Proverbs 17:6 says that “grandchildren are the crown of old men”. I took my grandson Isaac fishing today with four other men from JBC on a guided fishing trip on the Colombia River for Shad. We caught 70 Shad and had a great time. When we first got to where we were going to fish the guide rigged up Isaacs rod first and put it out and into the rod holder. 30 seconds later the rod tip went down into the water and the guide yelled that is a salmon. He took the rod out of the holder and handed it to Isaac and coached him on how to fight it. The rods we were using were light weight with 8 lb test line and he commented that hook ups with salmon while Shad fishing were not uncommon but they were seldom landed because of the light gear. He continued to coach Isaac while also keeping the boat close to the salmon using the trolling motor. It was so fun to see that salmon in the net and then for our guide to announce that the fish was fin clipped and that we could keep it. I was very proud of Isaac for several reasons, one was that he had to work super hard holding that rod up and fight that big fish for probably 20 minutes and never said a word about being tired, and second he listened very carefully to the guide as he coached him and followed instructions to the letter. For the rest of the day as we fished for Shad he fit in well with the other men carrying on conversations like one of the guys. With each fish that was netted he would stick his finger in its gills and pack it to the fish box returning with a fresh count on how many fish were in the box. It rained hard for about an hour and his rain coat leaked badly and he was very wet for the next several hours. I could see he was cold and tired but he never complained, and when I offered him my coat he said he would be OK. “Grandchildren are the crown of old men”

Number 22 Grandbaby was born on Friday night. 7 pounds and 22 inches is what I think I read. Son in law Philip and daughter Shelly added a baby girl to their family and now have 3 boys and 2 girls. Her name is Kasey Marta Crabb, and I am sure she will grow up to be a champion for Jesus because I am going to pray for her every day. One of my key verses that I meditate on as a parent and grandparent is Psalms 112:1-2

How blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
Who greatly delights in His commandments.
His descendants will be mighty on earth;
The generation of the upright will be blessed.

I am not sure exactly what it means to be mighty on the earth, but it sounds like something that I would like for my children and grandchildren. My part of the deal is to fear the Lord and then this promise is mine. Because there are so many promises in the Bible for the person who fears the Lord, I have studied all the verses on fearing the Lord and have meditated on them at length. My conclusion is that fearing the Lord is like the white light that goes into a prism and the colors that together make that white light are separated into the colors of the rainbow. Fearing the Lord is a big, all conclusive command that has a number of smaller disciplines in it. I have divided fearing God into five parts, one for each finger so I can remember them easier.
(1) Jesus is Lord of my life. He is the King that sits on the throne that is in my heart. I am committed to doing his will for myself no mater how hard it might be because He is God, creator, savior.
(2) I will trust Him with my life and the details of my life every day. That means I will not fret or worry because He is in control. That means that I will not whine, complain or grumble because He is causing all things to work together for good.
(3) I will seek the Lord with all of my heart Psalms 63:1 will be me.
​O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.

I will seek Him by reading His Word everyday. I will seek Him by spending time with Him in prayer everyday. I will seek Him by gathering faithfully each week to worship and praise Him.
(4) To fear the Lord is to hate the sin in my life as much as He does. I will examine my life for sin and confess all known sin to God every day.
(5) I will declare my love for God daily.

Everybody does it, but I think especially older people will sit and think about the past. The fishing has been slow so as I sit and wait for a fish to bite I think, and today for some reason I have been replaying events from my past. There are many things that are fun to think about, most of those revolve around family, but today for some reason I got started thinking about poor choices and mistakes that I have made. In some instances they resulted in loss of accomplishment or money, in others the bad choice resulted in being at a different place now then I would have been, but in most cases the mistake resulted in relational consequences where people no longer liked me and in some instances were so hurt or upset at me that they haven’t talked to me since. In thinking about these past events I recognized that most were the result of lack of wisdom. I can’t remember any of my many bad choices being the result of meanness or vindictiveness or with an intent to hurt. I just didn’t know any better. As John Wayne would say, “What a stupid thing to do”. I wish I could have a “do over” on all of those stupid words, decisions, and actions of the past. In thinking about these many black marks in my history the main thing I would do differently if I could relive my past would be to get much more counsel and mentoring than I did. I would ask for advice constantly from old people who had already done the stupid things that I was about to do. My pride, arrogance, and “know it all” attitude was the barrier to that happening in my past. As I counsel, mentor, and give advice now as a Pastor much of it comes from the wisdom gained from my own failures, so some good is coming from them.

One of the four guys I am fishing with in Minnesota had to leave early today and the two other guys drove him to the airport a couple hours drive. I stayed behind to fish but the wind was blowing so hard that fishing was near impossible so I sat in our little rental house and read and prayed. I have a prayer program on my IPad that has every person in our church including most who have visited in the last three months in it along with pictures for most of them that I get off of facebook and taking pictures of them with my phone. My goal is to pray through it each week, but sometimes when I am on a fishing or hunting trip I don’t get it done. I prayed through about a quarter of everyone on the airplane trip here and got through the rest of it today. There is always a great sense of significant accomplishment when I get to the last person in my prayer journal each week. I really believe that I sense God’s pleasure in me for the time that I take to intercede for the well-being of those in my journal. I am quit sure that when I get to heaven that I will find that the time I spent praying for people was the most effective thing I did with my life. I didn’t catch any fish today, but it was a very good day.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that people with Parkinson’s often get Dementia. I have been spending over 30 minutes every day memorizing scripture to help keep my mind sharp, but I did something this last week that flustered me. I have been looking for a recumbent stationary exercise bike because it is so much more comfortable to spend hours riding and I can read on it easier as well. I found a good one on Craig’s list and phoned my son Seth if he could go pick it up and pay for it. It was an hours drive but he said he could do it. Today I got an email telling me that the one that I bought last week on ebay was shipping today. You have to be kidding me!! I forgot all about that one!! Now I have two good recumbent exercise bikes. Oh well, I will see if I can sell one on Craig’s list for $30 more than I paid for it. I hope I don’t get confused and sell them both😳 I guess I better up my memorizing time to an hour a day!

