My Redeemer Liveth

We just returned from Boston Symphony Hall where our souls were nourished for two and half hours as we listened to Handel’s Messiah.  It is not difficult to pinpoint my favorite five minutes.  I know we all stood for the Hallelujah Chorus but for me the best was yet to come.  It was the very next aria “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and tho’ worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep.”  Job 19 and I Corinthians 15.

When the soprano sings “I know that my redeemer liveth” I want to jump and shout, “Yes, Yes, Yes.”  This old body grows decrepit but I gladly trade it in for the newest best model.  There won’t be a next year’s model because it will be the best possible model.  That’s not because there won’t be any needed or wanted additions it is because it comes with never ending self/divine improvement software.

I did notice that some did not stand for the Hallelujah Chorus so I watched them at the end when the soloists came out for their bows.  Those same people stood, applauded and some even yelled, “Bravo.”  I should hold my judgment because I’m sure each had their personal reasons.  But for me if I stand to applaud a fellow human whose accomplishment was to sound good, why not stand for the praise, honor and glory for the one who shall reign forever and ever because He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?   Tonight I shall go to bed hearing in my head, “I know that my redeemer liveth” and I will sleep well.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 28, 2016

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Twice Washed

Thanksgiving is almost a synonym for food.  Food preparation is not one of my gifts.  Therefore about halfway through the holiday I begin to feel guilty.  While I am watching football while others are busy in the kitchen.  Trying to compensate I look for little things that I can do that might be helpful.  So when I saw the dishwasher full of dishes it was a serendipitous opportunity for me to do something other than freeload.  So I quickly put in the dishwasher soap and turned it on.  I was feeling pretty good about myself until I heard, “Who turned on the dishwasher?  They were clean!!”  Alas.  No good deed goes unpunished.

I have a friend who belongs to a church that baptizes by immersing three times – one for the Father, one for the Son and one for the Holy Spirit.  He never said so bit I think he thinks I’m not really baptized since I was only immersed once.  Then of course there are those who were merely sprinkled.  And we can go one further and mention the thief on the cross who wasn’t even sprinkled.

Actually we are saved by grace and not by any rite; otherwise it would be salvation by ritual.  Salvation is a heart experience with our maker.  Salvation is saying, “Lord, I want to be like you.”  Salvation is saying, “I am disgusted with myself and know I can only be clean if you say so.”  Salvation is knowing Jesus also says to us, “This day you will be with me in my kingdom.”  And how does that happen?  Merely by asking.  It is easy to make God happy.  Fathers are like that.  Yeah, they are.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 26, 2016

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The Best Treasure of All

On November 8, 1972, we sat in a plane with our pockets full of cash waiting to leave Entebbe, Uganda.  The cash wasn’t ours.  President Idi Amin had exiled all 580,000 Asians without Ugandan citizenship.  Each family could leave with only $140.  Thousands buried huge amounts of cash all over the country thinking to return someday to retrieve it.  After they were gone Amin changed the currency thus rendering those caches to be filled with worthless paper.  Lifetimes of hard work and saving were gone with the stroke of a pen.

The cash in our pockets was for a family immigrating to Canada.  We got it into their Canadian bank account while it still had value.  Never before did Jesus’ words on the Sermon on the Mount mean so much to me.  “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:  but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  Matthew 6

As fleeting as human wealth can be we can still take heart in something else from the Sermon on the Mount.  “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”  Matthew 6.  Our heavenly Father knows us and will provide.  For this we can celebrate this Thanksgiving week.  To be part of the family of God is the best thing ever!

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 23, 2016

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Wonder Dog

Our backyard camera recorded two large raccoons skillfully taking down our suet feeder and dragging it off into the woods.  This afternoon there was a bark at the door and there was our wonder dog with the suet feeder at her feet.  What a good dog!  “Well done thou good and faithful servant.”

If God is half as pleased with me as I am with my retriever I am in good shape.  Ephesians 1 tells us God created us for His pleasure.  I love that verse.  He didn’t have to make us. He wanted to.  He made us in His image and gave us the tools to grow.  Our potential was unlimited until sin barged in and limited our years and thus limited our growth.  How exciting eternal life is that we will have unlimited growth.  We will make the Einsteins and DaVincis of the world look ignorant and ungifted when compared with our developing skills.  And it will make God happy.  Just as we burst with pride when our children and grandchildren excel, God rejoices in our feats.

In Job 1 God brags about Job only to have Satan challenge that pride.  And so the story unfolded and Job made God proud.  I was always happy when I made my father proud of me.  He used to brag about me to his friends.  God was bragging about Job.  We are here for His good pleasure.  Our pleasure is His pleasure.   Do I ever disappoint God by my willfulness?  Of course I do.  Is He unhappy?  I’m sure He is.  Does He forgive me?  By the time my request for forgiveness is uttered it is done.  It makes Him happy.

Now that I have told you about the wonders of my dog, let me tell you about my grandchildren.

