I have dropped my phone so many times. When I bend over it just slides out of my pocket. But it has just kept on working, until a couple of days ago, and it started acting weird. So I was eligible for an upgrade so I got a new phone, an Iphone 6 plus. I fiddled with it for hours last night getting everything switched over, and getting it to do everything I wanted out of a good smart phone, my second brain. This morning I had a Men’s Accountability mee. ting in Salem at 6 am and then a 7 am appointment both at Shari’s Resturant. I set the alarm on my new phone for 5 am, and woke up this morning at 7:15 am. Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhh I felt so irresponsible and stupid when I woke up and looked at the time. How did this happen???? I guess there a few more bells and whistles on this new phone that I hadn’t discovered, and one was shutting off all phone noises while it’s owner was sleeping so he wouldn’t get disturbed. It was set to go off at 8 am. I texted and phoned all who had been expecting me but didn’t see me with my pathetic excuse for irresponsible living. My oh my, God uses even cell phones, even nice new ones to keep us humble.

I lift  weights almost every night for 30 minutes. I do 5 reps and then work on my memory verses for 5 minutes than I do 5 reps again until my 30 minutes are up.  Each night I do a different lift, I have 6 different ones I do each week with one day off. I ride my bicycle every night for 40 minutes and have my iPad on a music stand and read my Bible during the riding. I get 16 chapters read each evening while I pedal my brains out. I also run on  my treadmill each evening and listen to a sermon by Bill Hybels, or Andy Stanley, or John Ortberg, or john Piper while I run. A sermon a night from a super good preacher and 45 minutes of hard exercise.  Whooooooeeeeeeee makes me tired reading over what I just wrote. Boy it sure would be nice if Jesus would come back tonight.

A lot of my pastor friends who are my age are retiring. One said, “I am so tired all the time that I have no vision for the future of our church other than the status quo, and they deserve better than that.”  I was especially tired and weary today, and I started thinking how nice it would be to not be running and pushing and dreaming all the time for more fruit, more people to love Jesus, more sermons, more outreach events. I could sleep in every day, leisurely read and pray then take a nap. I don’t like to be in a state of indecision for very long so I tend to decide and then drive a stake in the ground figuratively speaking, that is I make the decision resolute enough that I don’t go back and revisit it over and over again. So I decided that I have a lot of juice left in me, I know more about the Bible than I ever have, that I can rest when I get to heaven. So I decided that health permitting I will go as hard as I can for at least another 12 years. I will be 78 years old and 50’years in ministry at JBC. If I am still alive by then I might retire then or maybe decide that I will go until I am 82, that is the age Caleb was in the book of Joshua when he said, ” give me that mountain to conquor, I am as strong today as I was when I was 40″.  I am praying that Jesus comes back tonight!!

I bought an airow gun today online.  It is a contraption that fastens on my bow and the bow string pushes a plunger instead of an arrow. The plunger goes into a cylinder which creates great air pressure and shoots a 22 caliber pellet. It is great for shooting indoors in the winter to keep the muscles in shape and the old shooting eye sharp. I have wanted one for awhile now and going up to the Sportsman’s Show in Portland followed by a couple of hours walking around in Cabella’s got the hunting juices going pretty good. In a fit of lustful desire I bought it. It will come in a couple of days. So was that a bad thing to do? I haven’t told Patty yet. Probably not a bad thing, but if I did something like that every night it certainly would be in regards to financial wisdom.

When my Dad was dying from liver cancer one of the problems we had  while taking care of him was in the last weeks of his life he wouldn’t eat, because he had no appetite. Yesterday I wrote that I was deciding what my cravings would be.  I want to thirst for God, hunger and thirst for righteousness, I want to desire very much to bear much fruit and more fruit, I want my wife to be the happiest woman on the face of the earth because I love her so much, and I want to be a super Dad and grandfather to my kids and grandkids.

Cancer destroyed my Dad’s desire for food. I believe that my desire for God, holiness, significant accomplishments, and a great family is destroyed by the world and the stuff in it. When I desire the wrong things my desire for the right things will grow weak.  John in the New Testament says that we can’t love the world and God at the same time. As our love for the world goes up our love for God goes down. The tricky part of managing this is that the stuff in the world is not bad or sinful, it is just stuff that I begin to think I can’t live without. We all have some stuff.

Lust is craving the wrong things. Lust left unchecked will grow stronger and stronger. We were created to desire and want and to dream. It is a sad thing to see when my desire for God and the dreams I have to do something great with my life morph into lusting after material possessions that are cool, but empty.

I can’t wait for my airow gun to come!!

I am reaing a book now called “Habits”.  The basic premise of the book is that we can change our performance by changing our habits. The key to establishing a good habit is to identify a craving that we have and connect the habit to the craving in our mind and then anticipate the reward of the craving being satisfied when we do what we are trying to establish as a habit. Interesting question to reflect on, “what are my cravings”? I decided that I would declare what my cravings are because that is what I want them to be not what my flesh craves.

