Month: August 2021

It’s a funny thing about human beings.  If we hear one hundred positive compliments and just one negative comment, we will obsess over the one.  Tell someone you love them many times but just once say you don’t, it will be almost impossible to convince them that you do.  Tell a child they are stupid and it will mold their self-image and they will most often not try challenging tasks.  They will concede to the negative.  Perhaps it is easier to take that course than trying hard.  I am talking about most of us.  There is the reverse response in some who will say, “I’ll show them.”  But they are far outnumbered by the first group.

Perhaps we are our own worst enemy because we know our own dirt. No other human can more accurately accuse us than us.  Sometimes we try to honey coat our faults and make excuses but deep down inside we know the truth.  We choose.

This is why it is so difficult to get people to accept the Good News.  Jesus loves us.  He will forgive us.  He will help us improve and overcome.  That’s a message for others but not for “me.”  But it is for each of us.  Despite the fact that God knows the truth about you and me He cares for us as a father loves his errant child.  I believe the prodigal son’s father always knew the whereabouts of his son.  He was rich.  He could pay people to report.  How thrilled he was when he heard his son had started home.  And when his son tried to tell him all his wrongs the father would not listen.  All that mattered was his son was home.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 9, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

This morning’s Leominster/Fitchburg newspaper just spoiled one of my favorite things.  I love to sit outside in the evenings and feel the cool air push away the afternoon shadows as dusk closes another day.  Alas, it seems that our mosquitoes are now bearers of more than an itchy bite.  Some of those trapped by Mass Public Health Department are carrying West Nile Virus, not something one puts on their bucket list. I can still walk my dog but I can’t just sit still and soak in the glory of an evening in New England. Our newspaper counsels don’t panic just use common sense.

That is pretty much the advice we receive in Psalm 1:1 regarding sinful behavior and its horrible results.  “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.”  It’s the company we keep or should I say don’t keep.  It’s a matter of common sense.  However, now that I have said that Jesus kept some very questionable company.  It is amusing that when he met with Mr. Respectable, Nicodemus, He met him in secret.  When He met with publicans, sinners and tax collectors He did it in the plain light of day.  Jesus can indeed confound us.

But really, most of life is using common sense.  Unfortunately it takes a few decades of living to acquire it.  Too bad we aren’t born with it. In the middle of writing this I stopped and took my dog for our evening walk.  Can you believe it a mosquito flew right into my ear?  How can that be?  I crushed her because she obviously didn’t have much of any common sense.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 10, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Oh, I am in trouble.  My wife has been gone for three days and the last thing she said to me was, “Don’t forget to water the plants.”  This afternoon as I walked past a drooping hanging basket of flowers I thought, “We sure could use some rain.”  Then it hit me.  I was supposed to be the rain. The only hope I have for some kind of redemption is that they will recover if I soak them.  She will get home tonight after dark and won’t see them until morning.  Maybe, just maybe, they will be perky in the morning and she will never know.  Perky would be good.

As all good farmers and horticulturalists know growing plants need adequate water.  Deprive them for just a short amount of time and they will wither up just like people’s spiritual lives if deprived of a daily watering from heaven.  Like plants we are dependent upon external essentials.  If we long to thrive we need daily supplies of physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual food and water.

On the mornings of the annual Feast of the Tabernacles a priest carried a vessel of water to the altar to represent the Rock that had supplied the children of Israel with their daily supply of water while in the wilderness.  On such an occasion Jesus stepped forth and said with a loud voice, “Whoever thirsts let Him come to me for I am the water of life.”  It was an amazingly bold declaration of His identity and power. Position, power and pomp were inadequate to satisfy the spiritual hunger of the people.  Nothing has changed.  It is still Jesus, the Creator of all things, who can satisfy our thirst for real life and real growth.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 9, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

Many years ago the wizards who make Kleenex marketed red Kleenex especially designed for use by hunters.  No hunter in his right mind pulls out a white Kleenex, wipes his nose and thereby makes himself look like a white-tailed deer.   Red seemed ideal.  No one would shoot at the color red.  Alas, that year more hunters were killed than ever before.  No one knew why.  So there was no more red Kleenex.

