deer buck. Yesterday we road horses all day and I thought I was near death my muscles hurt so bad. Today we walked all day as we attempted to find a wiley  old buck and retire him to our freezer. My muscles tonight hurt and ache really bad in all different places. We saw a lot of deer today and a number of bucks.  The number one question today was, “what is the smallest you will go” on buck size. One of Seth’s statements was, “You didn’t drive all the way to Wyoming to shoot a buck you could get in Oregon”. My argument was, “I don’t want to go home with nothing”.  This morning first thing we spotted a nice buck up on the hill side with our binaculars, and watched him feed.  So then the questions and statements began as we tried to figure out how big he was as we watched him a half mile away.  Then we spotted another one a little bit bigger, and  the evaluation started all over again. “To little”, “not bad”, “he will do”.  I settled the discussion by announcing, ” I am going to hike up this ridge and when I get to that old snag I am going to come over the ridge nice and slow and shoot him.” As I got up and started up the hill Seth and my Wyoming friend Andrew followed me. My second strongest character trait is decisiveness. When I need to pull the trigger I pull it”. Few things paralyze a person like indecision does., one of my life motto’s learned from my Dad is, “don’t make a decision until you have to, so you can gather as much information as possible so you can make a wise decision, but when you have to make it, make it”.

for the last several weeks I have been blogging about character, and I have referred to the 26 character traits that I use to do self-evaluation. I mentioned my two worst character traits, orderliness being #26, and Flexible being #25, and just for fun I will give you #24 which is “Gentleness”. There are some of you who guessed that one at #26. But everybody has some strong character traits as well as the weak ones, and I think it is good to acknowledge those without thinking that you are being prideful for doing so. Of the 26 character traits I would say and Patty agrees with me that  my strongest character trait  is “being tough, having grit, handling pain well”. My Dad and Mom were very tough people, Mom still is, and they taught that character trait well to me, so it is a gift from them to me. Character is what we are on the inside. Most of these 26 character traits start with discipline, move to habit, and then become character. When you are “tough” in character you don’t have to “suck it up”, try hard, bite your lip, you just think a certain way and habitually respond a certain way to hard things so your toughness is natural, comfortable, and “it is just who you are”.  People with this character trait enjoy the challenge of conquering pain. Today as Seth and I hunted for monster mule deer bucks in Wyoming with a friend we road horses into Shoshone Widerness area and we road close to 20 miles and it was very steep up and down with sheer drop offs on one side, so I was hanging on to my horse with my legs as hard as I could all day long. When we got back to his house at 8 pm after getting up at 3:30 am my legs hurt so bad I could hardly walk. But we have to go hunting again tomorrow so I can get a monster buck( we saw only does today) so I sat in a jacuzzi  tub for 30 minutes with super hot water and I took 5 Ibrupropen tablets and now I am ready!!

Well, Seth and I made it to Powell, Wyoming and we have moved into the shop of my friend here who is taking us hunting. He has a couple of cots set up for us and we are getting ready for a nap. It took us about 15 hours drive time and we stopped several times for fuel and eats so 17 hours total to get here. We were thinking about finding a Sports Bar somewhere in Powell and watching Thursday Night Football or maybe the Golden State Warriors play the Oklahoma City Thunder. As I was thinking about the list of 26 character traits and how I am doing in each one, I think I have decided that my second worst character trait, right behind orderliness is flexibility. For a middle name all I have is the initial “F”, no middle name, just an initial. When people badger me insisting that it must stand for something I tell them it stands for “flexible”. I like to think I am flexible, but I know that I am very passionate about what I want to happen, and what I want to accomplish, and the good character trait of determination goes beyond good and becomes rigid lack of flexibility. The key for me in maintaining balance between being flexible and being determined is to practice Psalms 37:7, “commit your works, and plans to the Lord, trust also in Him and He will do it”. On a trip like this I plan every detail out, and I push hard to make it happen. When we stop for fuel I am watching the time hurrying Seth up so we keep on schedule. I work hard to get as much done in a day as possible to be a good steward of my time, but it is easy for me to become a fanatic that drives everyone around me crazy. Being a person who is growing in character always requires constant self-examination. It is certainly easier to ignore the weak areas and pretend everything is OK.

My son, Seth and I left our house in Jefferson about 9 pm tonight, and we are headed for Powell , Wyoming. It is a little over 1,000 miles, and we are going to drive straight through. Seth started driving and he will go until he gets tired and then I will take over until I get tired. Hopefully Seth can drive several hours before I need to give him a break.I can do pretty good as long as I have a thermos of coffee, and a big bag of sunflower seeds. I don’t know what it is, but when I have a mouth full of seeds wallowing them around in my mouth picking one out with my tongue and shelling them with my teeth I don’t get sleepy. We will get to Powell tomorrow afternoon, and then Friday we are going to ride horseback into a Wilderness area outside Cody and hunt for 3 days. The goal is to shoot a big, trophy mule deer. I don’t walk real well any more so the horseback riding is a great way for me to cover some ground and see some deer. Seth is going to help me on and off the horse. The election will be over when we get back, the Cubs just won the World Series after being down 3 to 1 before coming back and winning 3 straight from the Cleveland Indians, the Portland Trailblzers lost in overtime to the previously winless Phoenix Suns. I wonder what tomorrow holds? Life is an adventure