Month: February 2021

I am sitting here looking at a purple stain on my shirt sleeve.  I have absolutely no idea where it came from.  It looks like grape jelly but I haven’t been near grape jelly today.  This is very much like character stains – flaws.  Some of them we know of and there are others we don’t even know are there.  We are so much in love with ourselves we are blind to them.  If anyone should hint of their presence we are quick to rationalize and cover; not just from the people who spotted it, but mostly from ourselves.  I am fearful if we should know the old Jack Webb thing, “just the facts and nothing but the facts,” we would despair and jump off a bridge.

Many years ago I was waiting for my car to be repaired when I heard someone say, “Call the stain man.”   About twenty minutes later I saw a man arrive with a small case.  I have always wondered what he had in there because a few minutes later he walked out with a big smile and some green pieces of paper folded in his hand.  He must have been good.  Oh, how many times in my life have I had to call my “stain man” and I have to tell you He is good – really good.

I have always loved Isaiah 1:18.  “Says the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”   What is so grand about this is the promise isn’t only for the stains we know about, it is for the ones not yet known.  Only Jesus knows them and what I love best is He will remove them and never tell us about them.  We don’t need to know.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 16, 2012

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

While observing a student teacher in a third grade classroom this morning, I noticed one very spiffy young man wearing a dress shirt and tie.  He had his hair slicked down and wasn’t wearing socks with his shoes – very preppy.  I asked if he always dressed that way.  The student teacher, a very good one, smiled and said, “No, it’s Valentine’s Day.”   What a classy guy.  I wonder if there was a specific lady he was trying to impress or was he just making a statement?

Many years ago I was invited to a Presidential Prayer Breakfast with Ronald Reagan.   When I received the invitation the first thing I did was buy a new suit and new shoes.  When I arrived I noticed there wasn’t one person in a t-shirt and jeans.  Everyone was spiffed up.  When we knelt for prayer I wanted to look at the bottom of people’s shoes to see how many were wearing new ones. However, I was a good boy and only peeked to see if the President had his eyes closed.  He did.  The secret service did not.

I realize what I am about to say is very old-fashioned but I wonder how people would dress when they come to church if they really believed they were having a meeting with the King of the Universe.  Perhaps I should not be judgmental; perhaps that fellow with the t-shirt and jeans in church just might be wearing the best he has.  Jesus told a story about a man who went to a wedding feast without the proper garb.  He was tossed out.  Of course the lesson of that story was about trying to get into heaven wearing our own righteousness.  It will not work.  Only Jesus’ righteousness is sufficient to save.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 15, 2012

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

In 1978 our older son played for the Yankees.  I don’t recall ever missing a game.  I was very proud.  His uniform is part of our family treasure trove.  When we moved to New England we proudly displayed it on the stairway wall.  Often I stop and admire it and him.  However, this afternoon as the sun was sinking behind our western mountain, I was standing out on the street and to my horror I saw the sun shining brightly through the window illuminating his Yankee shirt to all who drive by.  There it was with its big white letters on that field of blue right there in the window.  Folks, you have to understand this is Red Sox Country.  People drive around New England with nasty bumper stickers reviling the Yankees.  No wonder the neighbors rarely speak to me.  All this time I thought it was modernity with its busy demands on people’s lives.

Have you ever discovered that you have been offending others by your unintentional behavior?   As a teacher I used to respond to students’ questions with “Oh, that’s easy.”   What I meant was I can answer that for you.  My wife pointed out what I was saying was, “Its easy, stupid.  Why did you have to ask?”  Needless to say I stopped.

Sometimes I hear people tell of how they witnessed for the Lord.  They proudly tell stories of rudely correcting people who they think are not being nice.  They refuse gestures of kindness because what is offered doesn’t comply with their dietary restrictions.  It is so important for us to see ourselves and our behaviors through other’s eyes.  Often it smarts because as Jesus said a two by four is hanging out our eye when we are speaking of another’s speck of sawdust.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 14, 2012

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

We’ve all been there.  We are approaching a traffic signal when the light turns yellow. We have less than half a second to decide a. to press hard on the brake, b. press on the accelerator to get through the intersection before we see red, c. just maintain because we are okay to make it.  The human mind is amazing.  It processes distance, speed, coming traffic, presence of a patrolman, braking power and horsepower.  It does it all in less time than it takes to say “one ten thousands.”

