As I maneuver my life through all the activities that I am involved with during the summer schedule, with almost all routines going out the window, I need to remind myself repeatedly that certain things must get done every day, no matter how busy I am and chaotic my life has become.

When I was growing up on the dairy and then started farming full-time with my Dad, we never missed milking the cows. We never thought of not milking the cows; it never even entered our heads. We never discussed, maybe just this once, we could skip milking the cows; it never happened; we always milked the cows. Our cows were our life, our income; that is what we did; that is who we were, dairy farmers.

I am a disciple of Jesus Christ; He is my Savior, my God, and my Lord.

John 8:31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;

Psalms 1:2-3
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.

I read the Bible almost every day. Some days I don’t read the entire scheduled number of chapters in my goal, but I read something. Almost every day I either memorize scripture or review verses I have already memorized. On some super busy days, I will bring verses up in my mind and review them with my head on the pillow, and by the way, that is a great way to fall asleep. I almost always spend some time with the Lord in prayer every day. My goal is to pray when I am doing nothing else so I can focus and give the Lord my complete self and attention, but sometimes I pray fervently while riding a bicycle, while driving, while I am fishing, or while working on my car, but I try to pray every day. I almost always spend a few minutes reviewing the day and thanking God for leading me, protecting me, blessing me, and using me for His glory. I also try and remember all sins I have committed that day and confess those to the Lord and repent asking for His strength so that I never do them again. In the morning, I almost always pray my prayer of commitment asking for His strength and wisdom for the day that He has planned for me while I am getting out of bed and getting dressed. That morning prayer of commitment is the key to keeping all the others.

People regularly call my daily commitments legalism, things I do because I have to, thoughtless obligations that lose their power or value by shear repetition.

We all are people who easily get entangled in the world, who are very prone to following the desires of our flesh instead of the promptings of the Spirit, and often can’t tell the difference, and are influenced by the lies of demons who are all around us.

The commitments that I make in the morning are what keep me faithful and fully devoted to my Lord.

You probably noticed that I put the word “almost” in regularly. That is because, unlike milking the cows, I do occasionally, though rarely, miss a day on part or all of these commitments. I haven’t lost my salvation, I don’t consider myself a loser, and I don’t beat myself up. I do confess and repent and move on.

One of the characteristics of my life in the summer is that I don’t have much routine. There was some routine during our bicycle trip, but then it was over, then I was camping on the bank of the Brownlee Reservoir, sleeping on a cot in a tent, fishing 12 hours a day. Now I am at our son Seth’s home in Idaho hanging out with his family for a couple of days. I will be home on Monday and will try to get a bunch of chores and “honey-dos” accomplished, then on July 12th, I head up to Alaska where I will fish for salmon and halibut for 12 hours a day for a month. I will work hard at keeping my daily Bible reading, prayer time, and Bible memory goals current, but sometimes I am getting them done just before midnight, and I often find myself “speed reading” in my Bible reading. I have a goal to write for a minimum of two hours each day, to read 20 pages a day of good books, and to listen to at least one good podcast each day. But I am not always successful at keeping those goals, especially when the fishing is good. During the school year, from September through May, it is easy because I have a routine that I stick to, and a routine is a great tool for faithfulness and consistency in life. Establishing a routine in our life begins with writing down our commitments and goals and then establishing the time when we want to do them and sticking to that time commitment.

Most people have a simple routine in the morning when they get up. They take a shower, brush their teeth, get dressed, and eat breakfast, or whatever. It was established by habit. The more routines we establish, especially for important things that we want to be sure we get done, the more faithful we will be.

This last Monday I left with my boat in tow headed for the Brownlee Reservoir for some catfish fishing. I haven’t written a blog for the last five days because there was no electricity to charge my IPad and there was no cell service where we were camping.

I have this very nice 26-foot fiberglass boat that I built with a 135hp Mercury outboard motor on it that I was dying to use. I had recently done a bunch of work on the boat and I had the outboard motor completely rebuilt. I couldn’t wait to get it into the water and see how fast it was going to go and catch a bunch of fish out of it.

I had left the key on after I used the electric tilt to raise the motor to drive over to Huntington so the next morning the battery was dead. I had brought along two spare batteries so I put one of them in the boat. I don’t know how or why, but I put the new battery in backward from the one I took out. When I tried to start the motor it wouldn’t start. It had always started right off before so I looked again at the battery and immediately saw my mistake. I turned it around and tried to start it, but evidently, I had messed something up or several things. I couldn’t believe that I did that!! I said to myself out loud, “Duke, you dumbhead, why did you do that!!! Have you ever done something totally stupid and wish that you could keep anybody else from finding out about it.

Just about everybody has done something like that. Putting a battery in backward has consequences, but it isn’t what you would call a sin, just a mistake. I try hard not to make mistakes, especially ones that have a financial cost involved in the consequence. But sin on the other hand is more than making a mistake, it is choosing to break God’s law. Learning and growing in knowledge and wisdom will cut down on the mistakes that we make, and growing in holiness will reduce the sins that we commit. Life is all about growing in wisdom and knowledge but it is especially about growing in holiness and the character of Jesus.

