i got my little fishes today. 110 little 1 inch tilapia are in my 300 gallon plastic tank that is half buried in the ground in my greenhose. The water from the fish tank gets pumped my 4 grow beds that are filled with 3/4 inch gravel and then drains out and goes back to the fish tank. I am planting all kinds of vegetables in my grow beds that will use the nutrients from the fish poop and will grow fast. I will soon be eating fish and vegetables from my little 10×14 foot greenhouse. I have so much fun researching all the components and details on how to do aquaponics. Learning new things is very exilerating.  I wonder how it will be in heaven with all the new sights and revelations and a mind that is not cluttered with sin and will be perfect. Now that is going to be fun!!

i heard a speaker a year ago say we shouldn’t worry about trying to please  the Lord because He has accepted us just as we are. I thought to myself, “Everything I do is an attempt to please the Lord”. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:9 “it is my ambition whether in this life or the next to please the Lord in all that I do”.  I don’t work at pleasing the Lord to be accepted, but because I love Him with all my heart and that is what a person who loves someone does. Over the years I ask the question more and more, “What really pleases the Lord a lot?” That question probably guides my decision making more than anything else. I have come to the conclusion that I can sense the Lord’s pleasure in me more than anything else. When Jesus was baptized the Father spoke from heaven, “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”. God communicates His pleasure in us. If we don’t have pleasing Him at the top of our mind you won’t even know why you are feeling joy, you will think it is because of an event or something that you ate. “Entering into the joy of our master” is the main reward for faithfulness Matthew 25:21.

as I have asked that question over and over every day I have come to the conclusion that right at the top of the list of activities that please the Lord with me is when I love my wife sacrificially and unconditionally. That means I work hard at making her very happy with my words, my actions, and my attentiveness. That means that I work hard at making my wife the happiest person on the earth even when she is grumpy, or not feeling good, or distracted with grandkids. I am to love my wife the way Jesus loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.

So many men blame their wife for the quality of their marriage and nag at them and get upset at them. It not only doesn’t change anything they a. re very displeasing to the Lord, and will feel it. That inner sense of failure they often blame on their wives as well.

it is January 2nd. It would be a good to change our attitude by making some measurable goals that focus on making our wife the happiest person on the planet. If you don’t know what that is ask her.

I had a blast watching the Oregon Duck football team soundly beat Florida State. The last years Heisman trophy winner the quarter back for Florida State playing this years Heisman’s winner, quarter back for Oregon. There was lots of drama as last years National Champion that was unbeaten this year played Oregon. I also watched a game before the Rose Bowl and then watched the Sugar bowl with the second half of the national championship being determined. Looks like Oregon and Ohio State are going to play for the right to be the National Champion January 12th. It was one of those fun, lazy days of sitting around most of the day watching football and eating to much but not really feeling to guilty about it. Tomorrow I will get back after it. A day like today is very effective in filling up my gas tank and giving me renewed energy. I have learned that If I am going to run with endurance the race God has set before me that I need to systematically rest. Today was a nice rest day.

It is 12:30 am January 1st 2015. A new year. New is a nice, comfortable word. New car, new cloths, new house, new beginning.  New suggests that the past is gone and forgotten. With most of us there are so many things that we wish we could forget, but they seem to keep popping up in our mind. A neat verse is the one that says  ” God casts our sins into the deepest ocean never to remember them again”. Wow, I wish I could forget my own sins he way God does mine. But by faith I will believe that God has forgiven and that I am clean in His eyes. I am looking forward to this new year. I am believing that God is going to do some great works through me because I believe and trust in Him.

one of the basic laws of life that God created is that what you sow is what you reap. What you give away is what you receive back. How you treat others is how you will be treated. One of the most important of these “sowing and reaping” laws is, ” How much we honor God is how much we will be honored by others”,  especially those closest to us. We honor God by giving Him time. Time reading His Word to us. Time praying to, about our life and for others in our life. We honor God by thanking Him and worshiping Him well. It is so easy to ignore God, take Him for granted, give him very little time and what we do give Him being left over and convienant. And we treat almighty, holy God this way because we are busy and entangled in the world seeking our joy. When we dishonor God we will be dis honored by others. Husbands crave being respected and honored by their wives, the glory of a man is his wife. But if a man neglects God he will be very unhappy with the way his wife treats him. He will fuss and rant and complain, but he is reaping what he is showing. God can change our wives in a heart beat, and He will for the man who loves Him, seeks Him, and serves Him. Every time I feel slighted by my wife I pray and confess to my Heavenly Father that I have been rude to Him because of my business, and I repent and commit to Him that I will do better at keeping Him first place in my life. It is amazing how wonderful my wife makes me feel by her words and actions after that.