The ultimate craving of my life is God. I want to know Him more. I want to sense His presence around me more. I want to sense His pleasure in me more. Psalms 42:1-2, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”. So I will verbally reward myself when I read the Bible that I have grown closer to God. I will declare  when I worship well at church gatherings that I have indeed grown closer to God. I have a list of spiritual disciplines that I want to establish as strong habits in my life that I know would result in a growing intimacy with God.

Other cravings; I crave to be more and more righteous and holy in my heart, my character. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they shall be satisfied”.  I crave to do more and more with my life that matters for all eternity. To do more with my life that influences people to move closer and closer to God. I want to bear much fruit for God. I want to accomplish more in the next ten years of my life than I have in the previous 38 years of ministry. I want to love my wife the way Jesus loves the church. I want to be the kind of father to my children and grandfather to my grandchildren  that God is to me.

Those sound like good cravings to me. I think I will pursue them diligently.

I lost 45 lbs on my bicycle trip to Portland, Maine, 230 lbs to 185 lbs. I have been determined not to gain any back. It was to painful to lose. Tonight I weighed in at 200 lbs, I have gained 15 lbs back!!! I am so disgusted with myself, I can’t believe I have let this happen!!! I am committing to ramp up the exercise and really take control of my eating. I can’t lose this contest with my own flesh! Help me Lord!

I went to my first Sportsman’s Show in Portland in 1965 with my Dad. I think I have only missed one since then. The first ever Sportsman’s Show in Portland was February 22nd, 1923.  It is a very fun and enjoyable event for me today.  I think that one of the reasons that I just have positive “vibes” about this event is because of going to it with my Dad and how much he enjoyed it and I enjoyed just being with him at something like this. Went today with three other good friends and we walked around and looked at all the stuff and then we went to the new Cabella’s in Tualatin and walked around in there for several hours and then we went out to dinner and had “Baby Back Ribs”.  I  bought a new steelhead fishing rod and reel for my grandson that I am taking to Alaska with me in July. It is a nice rod and reel, and I can’t wait to give it to him.  Life at times is very hard, but then there are days like today that are very good and tons of fun.  On fun days I thank God for His great gift to me and on very hard days I ask God for His strength to bear up the trials with dignity and grace and joy. Day and night, summer and winter, sun shine and rain. that is life. Today was a sunshine day, thank you Lord. A day full of trials is coming, I will not recieve one from You without being willing to take the other as well. I trust You totally with my life, and I am commited to never grumbling but only rejoicing and giving thanks.

One of the questions that I get asked often is “How do I change” to become the person I want to be? Over the years I have refined my answer as I have learned and observed people who fail and those who succeed and also what has worked in my own life. The simple but accurate answer is that we change the same way we learn to play the piano, we practice daily and diligently. We practice the basic disciplines of the Christian life until they become habits. If we practice the piano long enough we will become a very good player who can play effortlessly and very beautifully. If we establish the disciplines of Bible reading, prayer, self examination/confessin of sin, giving, worship, gathering together with other believers and seeking wisdom as habits because we have done them everyday for a period of time, we will grow and change steadily with no turning back. And the cool thing is that the change and growth will appear to be effortless. Trying harder is not part of the equation, but faithfully, daily practicing the disciiplines of the Christian life is.  You become a “self feeder” after awhile, and growth in character is a daily experience. I read my Bible every day, I pray every day, I end every day with a short time of examining my life and confessing all known sin, I commit to not grumbling about anything but thanking God for everything.  Those are not hard, sort of like brushing your teeth, just a discipline that if practiced long enough results in a very godly person. That is what I want to become.

One of the fun things about the “Prayer Summit ” is the friends I have made over the years and the opportunity to hang out with them here when I haven’t seen them since last year. One of the problems of life as I get older is I have a hard time remembering all of my friends. It is so frustrating to be sitting worshipping and praying with a bunch of guys looking around the room struggling to remember the names of many of them. I am pretty sure that when we get to eternity with our new glorified body that is like Jesus’s body I won’t have a memory problem. I will be able to remember every detail of every minute of my life along with names. Even though heaven will be heaven I think that my perfect memory will include sad things as well as happy things. I think my memories will include total recall of my failures and mess ups. Those memories will probably increase my praise for the Lord that I am actually in His presence because of what He did to pay for my sins. I sure wonder a lot about the details of eternity. Won’t be long now!

God manifests Himself in our life through people. God most often speaks to us through people. Our love for God is expressed in our love for people. John says to us in his Epistle 1 John, “how can you say you love God, whom you can’t see, when you don’t love your brother whom you can see?”

Today was the second day at the “Pastors Prayer Summit” at Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center. As I worshiped with, and prayed with, and ate with, and visited with 80 plus pastors I truly have had a blessed time with God that has been super refreshing for me. I hope I have had as much “God influence” on others as they have had on me.

in the evenings after everything is over it has been a joy to read the Bible, pray,  think and reflect after such a blessed day. I am looking forward to tomorrow.