Learning happens at the point of mistakes, poor choices, and sin, but it requires that we own our blunders, review them a bit to recognize where we took the wrong turn and then to make resolve not to do that again. We may do the same thing again but the distance between them grows farther and farther apart.

Every summer for the last 14 years I have taken a “Summer Study Break.” I get away and do a variety of things that I enjoy sometimes by myself and often with a few others. I have gone on an extended bicycle trip every summer, sometimes a month long and sometimes up to two months, I go up to Alaska and fish for several weeks, and I often go up to Alaska and hunt. I usually get in two to four hours each day to read and write at the end of the day. Getting away is especially effective in renewing my emotional gas tank and my study time is very productive because of the freedom from the pressures of ministry my creative juices flow and I write up a storm. I usually get 30 to 40 sermons and lessons written every summer. Several times I have gone to a cabin or other place that I can be all by myself for a week and even up to a month to write and read. I especially like to do this if I am working on a special project like a seminar or syllabus for leadership class or other extended teaching times.

Many pastors have burnt out in ministry because of the pressures of preaching every week, counseling people’s problems, solving problems and conflicts in the church, and feeling the weight of responsibility that comes from leading, especially through the COVID years. I have pastored at JBC for 47 years this coming October, and even though I am changing roles and responsibilities as I get older and handing things off to Pastor Mike, I still feel energized when teaching my leadership class, participating in a five-day prayer event, or coaching other pastors. The three months each summer that I take off and get away have been crucial for my endurance, and I am so thankful for the Elders at JBC that have allowed me to do that.

We started driving the motorhome up I-5 at 8:00 pm last night from La Habra, California. We drove there after reaching the Mexico border at about 3:00 pm and ate dinner and showered. We have been driving all night and should be home about noon. The trip will be officially over. This has been a great trip. Probably the easiest of the twelve trips I have done. No rain except a few morning drizzles, camping in the motorhome was comfortable and convenient, there were mostly tailwinds when there was wind, no dogs, no bugs, very few rumble strips, mostly good roads, lots of designated bike lanes and trails, hills but not like the Rockies, Appalachians, Cascades, and Ozarks, and the camaraderie and fellowship with the team was great, at least for me; I enjoyed all of them but I am not sure if they enjoyed me! The scenery riding along the coast was beautiful and we met lots of nice people along the route.

The best thing about every trip is the amount of alone time that I have with the Lord while riding the bicycle or driving the motorhome, and the extra reading time that I have at the end of each day’s ride. It truly is a spiritually renewing and growing time.

I had a lot more trouble physically this year than on any of the previous trips and drove the motorhome rather than ride the bike about a third of the days, it was nice to have that option, and the rest of the team didn’t make to much fun of me and call me a wimp, except my brother, Cliff. I am not sure if the problems were caused by age or Parkinson’s. The main issue was not being able to sleep well, not getting rest, and nothing gives me a wimpy attitude more than not being able to sleep. I had decided that this was my last trip, but I have changed my mind about that, I enjoy these trips and get too much out of them to quit now. I am going to exercise more, and do more bicycling outside on my bicycle. One of my new goals is to join a group that bicycles together regularly so I will have the accountability to do it so I stay in bicycle shape. This year I got bummed when I decided to drive a day instead of riding my bike, but I will just make that part of the plan in future rides if I need to. Even with getting older and with physical and health issues, most of the battle to endure is in my head not with my body, it is good for me to fight those and win.

Thank you to all of you who took this journey with us via this blog and for all the kind responses to the blog that many of you wrote that were truly motivational for me.

Today we started with 83 miles to ride to finish the trip. I started riding this morning very confident that I could ride all the miles, but about mile 30, my bicycle broke. I think my front sprocket got bent because it kept throwing the chain. Each time the chain came off, I flipped the bike upside down and got the chain back on. Each time I got the chain back on, I was sure I had fixed it, but 100 yards later, it would come off again. The last time it came off, I lost my balance and fell on the bike. I bruised up both elbows, forearms, knees, and shins pretty well. Tom was driving the motorhome today, and as I got up off the ground, telling the passing motorists and bicycle riders that I was OK, he texted his location. He wasn’t far from me, and I took that as a sign from the Lord that I was done. I texted him my location and wrote, “Come get me, please, pretty please!” In a few minutes, he was there, and we loaded my bicycle in the trailer and took off for the finish line. We drove to the end of the route, and here I sit in the motorhome writing this while we wait for the other riders to get here. I will write more when I hear the various stories of the other riders.

Well, Paul just texted that he needs to be picked up. So off Tom, Ray, and I go to rescue Paul. Oh, I forgot to tell you that after Tom picked me up, Ray texted that he needed to be picked up at about mile 50, so we got him and then drove back to the finish line, and then we got the call from Paul and drove back and picked him up at mile 63. He had hit a curb and popped his tire, and the tube had such a big hole in it he couldn’t patch it, and he didn’t have a spare. We again drove back to the finish line, and pretty soon, Cliff and Kathy got there. With no problems. Hallelujah!