While fishing for Walleyes and Pike I had a little minnow on a hook for bait. I casted it out and at the same time this Cormerant, a big bird like a duck but the size of a goose dived under the water looking for a fish to eat and spotted my bait fish and ate it. As the bird underwater started swimming furiously away I thought I had a huge fish on and began to fight it thinking it was going to be a huge one. When the bird surfaced and started flying it pulled so hard it broke my fishing rod and stripped most of the line off my real before I managed to break the line. As I was getting my extra rod and getting it set up to continue fishing I thought of how often that happens in life. You are all excited because it seems something really good is going to happen only to have it turn into just the opposite. What do you do now? Go get the backup rod, and go back to fishing. Many people are paralyzed by self pity, shock, anger, or bitterness when an apparent big fish turns into an ugly bird and a broken fishing rod. Happy, successful people have learned to rejoice always, no matter what happens, to never grumble or feel sorry for themselves, and to be decisive in choices that lead to recovery and conquest.

Fished most of the day today, and we just finished eating dinner and we ate so much of the fish that we caught that I am hardly able to get out of my chair I am so stuffed. We are going out pretty soon to fish some more for cat fish. I haven’t caught any of that yet on this trip. It quit raining about 10 am and the weather has gotten nicer and nicer. Lots of people here fishing on Memorial Day weekend and one thing about it is that people who fish are some of the nicest people there are. One of my principles of managing the pressures of life so that they don’t turn into stress is have an activity that is renewing so that your emotional gas tank is always full. There isn’t much that renews me as effectively as fishing does. One of the greatest barriers to accomplishing a lot with your life is the inability to manage pressure without it turning to stress. My motto is “pressure is part of the job and the bigger and more significant the job the more the pressure, but stress is optional. I can lead a stress free life if I manage pressure well and a significant part of managing pressure is knowing how to renew yourself. “Thou shalt fish”

Many people don’t set goals or have dreams because the pain and disappointment of unrealized goals, dreams and desires is to painful so they just respond to life and take whatever happens and call it the will of God. We were created by God to conquor, to fight, to win, to dream and aspire, to want. Those who want the most pray the most, those who want the most work the hardest, and those who want the most endure and don’t quit. The key is to maintain joy in spite of the pain of unrealized goals by finding things to rejoice over. All of that to introduce the news that I didn’t catch 100 fish today. I caught two of the nicest, prettiest, fightingest Northern Pike so I am happy, not satisfied but I will catch more tomorrow.

I left our house this morning at 3:30 am and I am now sitting in a house at a resort on Osakis Lake, Minnesota and it is 11:00 pm. Tomorrow will be fishing all day and hopefully We will catch lots and lots of fish. We will be fishing for walleye, northern pike, cat fish, bass, crappie, and Muskie. My plan is to catch and release everything I catch tomorrow, and my goal is to catch 100 fish. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it!?!? Yep, it is, but if I fish for 12 hours that is 8 fish an hour or a fish every 7.5 minutes. I can do that if I don’t goof off with to much eating, drinking coffee, talking with other fishermen. I walked out on one of the docks that had a light and a bench on it for night fishing and the bugs around the light were a huge, thick, buzzing cloud. It was hard to breath without sucking in a bunch of bugs. That is to bad, I thought I could increase the odds of getting 100 fish if I could get in 16 or 18 hours of fishing. When Jesus called His disciples He promised them that He would make them a fisher of men. On two different occasions Jesus told the disciples where to cast their nets as they fished in the Sea of Galilee and the result was a huge catch of fish. Jesus was illustrating that if we do what He says as He teaches us the skill of fishing for people, and work hard he will provide opportunities, open doors, and responsive people. To be a follower of Jesus is to be a fisher of people.

I had set out six traps after the gopher that was plowing up our front yard. I would rake down the mounds of dirt and set the traps in the freshest mounds each time using a little different technique and then this morning as I walked out to check my trap line I could see one of the gallon cans that I had the traps tied to up on its end. I let out a whoop of conquest and drug the little critter out of the hole. I have 4 different kinds of traps and I have caught every one of the gophers and moles that I have trapped in the same kind of trap. It is called a “gophenator trap” and I found it and bought it on-line. I am ordering 2 more. One of my life motto’s has been, “Man was created by God to find a cave with a bear in it, drive out the bear and live in the cave”. I am changing it to “Man was created by God to capture every mole and gopher on the planet earth and destroy them!” Some days are bad days, some days are so so days, and then some days are super! Today was a super day. I am going to bed knowing I have conquored my mortal enemy!