Author: Ian Bothwell

It is difficult for us not to be the center of the universe.  Self permeates our actions and attitudes.  As long as crime is committed on the other side of the tracks we are fairly comfortable.  Bombs go off almost every day on the other side of the world and we barely take note.  But today it happened here.  Now it is personal.  Now the networks are continually telling the story over and over.  It is us.  Recently a senator completely reversed his position on the gay marriage issue because his son announced that he was gay.  Suddenly it was personal.  Suddenly it wasn’t some stranger.  It was family.

One of my favorite authors wrote, “There is no self in God.” That sentence intrigues me.  How can it be that an intelligent being has no self?  My dog has a sense of self.  When elephants have a patch on them and look in the mirror they touch the patch with their trunk.  They know what they are seeing is self.  When a tiny ant dares to enter our kitchen and I frighten it, it runs away.  Is that a sense of self or merely an automatic survival reflex?

The Bible speaks of God’s love, God’s wrath, God’s joy and happiness.  In my limited understanding those are indicators of self.   I think the thought that there is no self in God refers to selfishness. God is totally committed to all that He has made.  He is totally committed to you.  He sees and understands your fears and loves.  His relationship to you is personal.  Paul assures us we are His sons and daughters.  That is about as personal as it gets.  Each day I wait for the phone to ring hoping it is one of my sons.  It’s personal.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 16, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

He was seventeen.  (He told me his age in a later conversation.)  But that isn’t the interesting part of the story.  Over the weekend my wife and I stayed in one of those motels that includes breakfast.  I watched this young man come into the room while I was enjoying my Honey Nut Cheerios.  He was Jewish and he headed straight for the bacon.  Hurriedly he downed four strips knowing his father was not far behind.  By the time dad entered the young man was standing there smiling and holding a nice plate full of fruit.

Now I could have been really mean and have thrown him under the bus by telling his father what I had witnessed.  But why?  One of life’s few lessons I have learned is, it is not important to tell everything one knows.  However, I am telling you.  But that can’t get the boy into trouble.  Only in court do we swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  Other than that we really shouldn’t tell everything.

Have you ever been in church or a prayer meeting when someone started confessing everything they had done wrong and how it related to the wrongs others have done?  That’s a bad situation.   Secret sins are to be confessed to God secretly.   Jesus definitely talks about closet prayers.  (Matthew 6:6)  Unfortunately many people’s reputations have been ruined by some well-meaning (I’m being generous.) soul who never learned not to cleanse their personal conscience in public.  Don’t fear the last verse of Ecclesiastes about God bringing every secret thing into judgment.  That’s only for those not saved.  According to Jesus in John 5:24  the redeemed get to skip judgment.  Oh how grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 23, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

Jumping the Gun

Sometimes we are so anxious for something to happen we rush to judgment.   Email, Facebook, Twitter and all the other forms of media communication have made it so easy to almost instantly disseminate stories and rumors that feed into what we want to hear.  There is such an array of available information, true or false, it makes “cherry picking” super easy.   We can Google our way through hundreds of thousands of sources of so called truth, picking out what fits what we want to believe and ignoring anything else that might cause us to rethink.

For a great part of my ministry I loved to preach about the soon second coming of Jesus.  I subscribed to Time, Newsweek and U. S. News and World Report specifically looking for anything that would support what I wanted to believe and preach.  It was something congregations love to hear.  However, about halfway through my career I wearied of crying “Wolf, Wolf” and shifted to an emphasis on the glory of the cross and its fruit in our lives.  The important message is not inheriting the Kingdom sometime in the future but becoming a citizen of God’s Kingdom right now.   If we love Jesus and allow Him to be in control of our lives He will come when He knows all is ready and we are secure.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 18, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

The following happened in front of my eyes this noon while I was waiting for my wife to come and pick me up.  (I like it when she picks me up.  She started over 50 years ago.)

He looked all of 80, thin, shuffling, a bit bent over and gray.  She looked to be a bit younger and was round, like a ball.  She would have been just as tall lying down.  She had bright, bright red lips and wildly coiffed brown dyed hair.