I wish I could make all my decisions so quickly and with such a good record of success.  But, life is full of decisions that require serious ponder time.  Who should we marry?  Where should we go to school?  How long should we stay in school?  How many degrees are too many?  What regimen of diet, rest and exercise will best serve me?  What career should I seek?  Should I take time for religion?  If so, where should I go to church and what tenets should I accept as authority?  None of these should be decided in less than a second.

At the close of Deuteronomy Moses exhorted, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, . . .”   I do hope that one doesn’t take too long to decide.  Finally, how grand it is that God chose us.  He decided to send us His son.  He once said to Jeremiah.  “Before you were born I chose you.”  What an awesome thought.  Since He doesn’t play favorites that means you and I were chosen from the beginning of eternity itself.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 13, 2012

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

It just occurred to me that Jesus’ story of the wise man who built his house upon the rock is the same story as the three little pigs.  Instead of the floods coming up it’s the big bad wolf blowing lots of hot air.  It is very much the way life is.  People, like two of the pigs, make lots of bad decisions and need to be rescued by those who made good decisions.

I sometimes hear people complaining about having to help people on welfare.  We jump to the erroneous assumption that they all have chosen that path as a way of life.  It is true some have.  But most are in their predicament because of unwise decisions or just plain old misfortune that also happens to people who make good decisions.

I know you are expecting me to say we need to help them because it’s the Christian thing to do.  It is.  However, it is also the smart thing to do.  When people get very hungry they grow desperate and desperate people can become very dangerous.  We really don’t want to live in a city with hoards of hungry people.  No matter how many wise decisions we have made in life, those who have, will become prey.  That’s not a good thing!

Our assets, our talents, our education, and our good fortune are the fruit of good decisions and God’s blessings, which He bestows on us to see how well we handle them.  Am I my brother’s keeper?  Yes.  If I recall the story correctly I believe the pig with the brick house gave shelter to the other two.  It’s also good to remember they were all pigs.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 10, 2012

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

The Grammy Awards remind us of how important music is to us.  It can make us cry or fill us with overwhelming joy.  Surely there hasn’t been or isn’t a culture anywhere that does not have its music.  Billions of dollars are spent each year celebrating life with harmonies and tunes.  We have our particular tastes in what music is beautiful and is not.  Music fills our cars, our homes, our malls and our churches.  Almost always what we like is what we have heard in our youth.  Often when we hear something strange and new we object.  When churches began to sing the hymns of the Wesley brothers multitudes were scandalized.  Along with Fanny Crosby’s hymns, the Wesleys’ hymns dominate church hymnals and used to dominate our worship experiences.

The longest book in our Bibles is a hymn book.  The Psalms were not written to be Scripture but were the songs of worship.  Many of them were written by King David almost a thousand years before the birth of Jesus.  Three thousand years later we still thrill to their beauty.  David was a rock star in his youth.  When he played girls swooned and danced.  I Samuel 16:23 speaks of him giving private harp concerts to King Saul to soothe Saul’s wits of depression.

There will never be a time without music.  Revelation 15 speaks of the redeemed playing harps (guitars?) and singing “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty.  Just and true are your ways, King of the ages.”  Some of us lament our lack of musical talent and envy those gifted ones in our midst.  But surely there will be a time when we all shall lift our musical gifts up in praise before the One who has redeemed us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 11, 2013

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

Our storm has begun. As I sit down to write fine tiny crystals of snow are decorating the curled rhododendron outside our front windows.  The mountain across the road has disappeared behind a wall of white. Outside the back windows four doves have yet to take shelter as they hunker together under the bird feeder.  The governor has declared a curfew and there is a 500 dollar fine for driving in Massachusetts.

Fire is dancing behind the front glass of the woodstove.  Soft music fills our rooms mixed with the warm fragrance of baking brownies.  It’s a nice place to be.  Yet I miss the ferny frost patterns on the insides of the window panes. Double-paned windows have made them relics to be remembered.  It was fun to place your finger in the beautiful patterns and watch the ephemera melt away only to return when you finally withdrew your hand.