One of my characteristics is that I have a very strong “Wanter”. If I have a desire to do something, to accomplish something, to acquire something I am generally very passionate about it to the point of being obsessed. Most of the things I do I am pretty mechanical, routine, systematic, and duty driven about, almost boring. But then there are the those few things that fill me with an intense longing  to the point that it consumes much of my thinking. A major good thing is at this point in my life I can choose what those things are. I am not a victim of sales people or slick advertisements. I have also learned that I can overload my “Wanter” and become irresponsible and out of balance in my life if I am not careful. The tool that I use very effectively to choose what I obsess about and how much I obsess are the goals that I write for myself each year. I write them carefully having thought and prayed about them for months, and once written I read them everyday which is what really cranks up the passion level. It is fun to live life motivated and excited about some things that I want with a white hot desire. This time of year a hot fire in the stove in our living room is very nice, and a hot fire inside of me feels so good.

I watched football most of the afternoon as the Seahawks beat the Rams and I am anticipating watching football much of the day on New Years hoping that The Oregon Ducks will beat Florida State in the Rose Bowl in the first ever College Football playoffs.

The Apostle Paul as he wrote much of the New Testament in the Bible used Sports as an illustration of living life numerous times. I think that football is a great illustration or picture of the constant battle that life is. On one side of the line of scrimmage is the devil and his demons and on the other side is the church. The kingdom of darkness has schemes and plans that they attempt to run to beat us. Paul’s admonition is to stand strong against the schemes of the evil one. The unity of the church is it’s greatest strength, and the involvement of all those on the team.

I am to old to play real football, but I really like being on God’s team and I really like the idea of stomping the devil and his team.

My own sermons always impact me usually convicting me more than anybody else who listens to them. Most of the impact happens when I am studying and writing during the week. Tonight as I preached I was also an active listener,  and I was greatly motivated by the words that  God through the Holy Spirit was giving me. At one point I thought, boy, I hope others that are listening are as stirred up by these words as I am.  I so much want to be a man of great faith, and that desire was ratcheted up several notches tonight. I wonder what will happen in my heart tomorrow after preaching two more times. Whooooeeeee!!

Went to the movie “Unbroken” tonight. I had read the book last year and it was an amazingly good book.  It is a true story about an American who was a Olympic star as a long distance runner, who went into the Second World War as a bombardier, crashed at sea, was in a rubber raft for 47 days, rescued and captured by the Japanese and then was tortured and treated very inhumanly for over 3 years as a prisoner of war in Japan. It is a very good movie about a man who is incredibly strong in heart and will. In the book, but not in the movie, he comes home from the war and becomes an alcoholic and is close to ruining his life and marriage when he goes to a Biily Graham revival and trusts Jesus as his savior. He goes home and pours all his liquor down the drain and becomes a completely new person. He goes back to Japan and forgives all those who tortured him. I highly recommend the movie. It will make you feel really good.  Louis Zampareni died a few months ago at 97 years of age. A true tough guy.

Nice time today celebrating Christmas with a bunch of family here. Ate a lot and then ate some more. Opened presents and that is so much fun watching the grandkids get all excited. The boys all got Leggo’s, that was easy. The kids got together and bought me a present. A fish cleaning table to put in my greenhouse where I will be raising my Tilapia as part of my aquaponics system. I was planning on cleaning them in Patty’s kitchen on the counter top next to the sink where I have always cleaned fish. I think maybe my present was really Patty’s present, she seemed very happy with it😄 . Being a pastor we have never made very much money, and with this Parkinson’s thing and other issues my health is a constant nuisance, but I consider myself incredibly blessed by the Lord because of my family. I would never trade wealth or good health or anything else for my experience today for half a day with my family.