He said, “I lost my wallet.”  She said, “Where?”  He said, “If I knew where, it wouldn’t be lost.”  She, “Don’t get smart with me.  I told you to put it in your front pocket.”  He, “I did.”  She, “Well, if you put it there it would be there.”  He, “It’s not there.” She, “Don’t you ever listen to me?”  He, “I try not to.”  She, “Someday, when I am gone, you will wish you had me.”  He, “I truly doubt it.”  She, “Life would be so much easier if you just listened to me.”  He, “Yes, dear.”  She, “Don’t you ‘Yes, dear’ me.”  He, “It’s easier that way.”  She, “Go look in the car.”  He, “Yes, Dear.”  And off he went to the parking lot.  She then turned to me and said, “Don’t you agree that life would be easier if he just listened to me.”  I said, “Yes, Dear.”

He shuffled back a few minutes later with his wallet.  As he passed me he winked.  The lost was found.  There must have been great rejoicing in heaven.  It’s a panicky feeling to lose one’s wallet.  I wonder if God ever says, “Life would be so much easier if they would just listen to me?”

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 17, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Yesterday afternoon I inadvertently discovered our doorbell was not working.  I wondered how long it had been dead.  Who came only to think we were not home or worse that we were hiding from them?  (Well, maybe that isn’t so bad.  There are some people I would hide from.)  Doorbells, the electronic equivalent of knocking, are important.   If Revelation 3 were being written today it would most likely read, “Behold I stand at the door and ring.”  I love what follows, “Open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

It is important to note who is ringing.  Jesus is coming to us.  It is the great difference between Christianity and all other religions.   Other religions have humans in pursuit of God.  Christianity’s uniqueness is God is in pursuit of humans.  Right from the beginning we were God’s idea.  “Let’s make man in our image.”   When Adam and Eve failed it was Jesus who immediately announced the plan for restoration.  It was the Father who sent His only Son.  It was Jesus who cried out, “It is finished.”   It was Jesus who assured us “I will come so you can be with me.”

Don’t you just love being a Christian?  The work, the forgiveness, the justification is God coming to us with incomprehensible love.  The cross was not Pilate’s idea nor the Sanhedrin’s.   The cross was thought of prior to creation itself.   We have always been His project.  No, not project.  Children.  That’s much more like it.  He’s ringing.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 19, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Today was “Fear Day” in my human development course.  Having been given the weekend assignment of looking up various fear or phobia lists on the Internet my students were to come prepared to confess to their particular fears.  You can imagine the liveliness of the discussion as we did the usual snakes, spiders, mice, high places and claustrophobia.  One girl even said she was afraid to tell us what she was afraid of. There was a lot of joshing and laughing at each other but at some point the mood changed when people started to say, “I’m afraid of failure.”  “I’m afraid to have my heart broken.”  “I’m afraid one of my parents will die.”

Fear is a very real part of our daily existence; and rightly so because the world can be a very dangerous place. Our beautiful black lab is eighty pounds of tight muscle behind a set of the whitest of teeth.  One would think with all that power and equipment she would not need to be afraid of anything.  The truth is she startles very easily.  The strangest noise that is new to her will create an explosion of protective ferocity.  She can go from sleep to full bristled guard with the harshest and nastiest of growls in less than a second.  No one in their right mind would try to get by her.   If you only heard her you would think we had a guard lion.

One of the commonest commands found in the Bible is God telling us to fear not.  The Psalms contain such wonders as “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil.”   Right now – open your Bible and read Psalm 27.  You will not be sorry.  It will be time well spent.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 29, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Maybe I am being less sophisticated as I near my three score and ten but events of these last few days have really impressed me.  I was duly impressed that there were 135 tornados in less than 24 hours in the Midwest. Eighteen elite runners in the Boston Marathon were briefly hospitalized because of the day’s record heat.  Over 1200 people were rescued.  In the midst of that heat local military cadets in full battle dress with 35 pound packs marched the 26 miles in that heat to finish in 3 hours.  When their commander was asked if he was impressed he responded, “Somewhat.”   Last fall my wife put her outdoor goldfish in a closed container in a corner of the garage.  This morning she opened it to find a batch of very healthy fish ready to go outside.