We are now all in the motorhome with our bikes in the trailer headed home. We are going to stop off at my friend Paul’s house to take showers. Then we will start the 20 hour ride home. I am hoping this ride will be uneventful, but if not I will tell you about it in tomorrows blog.

Today’s ride was very close to the same as yesterday’s but fewer people today. Way less nerve-wracking and mentally exhausting. We are on the San Onofre Beach just North of Ocean Side. Our RV campground is literally 20 steps from the ocean, so we all went out for a swim. I got out to about my waist and a wave knocked me down, then rolled me around, then pulled me out a little farther in the water, the next wave rolled me around some more. I finally got my feet under me and managed to got out. I decided I was to old and to unsteady on my feet to do any more of that so I went and took a shower and called it a day.

When we drove from my friend Paul White’s house this morning with all the bicycles in the trailer to the starting point at Long Beach we pulled up to curb and started unloading the bicycles. A policeman drove up and said, “Pay attention to the signage!” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about so I looked up the street and saw a “No Parking” sign right next to our motorhome! Oops

Today’s ride was 60 miles, mostly flat, with a tailwind, but the consensus of the group is that it was the hardest day of the trip. The reason was that there were so many people. The bike paths were right on the beach and people were walking on them, some were skateboarding, some were jogging, there were volleyball tournaments going on around the bicycle paths, bodybuilders showing off their muscles, kids running and playing, so it was extremely nerve-wracking to ride a bicycle through all that. There were stretches were there was signs saying to walk bicycles. Then there would be the opposite extreme, there be sections where it would be homeless camps everywhere and you were riding your bike through what seemed like people’s front rooms. Cliff described it as a culture shock experience. Kathy said it was emotionally draining. It is quite amazing where you see an obvious bunch of extremely wealthy people playing every game imaginable on the beach with mansions all around, and then the homeless filth and poverty. You think of a bicycle trip as being through fields and mountains and forests, not today, it was through the beaches of Southern California!

We stayed at my friend Paul’s house last night, and he let us use his pickup to drive to the starting point this morning for the ride today at Malibu Beach with the bikes in the back and because of LA traffic that took two hours. Then Ray drove the pickup to the finish point for today’s ride at Long Beach, which took another 2 1/2 hours, and then after loading the bikes back into the pickup at the end of the ride, it took an hour to drive back to Paul’s house, where we are staying tonight. In the morning, we will return to Long Beach and bicycle down the coast for another 60-mile ride. I think that the craziness will be less tomorrow, here’s hoping! And then there will only be one more day!!

I rode my bicycle today, 71 miles. It was all along the beaches so it was a pretty ride and fairly flat. Most of our riding was on bicycle trails or designated bicycle lanes on the road. I love those two white lines and the picture of a bicycle painted on the ground every 50 feet with lots of signs saying bicycles only! California has a lot of them. Tonight we are in La Habre, California part of the greater Los Angeles area. We are staying in a house that belongs to a friend of mine, Paul White. I have come down a couple of times and spoken at a seminar that he hosted for pastors in this area, and he also has come up and attended the seminar that we do at JBC in January. He is also in a pastor accountability group that I am in. We do weekly emails to each other reporting on our goals and spiritual disciplines. We are going to stay here again tomorrow night as well after we transport the bicycles back here from the end of the ride.

Kathy had a wreck today! We were riding on a bike trail that had a fence on both sides. She was trying to get her phone out to take a picture and ran her bike into the fence, she grabbed the fence and her bike flipped over without her. She had water bottles strewn all over and her phone went over the fence into the bushes on the other side. She climbed over the fence and retrieved it. She got a few scratches but nothing serious. The worst thing was she had to put up with Cliff making fun of her the rest of the day.

We only have three more days left of riding before we start our long drive home.

Today was an 81 mile ride with a big monster hill at the end, 2000 feet up and 2200 feet down. The downhill was almost 10 miles so that was a long way with virtually no pedaling. I am writing this as a reporter of what the riders said because I drove the motorhome today.

Tonight we are in an RV campground in Santa Barbara. It is just a paved parking lot with electricity posts, water spickets, and sewer pipes between each spot. Pretty basic RV spot.

It is hard to believe that we only have 4 days of riding left, boy it goes fast. I am going to ride my bike tomorrow. I am determined to do it. Every night I say I am going to ride and then when I wake up my legs muscles are in knots, and I psyche myself out of riding. I am determined not to let that happen tomorrow.

Part of the problem is with my new medication. I looked up the side effects today and it says that some develop addictions to gambling, uncontrolled spending, and sexual addictions that they can’t control because of the medication. I am feeling a heightened sense of anxiety since starting the new meds, but Since I know where that is coming from I am determined to not let it control my decisions.

Now that I have written this I am more determined than ever to not let my flesh control my behavior or my decisions. I know that tomorrow evening I will need to write what I did, ride or wimp out. We will see.