Today I got news of a number of old friends who recently died and also of a number who have cancer, heart conditions, and other serious health issues. My old friends are my age and we are at the age when things start wearing out and stop working all together. It reminded me of the Bible verse Hebrews 9:27 “it is appointed into man to die and then comes the judgement”. We all tend to have this attitude that we are never going to die, and if we do it is going to be tomorrow or next week or next month or….A scripture passage I have memorized and meditate on often is Psalms 39:4-6, “Lord, make me know my end and what is the extent of my days; let me know how transient I am. Behold, You have made my days as hand breadths, and my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; surely every man at his best is a mere breath.” My every morning prayer of commitment of myself to live for God includes a piece that says “today I will my life as if it is the last day I have before I stand before You, Lord and give an accounting of my life and am rewarded for the deeds I have done in this body in this life whether good or bad. This morning commitment is the most self motivating thing I do.

4 more days until we leave for the Steens Mts for a week of archery hunting for deer and elk. What will make this a fun hunt is 5 of our kids, their spouses and their kids are all going. I got so excited today I went to Sportmans Warehouse in Albany and bought a portable outhouse and got two toilet seats that snap on top of a commercial size 5 gallon bucket, and I bought a quart of the blue chemical to put onto the bucket. I have been shooting my bow every day, and I am cranking up the poundage a bit everyday to. My brother Matt made me a very nice walking stick to use when I go out in the sage brush and rim rock hunting. I am very unstable on my feet on uneven ground but with the use of this walking stick I should be fine. I have been riding my stationary bike so much I will be in good shape for going down in some of those canyons. The excitement of going on a trip like this pretty much consumes my thinking. With just about every thing I do the plan of the trip is way more exciting than the actual event itself. One major exception to that is when Jesus comes back and takes believers to heaven with Him and we get our new body. I am excited about that, but the reality of it is going to be so far beyond anything we could ever imagine,

Kind of went against some of my personal commitments and guidelines for life yesterday in my blog about my Parkinson’s. I try never to say anything or write anything that will solicit sympathy for me or that will make people think that I am super man. It was nice though to get all the comments from you all that you were praying for me. It is quite amazing to me the power that a friend has in the life of someone going through difficulties. I felt loved and protected by so many prayers by friends being offered ip yo god

My Parkinson’s has gotten worse in the last couple of weeks. Interesting how I refer to Parkinson’s as “as mine”. My greatest trial right now with my Parkinson’s is muscle regidity. I get so rigid and tight that I can barely move. I have increased my exercise considerably in the last couple of days to see if I can control it, but so far I still have been super rigid. When I move when my muscles are all stiff it is very painful, and the desire is to sit in my recliner and not move is very strong, but I know that that will only allow things to get worse rapidly. My biggest challenge is to think positive and thankful thoughts, and not to let bitter thoughts, selfish or self pity thoughts to stay in my head more than a second. Also I need to think about all the fruit I want to bear in the next 10 years in my ministry so I have to stay on top of this and win. I am going to sit in my hot tub now and loosen up a bit and then get some sleep, tomorrow is a very busy day.

Certain routines are absolutely crucial, but often we don’t realize how crucial until we don’t do them for awhile and experience the consequences of not doing them. Then the problem is that we don’t connect the dots very accurately to realize why the consequences are happening and assume it is just because of bad luck or some other silly reason. I have been to busy to exercise much of late. I know exercise is important to keep my Parkinsons under control, but I thought no big deal if I was hit and miss for a couple of weeks, mostly miss. Yesterday and today My muscles in my back and legs have been so rigid I have had great difficulty in moving at all. At first I thought I had done something to my back, but as it got worse and worse I recognized it was all my muscles and not just my back and the reason was because my less than disciplined faithfulness to exercise had allowed the Parkinsons to make some major advances in my body. So I was back at it tonight, riding my stationary bike while I did my Bible reading and other reading as well. As I lay in my bed typing this I already feel better. Other key disciplines like reading the Bible everyday and spending time with God in prayer everyday are so easy to get apathetic about when we get busy. There are significant consequences as we lose blessings from God, but seldom do we recognize the consequences coming as a result of our lack of faithfulness to the spiritual disciplines.

I was going to make a third try tomorrow to go skydiving, but I hurt my back today and can hardly walk so I am going to postpone again. I will have to wait until I get back from our hunting trip at end of September. I hope they are still doing it then. I would guess they would whenever they have clear weather. Went to the first Oregon State football game of the season tonight with Gordon and Barbara Hilton, friends from church. Oregon State won easily, the weather was good, and we went out to dinner afterwards and I had very good meal of fish and chips. Wow, doesn’t get much better than that! Fun and enjoyable times with friends is a great reminder and taste of heaven. Heaven is a real place that I will live in with a new body that won’t get old or sick or tired ever again. The best of times prompts me to think heaven will be better than this, and the worst of times prompts me to think, boy, I am so glad that one of these days soon this will be over for me and I will be in heaven. I ask people occasionally “do you know for sure, without a doubt that when you die that you will go to heaven?” “I know for sure withou a doubt”.