I could add to my day’s list by setting up a telescope this evening and peer out from earth to the wonders of our Father’s house and plunge my mind into the heart of Andromeda.   I could remind myself that my wife has kept me for 50 years.  All of these things really impress me.

I am impressed by Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, . . .”   Really?   Now that is more impressive than the entire list above.  It is more impressive than any list any of us could write because the power of God’s love and grace totally overpowers everything.  In Ephesians 3 Paul wrote, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, . . .”  Impressive.  Very impressive.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 17, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I know I am going to regret sharing this story with you but what would life be without suspense.  I received an email from my sister telling me she couldn’t call me because her phone wasn’t working.  Today I heard the rest of the story from my other sister.  It seems because her phone wasn’t working her daughter purchased her another only to discover when exchanging the phones that the old one was just fine.  It just wasn’t plugged in!  As a dutiful, caring brother I have no comment whatsoever.

At first I was going to use this as an analogy that for us to be able to contact God we have to stay plugged in.  However, on second thought I can’t do that.  God is always there.  No prior contact needed.  No plug ins necessary because whether we are aware or not, He is listening.  There is no 3 G, no 4 G or cloud needed.  Jonah was well out of service range when in that giant fish, but God was in there with him.  If you ever feel that your prayers bounce off the ceiling that’s okay because He’s already in the same room with you.

“While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the LORD came to him a second time: “This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it—the LORD is his name: ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’”  Jeremiah 33

Don’t you love that promise?  Once you start talking to Him He will tell you great and unsearchable things.  I can’t wait.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 12, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

This past weekend my granddaughter was off from college and spent the weekend with her two old grateful grandparents.  Saturday evening we went for a walk.  The weather was truly delightful.  My granddaughter commented on how strong the dog looked and how hard could she pull.  So I handed her the leash thinking she would get quite a workout.   I cautioned her as I remember many years ago I handed my sister a leash connected to a much smaller lab.  That experience ended with my sister’s face on the ground.  But this time it was completely different. My present lab just stopped walking.  She gave me a very pitiful look as if to say, “What did I do wrong?  Don’t you love me?”   The walk would not continue until I took back the leash.

In John 1 Andrew first found Jesus and immediately began to follow Jesus. On that fateful day he couldn’t even begin to imagine what he would see and hear in the coming months and years.  He went from the ecstasy of seeing Jesus and his very own brother walking on water to the raising of Lazarus from the dead.  He went from the confusion of seeing Jesus’ relatives trying to throw Jesus over a cliff to the hatred of the establishment.  He went from Jesus’ cross to his very own death on a cross.  One should pause before quickly choosing to follow someone.  The consequences are most often eternal.

My loving lab would only walk if connected to who she thought was the right person.  In her case it was a matter of loyalty and I imagine that should also be our reason for walking with Jesus.   However, I was thinking the reason should be, it’s the smart thing to do.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 10, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Student loan debt has surpassed credit card debt.  Student loans have filled me with mixed feelings through the years.  While it has opened the education door for many who otherwise couldn’t attend college, it has also burdened graduates with mortgage size debts before they ever have their first jobs.  Something else that bothered me through the years is too many students flippantly borrowed as if there never was going to be a day of reckoning.  That flippant attitude then spilled over into a lack appreciation for the education itself.  Often times we only value things for which we have worked.  I have often advocated that loan moneys must be matched with wages from work study programs.

 

So why am I speaking of this?  Occasionally I hear people speak of cheap grace.  Jesus saves.  Eternal life is a gift.  Is there a problem that humans do not appreciate that for which they have not worked?   Maybe this is why so many churches have developed works theologies?  Paul wrote to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight.   I finished the race.  I have kept the faith.”  So there is some kind of battle.  It isn’t accepting the gift and going on with life as usual.   There is something else involved.  One issue is character development.  The obligation of love draws us to be like our Savior.  Another issue is to continue to abide in grace.  If one has come from a works environment such as Paul there is this constant lure, a pull back to the theology of the past because the story of grace seems way too good to be true.  Keeping the faith for Paul was just that.  Hang on.  Don’t get sucked back in.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 9, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org