Patty and I went out to dinner tonight with some old friends that we hadn’t seen in a long time. As we visited it seemed 35 years ago was like yesterday. Old hunting stories and jokes popped into my head with great clarity. It was really fun. The Bible says life is like a blink of an eye, and it really does seem that way at this point in life. Sometimes I can’t remember if I bought an exercise bike yet or not, and then at other times it will seem like yesterday when I graduated from High School. I often wonder what I will remember of my life when I get to heaven. Our mind will be perfect so my memory should be perfect as well, but there it a fair amount of my life I would rather not remember for all eternity. Maybe that is what will make heaven so wonderful, the huge contrast between the past here on earth and the eternity that stretches ahead of me that will be indescribably wonderful.

In the Bible when Abraham died it said that he lived a “full life”. Today was the service for Don MacLain who was 92 years old when he died, and I can’t think of a phrase that better describes his life than “full”. Lots of people shared stories about Don, and he was greatly honored by all. It is fun to think of Don in heaven playing golf beating a few Angels. The purpose of life designed by God is to grow in character as much as possible in the days we have as we take that with is, and Don entered heaven with great character and maturity that will bring great pleasure to the Lord as they hang out. If I live as long as Don I still have 25 more years to grow and serve. Seems like a long time. I am getting tired just thinking about living that many more years. I better go take a nap and get rested up for the next quarter century of excitement.

i work hard at getting routines established in my life. Some are spiritual like reading my Bible every day, and memorizing Bible verses for 30 minutes each day. Others are exercise like weight lifting and riding my stationary bike 30 minutes each. Others are very enjoyable like sitting in my hot tub for 30 minutes before going to bed every night that I am home. Once a routine is firmly entrenched in my life as a habit I free up some inner energy that is used up exercising self control trying to be faithful to basic disciplines. Right now I have about 30 routines established in my life and working on establishing some more.

My bag only went as far as Seattle. I have called Air Canada 5 times and have been on hold over 5 minutes each time when I hung up. I tried the web sight where they have a “chat” to help find the bag but the little sign “a representative will be with you shortly” never went away as I waited for over 5 minutes 3 different times. Patience at times like that is more of a choice than anything. Working on my self talk to be “I choose not to get irritated, but instead ask the Lord to work out the details and then trust and wait on Him, and expect that He will give me His peace as He promised”. I choose to love in obedience to His Word and The Holy Spirit amplifies my little step of obedience many times over. I choose to not fret in obedience to His Word, and the Holy Spirit amplifies my feeble effort a hundred fold. I choose to rejoice in every situation in obedience to His Word and The Holy Spirit fills me with joy. I choose patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control and in the same way He works in me and strengthens me as He considers me obedient even just a teeny weeny bit. What a deal.

I flew into Seattle at 6 pm after leaving Halifax after preaching this morning in the church that I did the prayer seminar in at 2 pm. When I sat down to wait for my plane to Portland I decided to read some emails and noticed one from Air Canada that was a receipt for my luggage that I had checked in at Halifax. It said that I had just checked it to Seattle. Oops, I hot footed it back to Air Canada baggage carrasell, and I could not find my bag, and I had lost my baggage claim ticket to boot so the baggage people who were really busy and not really wanting to help me basically told me to go away. So I headed back to Alaska Airlines and I had gone out of the secure area to look for my bag so I had to back through security, and boy was there a lot of people. I forgot to tell you that when I was going back to Air Canada somehow I got turned around outside the terminal and got really lost. A nice old guy helped me out and I eventually got to where I was supposed to be. I am now sitting waiting for my plane to announce loading hoping that when it lands in Portland that my bag is there. Life is full of adventures. Working hard at laughing at myself and being pleasant to people around me who are grumpy. Can’t wait to see my beautiful wife tonight when she picks me up at Portland at midnight. Love ya all. Dee

I spoke all day yesterday and all day today at this seminar in Halifax and as I sit tonight in my motel room I am exhausted sitting here doing nothing but staring at the wall and now writing this blog. I am now in the beginning steps of practicing the disciplines that I teach on how to manage weariness. The first step is to praise the Lord for the great priviledge of doing significant work for Him that caused the weariness. It must have been incredibly significant to make me this tired!! The second step is to ask that He would fill me up with His strength. The Lord renews the strength of those who ask Him and depend on Him. Dear Lord, I do ask You now, please give me Your great strength. Psalms 18:1-2 says,
​“I love You, O Lord, my strength.”
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
The third step is to not say out loud that I am tired and not even to think it, because it only gets worse. Provers says “As a man thinks in his heart so he is” the fourth step is to ask Him for more to do tomorrow trusting Him to give me the strength to do it well.
The fifth step is to ask Him for Joy so that I will be really happy and positive and not grumpy and filled with self pity, and then to choose to act happy in obedience to Him. The sixth step is to go to bed and get rested up for the great day of service tomorrow.

