Patty and I have been in Palm Springs this past week with our daughter Hanna, her husband, and our three grandkids. We swam in the heated pool just outside our back door, sat in the hot tub, golfed, played horseshoes, played pinochle and hearts, ate often, and slept into nine. We leave tomorrow and head back home, and it has been a wonderful time with our family. Tonight, we all sat around a fire outside and shared our favorite time of the week. The kids said Lego Land was a highlight for them; for me, it was being with all of them. I also enjoyed the extra time to read good books, write, and watch basketball on TV. We don’t have a TV at home, so we attempted to watch some good programs in the evening together; I say attempted because Patty would fall asleep, so I would turn it off and go back to reading.

My dad was in the Navy for 22 years and retired when I was 12. During those 12 years, he was on an aircraft carrier much of the time, and we traveled up and down the West Coast following the ship. We moved over 20 times in those twelve years of my life, and because of that, I didn’t make many friends or have much of a social life outside of school and family. We didn’t have a television, so I did a lot of reading. Mom would check out a box of books for me, and I would read them, and then she would check out some more. I became an avid reader early in life, and I still am.

The earliest writing discovered is from around 3,400 years BC. Moses wrote the first five books in the Bible around 1400 BC. Writing has been God’s method of recording history and communicating with people. He is the one who created our brains, so we should know that we were created to read.

Most of us learn to read early in school, but many rarely read after school years because of television or the business of life. Reading is a discipline that I believe we ought to pursue. We need to set reading goals for the Bible and goals to read other good books to grow in wisdom and character. If you are a poor reader, read, and you will become a good reader. Listen to and read a book simultaneously to increase reading comprehension and speed.

My goal is to read 100 pages each week. That is not a big goal by the standards of many avid readers, but it is above average. Most successful people in every area of life are readers. Harry Truman said, “Not all readers are readers, but all leaders are readers.” Set a goal, start small, like ten pages a week, and then gradually increase it. Read books on how to have a good marriage, how to raise good kids, how to manage your money, and how to catch more fish.

I have never said anything negative about my Mom or my Dad. I have told funny stories about them, but never in a way that dishonored them. The command to honor our Father and our Mother is repeated in the Bible eight times, and it is one of those emphatic commands with many rewards for obeying and severe consequences for disobeying. I tell many stories about my parents, especially my Dad, in my sermons and lessons. At the end of a leadership class I was teaching, one of the guys in the class came up to me and said,” I wish I could have met your Dad; he seems almost superhuman from your stories.” The comment was a bit of a shock to me because, despite my stories, my Dad was a pretty ordinary person. He was an introvert; he didn’t enjoy being around many people, he was shy, wouldn’t talk in front of people, was small in stature, didn’t like being honored or singled out in a group, wasn’t a natural leader, didn’t play any sports, and only made it through the sixth grade in school. I know that the stories about my Dad’s wisdom, accomplishments, and influence on my life have grown over the years of my telling them, and my Dad has become almost superhuman in my stories because he is that in my memories. I am sure that a significant reason for that and why I tell so many positive stories about him is because I know that my Dad’s influence is much of who I am today in character. The older I get, the more I realize that and the more I want to honor him. I get much joy from telling a story about my Dad that makes him appear more significant than John Wayne. I hear of many families where the kids and parents aren’t speaking to each other. Many critical statements are made by parents about their kids and kids about their parents. I feel so blessed to have such a positive and godly heritage and that we have such a good relationship with our kids. This last week, we have been with our daughter Hanna, her husband, and three kids in Palm Springs, and it has been such a blessed time. Thank You, Lord, for my Mom, Dad, and our family. I am a very blessed man.

There are several recliners in this nice condo we are staying at while having fun with our family in Southern California, but I’m not too fond of either one. The back only goes up to the base of my neck, so you can’t put your head back, meaning I can’t nap in them. My recliner at home has a back that goes up to the top of my head, and the top part behind my head has its own adjustment, so I can get it to fit me perfectly, and I can take a really nice nap in it. A recliner that you can’t take a nap in is useless.