Hunters have become very skillful in looking like trees and bushes.  I have often wondered how many hunters I have walked by when I take my dog for a walk in the forest.  We try to look like a canine with her human and so far so good.  Have you ever wondered if you are or have been a camouflaged Christian?  Is it possible that some people who have known us for years would be shocked to discover our commitment to Jesus?  Sometimes we see pictures in the news of so-called Christians carrying hate signs.  Not only are they not real Christians I am not so sure they are real human beings.  “All in the name of Jesus.”   Surely He must weep.

There is no question about the fact that Jesus called it correctly when He said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”  You can hide.  You can pretend.  But ultimately, one’s true self will be revealed to family and colleagues.  We can only pretend for a certain amount of time.  Now that I have said all this, I have to admit that I have pretended all my life to be a Christian.  I mean a real Christian, one who always loves, forgives and cares about others.  Sometimes I meet people I just don’t like.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 8, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

There were a few people waiting for the elevator to arrive when a small group of young people suddenly appeared and pushed their way to the front and rushed in as soon as the doors opened.  I had to smugly smile to myself as I got on last.  They were now trapped in the rear while I was first to get off.  “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.”

For many it always is “Me first.”  I get the same smug feeling when someone cuts me off in his car as he rushes ahead only to be stopped by a traffic light.  As I pull up alongside and once again he leaps forward only to have me slowly pull up alongside at the next light, I want to look and laugh.   So the question is “Who has the problem?” Is it he or me or both of us?  Do I have the same “Me first” complex?  Is it just that I have learned to play the game a bit more wisely? Perhaps the issue is my smugness.  The human heart is a deceitful thing.  Perhaps we never get better just more subtle.  We just learn to play the game.

Paul’s words in Romans 7 bounce about in my mind, “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”   I am so thankful he answers his question in Romans 8.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 10, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Our day began at 4 A.M. this morning.  At 6 A.M. I dropped my wife off at the Manchester NH airport for a not-so-long flight to Nashville, Tenn.  At 8 A.M. she called me from a bus on her way to Boston.  The plane in New Hampshire was leaking fuel.  At 1 P.M. she called from Cincinnati while waiting for a plane to Detroit.  At 6 she called from Detroit waiting for a flight to Nashville that would not leave until 9 P.M.  Hopefully someday this week she will make it to Tennessee.

I believe it was Robert Burns who wrote something about the best laid plans of mice and men.  I sometimes smile at young people who have their entire lives laid out with college, internships, residencies and careers.  Does it ever work out the way we planned or dreamed?  There is this thing called life that persistently interferes and says, “No, this way.”   Accidents, illnesses, career breakers are not the sole property of a few.  Even though we are praying and God longs to answer our prayers bad things do happen to good people.  Then there is the reverse.  Good things burst into our lives filling us with more joy than we could have imagined.  It is the stuff of life.  We can treat the random events as an adventure or allow them to ruin the journey.

Sometimes the plan we have for our lives is so very different from God’s plan for us and we interfere and cause Him to switch to Plan B.   Then we interfere with His Plan B and cause Him to go to Plan C.  But the joy of it is knowing He is there caring and doing His best to lead.  If only we would follow.   See Psalm 23.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 6, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

We have a thief in our neighborhood.  While I have not seen him, each morning I see what he has taken and I think he wears a Lone Ranger mask.  Each night he carefully opens our bird suet basket and carries off the suet and seed cake.  I hope he is storing this and not eating it.  If he is eating it surely his arteries will plug up sometime this coming weekend and Mrs. Coon will have to call 911.  I think I will leave my cell phone out for them.  They are going to need it.

Which brings me to the issue of how well we take care of ourselves.  Last week I commented to my oncologist that I never smoked, never drank alcohol and have been a veggie most of my life and yet I have Leukemia.  I loved his response which was, “And that is why you are still alive.”