At the seminar I am teaching in Halifax, Nova Scotia I taught today that a great blessing of prayer is peace and freedom from anxiety, and then I shared that I didn’t fret about things much any more. Tonight I led a Concert of Prayer for a group of churches that had been at the seminar and gathered together to pray for their city and their churches. At one point I had each of the pastors share one major need or concern for their churches that we could all pray for. Each one shared and then we all prayed for them and then the next one shared. It was a very special time with a great sense of unity being felt and verbalized by all those that were there. Then someone asked if I would share something that was a big need for our church that they could all pray for. I shared about our building needing to be finished by June 23rd before our permit ran out otherwise we would have to start all over with another building permit, plans review, and lots of extra costs which could include major changes because of changes in building codes since we first took out the building permit 8 years ago. I said that if we ended up having to do that, that I thought I would just shoot myself. People prayed sincerely for me and our church and that we would indeed finish the building. Afterwards an older lady came up and said that she was bothered by my statement that I would shoot myself in light of what I had been teaching that day about my level of peace and freedom from anxiety. I felt duly reproved for my poor use of words, and told her she was right, that I was sorry that in an attempt to be funny I had been unwise in saying that, and then I said Thank you for being willing to share with me and help me. She smiled and said “you are welcome” and then She said that she would faithfully pray for me that God would do wonderful things through my life.

I left Seattle at 7:00 pm and flew to Vancouver, BC, and then after a 2 hour layover flew to Toranto and then after another 2 hour layover landed in Halifax at 11 am. Started the seminar that I am teaching at 7 pm tonight and now I am laying in my bed in a nice Motel watching the NBA championships between the Warriors and the Cavaliers. In spite of being really tired the first evening of the seminar went very well. People were blessed and it was very obvious that God was working in the lives of those that were there. I speak all day tomorrow and all day on Saturday and Sunday morning and then home. I am praying that God works through me and in the lives of those who are here. There are a lot of senior and retired people at the seminar who want God to use their life now that they aren’t working full time and who believe that devoting lots of time to prayer would be the best way to make their life count for eternity. Great group to teach.

We drove to Seattle to attend a mariner baseball game today. “We” being a number of our JBC staff, Mike Dedera, Jonathon Hendersen, Seth Duke, and I. Allan Hanselman went as well and he is the one who paid for everything. He has taken me and various staff every year as a gift of appreciation for us. When we got to Seattle about an hour before the game started, we drove around looking for a parking spot. We drove and looked, and drove and looked some more but we didn’t find any. After awhile we finally found a spot a long way from the game. By the time we walked to the game it was half over. After the game they dropped me off at Sea-tac airport to fly to Halifax to teach my seminar. I am sitting in the airport as I write this working hard to stay awake until I am on the plane. It takes 14 hours with layovers to get there so I should have plenty of time to sleep. I am praying that God bless me and speaks through me so that the churches that I speak to would grow substantially in their devotion and faith in the power of prayer. I don’t like to travel any more, but I still do if I believe that God is giving me a chance to serve Him by making a difference in people and churches. My personal mission statement is “I will be devoted to prayer and I will work hard to influence as many as I can to also be devoted to prayer”. Prayer will change the world.

Last week I bought two recumbent exercise bikes. The first one on ebay for $97 and then a couple days later having forgotten that I bought it I bought a second one on Craig’s list for $100. They are identical. I felt so stupid. But the good news is three different people want to buy the extra one from me. I am leaving tomorrow for Halifax, Nova Scotia to teach on prayer, leadership, and some other church health principles to a number of churches who will come together for this 3 day seminar. I will speak for 15 hours. About a month ago I bought the airplane ticket. Today as I was looking them up to print off, I discovered I bought two tickets. Man, I can’t believe I did that. I am not sure if it is safe for me to travel off to Nova Scotia by myself or not. I might forget where I live!! I think what the problem is, is that I have been declaring in the morning that my intent is to “walk humbly with my God”, and He is helping to do that! When I get to heaven I will have a perfect mind, and I will probably laugh at myself for at least the first year I am there as I remember perfectly all the dumb things I did while on earth that I am not aware of now. If you are friends with me, do me a favor and check up on me occasionally.