One of the things that I have learned in life is that comfort is relative. Our bicycle trip is coming up in a month, and because we won’t have a support vehicle with us, we will carry everything we need on our bicycles for 44 days. Because we have to carry everything on our bikes, weight is important, so I have a folding three-legged stool that weighs 1 pound. It is much less comfortable than the recliner that I am now sitting in, but it is much nicer than the ground, and I will appreciate it.

God designed life as a whole to be uncomfortable and full of trials and problems so that we would grow in character to be like Jesus, and also so that we would desire heaven and look forward to it. Life in heaven is going to be a million, billion times better than the best day on earth, and no recliner on earth will equal the one I will have in heaven.

The key to growing in character is to enjoy whatever recliner I have, not grumbling and complaining about anything, rejoicing about everything, and being very thankful for all I have from the Lord at any given time. It’s not easy because we are naturally discontent, greedy, and unappreciative of almost everything, but I can do it if I train myself to be content and grateful always.

Patty and I are on a trip with our daughter Hanna and her family near Palm Springs, California. This morning, we got up and went to a church near where we were staying. I always enjoy visiting other churches, seeing how they do things, and listening to different pastors preach. One of the things that I am careful about is not letting my basic disciplines slip when on a vacation or trip. It is easy to do and easy to justify and excuse. I read my Bible yesterday on the plane, did lots of scripture memory, and spent time praying and reading once we got to our condo last night. Because of lots to do and hectic schedules on trips like this, it is easy to let the disciplines slip. Also, the total change in our routine contributes to our failure to practice our spiritual disciplines faithfully. Probably the main reason many don’t attend church, read their Bibles, spend time in Prayer, memorize scripture, and read in good Christian books or listen to good podcasts and recordings of sound Bible teaching is because they are on vacation. Because we are on vacation from our everyday life at home, we also tend to take a vacation from our spiritual life. The problem is that the devil and his demons don’t ever take a vacation, and in fact, they aren’t dummies; they know that when we take a break from our spiritual disciplines is when we are easy prey, so they will double their efforts to get us to backside.

I have messed up many times on trips like this in the past. My worst compromises happen on hunting and fishing trips when I am so focused on pursuing fish or elk that I just forget about the disciplines. It helps if, before a trip, I commit to be faithful no matter what. Sometimes, it works, and sometimes, the elk and fish win.

We are on an airplane headed for Palm Springs to spend a week with our daughter Hanna, her husband Kyle, and three grandkids. We will stay at Indio Springs, a resort with a very nice swimming pool and two golf courses near where We will be staying. I am anticipating that we will have a great time this next week.

Our plane was supposed to depart at 4:00 pm, but it is now 5:00 pm, and we have not yet taken off. The reason is that our plane landed here in Portland an hour late, so naturally, we were an hour late when we took off​. Was it God’s initial will that we took off at 4:00 pm? The flight before us affected our departure time, and we will impact the flight after us.

Let’s pretend that it was God’s primary will that I married Patty Buckner. But she went against God’s will and married Joe Jones. So I could no longer marry Patty Buckner, so I married Patty Burtner instead, who was supposed to marry Zeke Dude. So because one person messed up, the whole world had to slide over one place.

There is an event in the Book of Acts that is similar. Paul gets a message from God saying everyone on the ship will be saved, and then, as some of the men are trying to escape the ship in the storm, Paul says that if they leave the ship, the end of the story, as it were, gets changed.

Acts 27:22 Yet now I urge you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.

Acts 27:30-31 But as the sailors were trying to escape from the ship and had let down the ship’s boat into the sea, on the pretense of intending to lay out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, “Unless these men remain in the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved.”

God is sovereign, but it seems like God gives much freedom to us humans, and as a result, the story often gets messed up, and we also mess up the stories of others as we move over a spot.