A group of us headed to “Sky Dive Oregon” in Mollala to go sky diving. We went last Saturday and we got canceled because of low visibility caused by smoke from all the forest fires, so we went again today, but we again got cancelled because of low visibility caused by clouds. We rescheduled for this coming Saturday and the weather report is for clear weather so maybe we will make it! If we can’t go this Saturday I probably won’t be able to go this year. Oh well maybe I will go twice next year. Proverbs says, “Man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps”. It seems that about 90% of my plans don’t happen or get changed because of some unforeseen barrier or event. I still plan every detail of tomorrow and the next day and next week and next year anyway. All the dreaming, scheming, goal setting, and planning is what makes the future exciting. Trusting God and being flexible when things change is what makes life secure. If you don’t trust God fully then unforeseen changes will terribly frustrate and cause you to become apathetic and indifferent to goal setting, dreaming and aspiring to doing more with your life.

Wednesday is sermon day. I have been reading and studying all along, but Wednesday is the day I consolidate all my thoughts, information, and Bible verses in a logical, sequential way and write it all out. My goal is to make God’s truth as revealed to us in His Word, the Bible as easy to understand as possible. I also want the sermon to motivate those who hear to put what they learn into practice in their life, to change and grow in character so that their relationships with other people improves and also their relationship with God. One of the signs that the sermon is being used by God is that people get convicted. They feel badly for what they have been doing or what they have neglected doing because of being to busy or indifferent to a responsibility. Generally people don’t like the feeling of being convicted, and it is a reason many choose not to come to church, but conviction is almost always a requirement if a person is going to grow and change into a better person. God’s Word is supernatural as the Holy Spirit works in us through it and is said to be sharper than a sword as it cuts to the core of our soul and spirit judging the thoughts and motives of our heart. Periodically as I think, ponder, write, and rewrite my sermon on Wednesday it will convict me more than a little bit. It is almost like God is speaking to me while I write. Over the years of preaching I have observed that when a sermon really convicts me as I write it, and I make several commitments to change some things about my life, that those sermons produce the most response from those who listen to me on the weekend. That being the case this weekend’s sermon is going to be powerful and very annointed by God.

I was watching Tim Tebow being interviewed tonight and he was asked the question if he was worried about not making the Philadelphia Eagles Football team. His answer was very good. He said, “Every day I have the choice of living by faith or fear, and every day I choose to live by faith”. We are born with “default settings” in our brain and heart, that is the way we tend to respond to life and the way we think when we don’t choose to do or think otherwise. If we don’t consciously choose what we are going to do or think we will act and think according to our natural programming, and that default setting is selfish, worldly, fearful. The only way we can rise above those natural responses is to choose to. Most people just live life on auto pilot, in default mode and defend their behavior by saying, “that is just who I am”. The truth is we can choose to act differently than are default setting if we actually choose to, but we must choose decisively. Casual, undiscipled living will result in worry, anxiety, selfishness, bitterness, irritableness, and on the list goes. The key to emphatic, decisive choices that control our behavior is the super strong desire to grow and change. Want, really want, want so much you can taste it, want so much it hurts, want so much you get totally disgusted with your present way of acting or more accurately, reacting to life. When you have a red hot desire to be a good person who lives above fear, and intimidation, and comparison, and people pleasing you will choose, and the cool thing is God gives us His power to choose and to succeed.

Archery season opened Saturday. Most of our family, grandkids included are going to hunt for deer and elk in the Steens Mts September 14th to the 24th. It is going to be a lot of fun camping together and hunting. We are going to have 3 or 4 wall tents depending on if I can find a 4th one and several smaller tents as well. The biggest wall tent will be the cook house and cafeteria. I have rounded up 5 propane tanks and a number of heaters. Unless some rain falls no fires will be allowed, though I see the weather report has some rain coming in the next couple of days. I have been practicing with my bow quite a bit for the last month. My son Sam’s house got burglarized a number of months ago and they stole his bow, so I gave him mine and I bought a new one. I am getting a little wimpy as I get older so I needed to get a bow with an easier draw and smoother as well. The one I got a PSE Prophecy is super smooth and easy to pull back. It is amazing how far the engineering on bows has come over the years. Occasionally I miss the target and hit my shop wall. Not good on arrows!! My shop wall is full of holes and I am going to have to buy another dozen arrows before we go hunting! The Steens Mts are incredibly beautiful. The canyons and gorges are amazing. We camp and hunt at the 8,800 ft level so breathing as we hike down into the canyons and back up again several times a day is a challenge. Going to the Steens Mts archery hunting in the Fall is one of my all time favorite activities. I enjoy the great fellowship with family, the challenge of getting a deer and elk with a bow, the hard work and effort required, the beauty and majesty of the place, and the great times I have with God that are prompted by His creation.