In the Old Testament God gave the children of Israel some very specific dietary laws.  Don’t eat this and that.  God gave them these instructions because He is the Creator. He knows what is good fuel and what is not, just as the manufacturer of our cars tell us what octane fuel works best for our specific car.  Unfortunately the children of Israel turned them into taboos instead of what God wanted them to be.  They turned them into tickets to heaven.  Do and live abundantly.

Paul also reminds us in I Corinthians that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and just as we would not defile and destroy our house of worship so we have an even greater responsibility to care for our bodies the best we can.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 11, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

All of his young life Bazalel Katz hated his name.  He had to spell it for everyone and his father refused to allow him to change it.  In 1938 he fled Europe and moved to what is now Israel.  When at his port of entry he gave his name to the immigration inspector who without even looking up kept on writing.  “Can you imagine that?” Bazalel said. “He just wrote my name.  I knew I was home.”

There is a place where everyone knows our names.  If we have accepted Jesus’ gift our names are written in His Book of Life.  Note Revelation 3:5, “The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”  Can you imagine?  Jesus, Himself, the Creator of all things confessing our name – vouching for us.  In Revelation 20:12 it reads, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”  Some people think it is a list of all our deeds but for those who accept God’s grace there is only one thing written by our name. “Redeemed.”  There is no point in a list of the bad stuff we have done.  That’s why they are blotted out.  Acts 3:19.  Inquiring minds don’t want to know.

“Is our name written there on the page white and fair?”  Absolutely yes.  We would be pretty stupid if it was any other way.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 4, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

According to the latest Scientific American, “When people feel safe and secure, they become more liberal, when they feel threatened, they become more conservative.”  This helps explain one reason why elderly people tend to become more conservative as they age.  As we age and realize we are not as strong as we were at thirty we begin to feel vulnerable.  That’s why Granny has more than one lock on her door.  If what Scientific American says is true, Christians should be the most liberal people in the world.  And why not?  The mightiest being in the universe has promised to care for us.  He is our Rock and we abide in the shadow of the Almighty. We are eternally secure.  Yes, bad things could still happen to us here.  But God knows and He will more than make it up to us.  Another reason for Christians being liberal is Jesus’ story of the sheep and the goats where He says to the sheep, “I was hungry and you fed me.  I was naked and you clothed me.”  We are our brother’s keeper.   If we see our enemy in need we must offer Him aid.  This is Jesus’ way.  Matthew 25:31.

It comes down to trust in the one who gave Himself for us.  I love Romans 8 where Paul writes, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”  One of the great messages of Scripture is for us to fear not.  If we really understand and believe how can we not but want to share, want others to rise to our level of comfort or rejoice if they surpass our level.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 3, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

The evening network news aired a clip of a reporter interviewing a Syrian rebel.  The reporter asked him how concerned he was because the rebels were incredibly out-gunned.  “God is on our side,” responded the fighter.  A minute or so later a member of the government was interviewed.  When asked about the rebels he responded, “God is on our side.”  And on and on it goes.  Each group, religious and political, no matter what the cause believes God is on their side.  I realize God is omnipresent and multifaceted but I’m sure God is not schizophrenic.

It is natural for us to feel like we are special.  But we are not special if that means others have to be demeaned. When we read something like this we think, “Those poor deluded people. Only we are really special.”  Our specialness is usually the fruit of our Biblical interpretation.  The Bible texts we have selected to support our belief structure can only mean what we say they mean and others misinterpret them.  If they would only let us tell them “The Truth” then all the world could believe as we.  The problem is if that would happen then how could we be special anymore.  I’m sure we would find a way.

Perhaps the accuracy of our beliefs is not nearly as important as our love for God and the sincerity with which we approach Him?  Perhaps it is the heart and not the head that ultimately matters.  Please do not misunderstand me.  I do believe understanding is important.  I am speaking of priorities.  When Sir Thomas Moore was about to be beheaded he said to his executioner, “He (God) will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to him.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 2, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org