Colossians 1:9 For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Paul prays that those in the Colossian church will know God’s will. Obviously, he wouldn’t have prayed for something guaranteed to happen anyway.

All of that is to say that I can choose to live outside the will of God, but everything will go so much better if I know his will and I live it.

I rode my bicycle 40 miles today. I haven’t ridden my bike that far since last year, when we made our trip down the Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico. I was exhausted when I got home, and as I sat in my recliner tonight trying to write this, I kept falling asleep. The worst thing about falling asleep in my recliner is that my mouth falls open, and everyone laughs at me. They have even been known to take my picture while I am sleeping in such an undignified posture. While sleeping, I am relaxed and having a nice rest, totally unaware of what is happening around me while snoozing, totally oblivious to my being the entertainment for everyone in our house.

There is actually a lot happening around us all the time that we are totally unaware of. All kinds of radio waves, cell phone waves, and internet signals are flying around us, and we can’t see, feel, smell, or hear them.

There are also many demons and angels all around us all of the time as well that we can’t see, feel, hear, or smell. Actually, we can hear them in our thoughts, but we are unaware that they are doing it, assuming that all of the things we hear in our head are original from ourselves.

Very few people realize how much these spirit beings control us simply by talking to us. There would be zero control over us if we simply dismissed the thoughts, but we tend to dwell on them and repeat them over and over in our thinking, and it isn’t long before those thoughts direct and influence our lives.

If we read the Bible a lot, memorize it, and meditate on what we have memorized and read, the thoughts popping into our heads from demons wouldn’t stay in our minds very long at all; they would be too foreign, and our brains would kick them out.

The thought of wicked, evil demons putting thoughts into my mind by talking to me makes me more agitated than if I were to eat a big spoon of bacteria and germs. If there is something that I can do to keep those ungodly and sinful thoughts from lodging in me, I will do it diligently.

We aren’t supposed to judge people, but we can’t help but develop some kind of impression of people as we interact with them. Patty and I went out to dinner tonight at a fairly nice restaurant. Our waitress was very friendly and enjoyable to talk to as she served us. I immediately formed a strong impression of her through her words, demeanor, and the personality that came out of her every pore. As we ate and she periodically stopped to see how we were doing, I couldn’t help but wonder how some people end up like her when they become adults, and others end up rude and obnoxious and difficult to be nice to. I am sure much of it is personality, but I also know that we can choose to talk nice to people and work at honoring those we are with even if we don’t know them well or even if we don’t like them.
I think the best training for our self-control and discipline in how we talk to people is to work extra hard at being nice and gracious to those who are rude, obnoxious, and dishonoring to us. Many will exercise enough self-control not to return insult for insult, but we often will be anything but pleasant and gracious in return.

Luke 6:32-33 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

James 3:2 For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.

As I have struggled to figure out what God’s will is for my life over the last 60 years, I have wondered about His methods of guiding. One of them is circumstances that can act like traffic lights or direction arrows in traffic. Circumstances are tricky because the devil can mess with our circumstances, and also we often just read things into the circumstances that God never intended. I frequently recognize the circumstances after deciding, look backward, and recognize that I didn’t choose; God was pushing me in a particular direction.

When I was a senior in High School, I received a letter from the University of Washington offering me a full-ride scholarship. I was one of eight Seniors who met in Vancouver, Washington and rode in a van together to the University of Washington for a four-day school tour. We stayed in the dorm, ate in the cafeteria, went on school tours, and listened to presentations on how great the University was.