I find myself amidst all this comfort and yet unsatisfied.  While I am here with my very best friend I still miss my mother, father, sisters, sons and grandchildren. Oh to have them all here on this white winter night.  Why is it that as blessed as I am I hunger for more?  Astronomers now tell us there are over 5 billion potentially inhabitable planets in our galaxy.  Will we ever see them all and if so will we still want to see more?  We are made in God’s image.  Is He also in want of more?  Surely He longs for us to be rescued from this place of death and sorrow.  Yet is there a quality about Him that wants to make more and more and more.  He is a Creator.  Will He ever forget those not saved?  Will He always miss them?  I was just wondering on a cold snowy winter New England evening.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 9, 2013

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

I’m sitting here with a piece from a jigsaw puzzle I picked up off the street while walking my lab this afternoon.   Somewhere in my neighborhood there is a puzzle that cannot be finished because I have the missing piece. There are so many theological and philosophical puzzles that are an enigma because we do not have all the pieces of the puzzles.  The problem of pain, a loving God in a world of suffering, did dinosaurs and men live on earth at the same time, who wrote Hebrews, ifJesus is coming again why is He waiting; these are just a few.  Paul says we are looking through a glass darkly.  He’s right. We, with our finite minds, continue to try to understand the mind of an infinite God and we don’t have all the pieces.

Throughout the ages God, a self-revealing God, continues to share a few.  In times past He spoke through the prophets but then He revealed Himself via the birth of Jesus.  Jesus was and still is the finest vision of God’s true nature.  Jesus said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”  Our continued problem is we see Jesus through the eyes of a tax collector, a fisherman, a physician and a homesick missionary.  Each of them were limited in their ways to express what they saw and remembered.  Therefore, we continue to see God through a foggy glass.

As we grow, as we seek, God is delighted to find opportunities to give us glimpses and insights.  Hopefully, I understand more now than I did when I was forty or fifty.   Note I didn’t say twenty because then I knew it all.   Jesus said, “Ask and it shall be given.”  I’m asking.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 9, 2012

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

Like most American cities Leominster, Massachusetts is a rich blend of a variety of cultures and occasionally there are some misunderstandings as each group makes adjustments to accommodate the others.  The more we understand each other the more we live in harmony.  Nothing causes more difficulty than one group wanting everyone to be like them.  I have noted similar problems when reading the Bible.  We sometimes err by thinking the writers of the Bible were like us when nothing could be further from the truth.  Not only do we have the cultural differences of various groups of people but horrendous differences in chronology.  Just as our great grandparents would suffer culture shock if they could resurrect now, so we think far differently than people that lived two and three thousand years ago.

Often we err by looking at the Bible as one book written at one place in one time.  There are over 1500 years between Moses and John.  Also it is easy to project Christian values upon Old Testament characters.  But to do that falsely colors the stories.  Abraham and company were not Christians.  They weren’t even Jews.  The Jews were the descendants of Judah, the grandson of Abraham.  There is the issue of the occidental mind and the eastern mind.  Paul was an extremely unique individual educated in both arenas of thought.  His letters are an amalgamation of two worlds, two cultures, two philosophies and one very special way to salvation.

How fascinating that God chose to reveal Himself to us via shepherds, politicians, fishermen, farmers, tax collectors, historians, warriors, a philosopher, a physician and a scholar.  And the sum of it is an amazing story of God’s love for all cultures, all people and not just our little group.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 8, 2012

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”  “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: . .”  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”  In my dictionary the definition of create is “to use imagination to invent things.”   In His likeness God gave us the power to create.  We are constantly producing new things and new art.  We are continually creating knowledge and literature.  It is the hallmark of the human race.  Without the power to create we would have no freedom.  We would be confined to the ancient paths set out for us with no power to really think or choose.

God is a creator.  If He only made the things that He had made before, He would be a manufacturer.  Life and planets would be nothing more than clones.  God would be a prisoner in the universe bored by thinking the same old thoughts over and over.  He would be reduced to a fabulously complicated computer program.  He is so much more.  He is a lover.  He is a nurturer.  He dazzles with His creations.  It is we who have uglified His handiwork.  Yet we also create beautiful new things.  I live near an amazing art museum.  When I first enter I think I want to stay all day but after an hour or so I need to leave.   It is not because my feet hurt.  There are plenty of places to sit down.  It is my brain that hurts.  It is over stimulated by the richness of ideas and beauty.

I am doubtful about God’s physical appearance being very much like us.  But I have no doubt regarding the gift of creativity that He has shared.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 7, 2012

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org