My mom bought me a new sports coat for the event. It was corduroy and green, and it had gold-colored buttons. A large fountain was in the center of a plaza with a pool all around the fountain. The pool was about two feet deep, and it had lots of money because of the various coins thrown in. As I walked next to it, one of the buttons on my coat popped off, and I went into the pool. I removed my jacket and long-sleeved shirt and reached into the pool to recover my button. A College Security guy on the other side of the pool started yelling and blowing his whistle as he ran around the pool toward me. Many people were around, and they were all looking at me and the security guy. I pulled my arm out of the water and waited for him to get to where I was. After he yelled at me for a few minutes, I pointed at my button in the water and explained what I was doing. After he yelled at me a little more, telling me I should Have gotten permission first, I asked him if I could retrieve my button, and he said yes. He even got a towel for me to dry off my arm before putting my shirt and coat back on.

Being a shy farm boy from a very small town and very introverted, the experience was a major embarrassment to me, and I am convinced that the experience was why I decided not to go to school there. I am also sure that an angel ripped my button off and threw it in that fountain.

The first time I remember struggling to figure out what God’s will was for my life was when I graduated from high school and was trying to decide where I would go to college. I had been offered a full scholarship to the University of Washington that would pay for everything. I went on a tour of the school that was supposed to attract me to it, but it scared the bazeebers out of me. There were 20 kids in my High School, with five in my graduating class. A good friend who graduated a year earlier than me attended a tiny Christian College in Portland. He played on the basketball team, and I went to several games with his parents. The college had an open house for high school seniors, and I went there and enjoyed the experience very much. The problem was that it was a private college, so the room, board, and tuition were significantly higher than at the University of Washington, and there were no scholarships. There were student loans and work grants, but I didn’t want to get a loan. I didn’t know what to do. I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it happen, and I didn’t know what God’s will was for my life. I agonized over that decision right up until the deadline for accepting the University scholarship, and I let the day go by without accepting it. The next day, I was so relieved; I would go to the college I wanted to attend, even if I hadn’t figured out how to pay for it. I knew I could figure it out and make it happen, and I did. I met Patty, my wife of 54 years, at that college; my Christian faith grew significantly during the two years I attended that college, and it was there that the seeds for being a pastor were planted in my heart. I was so close to deciding to go to the University of Washington with the full scholarship and the offer to enter into the Oceanography program with the possibility of being a scientist making lots of money. I often wonder where I would be now had I chosen to attend there. I wouldn’t have met Patty, I probably wouldn’t have had eight kids, I probably wouldn’t be a pastor, everything would have been different. That was just the first of many decisions that have come up in my life since then over the years that would have changed the direction of my life. Now, here I am at 75 years of age, and not very many big decisions left to make. It will be interesting when I get to heaven and see if I made the right decisions. I think I did, and I believe I couldn’t go wrong as long as I was committed to following the Lord.

Self-control is a character trait, and it is mentioned in the Bible often. When we are strong in self-control, our flesh, the devil, and the world around us don’t control us; we do what we know is right. The Biblical title for those with self-control is “overcomers.” Almost every sin we commit is because of a lack of self-control. I have worked at growing in self-control in my life over the years in reading my Bible every day, spending time with God in prayer every day, memorizing hundreds of Bible verses, controlling how I speak, not getting angry, and not letting myself get addicted to TV, computer games, or any substance. Nothing causes me to get disgusted with myself more than a lapse in self-control. Recently, Patty and I were eating dinner with several other people. Dessert was a beautiful Marion berry cheesecake. I knew it would taste delicious, so I had a small piece. I discovered several months ago that I am very allergic to gluten and white sugar. They cause my muscles to jerk, get cramps, and spasm uncontrollably as soon as I quit moving and relax; it is a frustrating experience, especially when I am trying to go to sleep. Cheesecake has both gluten and sugar, and I knew it before I ate it, so why did I eat it? I thought it was just a little piece; it had been some time since I had eaten any gluten or sugar, and I forgot how irritating the consequences were. The result is that I didn’t sleep all night. That is a simple little slip in self-control, but the fact that I did something I knew was not a good choice, but I did it anyway for the sake of the immediate gratification of the wonderful taste is what frustrates me about my lack of self-control. I journaled about the experience and am now writing my blog about it, so hopefully, I have grown a little bit in the character trait of self-control.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.