Written by Roger Bothwell oon November 22, 2016

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Our November Guest

A strong November wind has finally stripped our trees.  My woods finally look like Robert Frost’s poem My November Guest.  “My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; . . . She’s glad the birds are gone away, she’s glad her simple worsted gray is silver now with clinging mist. . . Not yesterday I learned to know the love of bare November days before the coming of the snow, . . .”

I am thankful our earth is tilted on its axis.  Should it not be we would have no  seasons.  Depending where one lived on earth would determine a sameness to everyday.  There would be 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night at the equator.  There would be eternal evening on the poles.  But as it is I rejoice in the coming of the snow and after a white feast I thrill at the bursting of spring with all its daffodils and crocuses.

It is Thanksgiving week and time to revel in the richness of life, which has little or nothing to do with one’s bank account.  It is about life.  It is about love and friends.  It is about the thrill of learning something new each day.  Even though we have our aches, pains, and worse for some – it is about the hope that Jesus has promised us – an eternity of life without those aches and pains, without the separation from loved ones.

And so I look out my window and pull my sweater just a bit more snug. I hope somewhere in heaven there will be snow – lots of snow.  Somewhere there will be gray worsted days.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 21, 2016

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Who’s Looking Back?

Our granddaughter works in the very space my wife worked in thirty years ago.  My wife told her to look for the face of Jesus in the wood grain on the back of one of the doors.  This evening we received a report that the college put a mirror on the back of that door but one can still see Jesus peeking over the top.   I kind of like that.  Jesus holds up a mirror for us and if we look carefully perhaps we can see Him in our reflection.  If we see someone who cares, someone who is honest, someone who is anxious to help others then we see Him.  It is surprising how good He looks.

I realize there is hesitancy on our part.  We are very aware of our limitations and faults.  No one need point them out.  We know!  So we balk a bit at the idea that Jesus can be seen in us.  Paul addresses this very issue in I Corinthians 1.  He wrote, “Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”  That’s us.  We are the not so wise, the not so influential.  However, the wonderful point is He chose us.

We rarely see ourselves as others see us.  If we have a zit that is all we think people see.  Most people never notice the zit because they are blinded by our gracious care.  Or, horrors, our indifference.  It’s up to us.  We choose what they see.  Before leaving your room in the morning, take a peak in your mirror to see whose looking back.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 12, 2016

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To Be Truly Beautiful

The most beautiful thing in the world is a life well-lived.  Standards and ideals of physical beauty change with the seasons of a culture but goodness and unselfishness are eternally valued. We are told by hawks that gracious accommodations made to our enemies are signs of weakness to be misunderstood by our foes and thus embolden them to aggression.  But was it not Jesus who told us to turn the other cheek?  Was it not Jesus who never struck back when He could have called legions of angels to avenge Him?  Matthew 26:53.  It was the Prince of Peace who divided history.  True strength of character is manifested in compassion and understanding.  True wisdom is quick to apologize and to learn from words spoken in haste.

The Sermon on the Mount is the manifesto for a life well-lived.  Paul follows with Ephesians 4,  “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” This is not psychological pabulum.  This is the secret of happiness.  To be quick to forgive is the power to heal one’s wounds.  Should someone take advantage of us shame on them, not shame on us for being kind.  Desires for revenge and plans for retaliation are toxins that eat away our vitality more ferociously than any cancer.

I have yet to meet someone who wants to be ugly.  Yet so often we choose to be ugly by our allowing others to determine our behavior.  Some of the most physically unattractive persons I know are the most beautiful people in the universe.  They are not merely decorated but instead are fountains of eternal beauty.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 4, 2016

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Price Tags

The signs of senescence are beginning.   I got a nice brown flannel shirt earlier this week.  It’s very warm and should pay for itself by allowing us to keep the house a bit cooler this winter. Yesterday I wore it while doing chores around town.  It was only this morning that I noticed I had not yet removed all the tags.  I’m surprised I didn’t get stopped in Macy’s by security telling me I had to pay for it before leaving the store.  Only then would they have noticed the price tag said Tractor Supply Co.

It might not be a price tag but all of us continually display tags or signs that supply people with a lot of information about who we are and what are our values.  The way we deport ourselves preaches volumes.  If I am rude and display impatience with others I am broadcasting my lack of character.  If I am super critical of others I am saying more about me than what or whom I am criticizing.  If I am continually negative and create clouds of gloom I make people wonder how I ever got married.  Who would have me?

Being a Christian isn’t necessarily always talking about one’s faith, but more often, it is about our genuine care for others.  Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.”  John 13:35.  T

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 17, 2016

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I Felt So Stupid

I got one of those solar panel phone calls today.  The lady I was talking to was very nice.  For a minute or so she answered all my questions just right but then she answered with a comment that didn’t make sense.  It dawned on me.  I wasn’t talking to a real person.  I was talking to a very cleverly programmed computer.  Boy, did I feel stupid.

That is the very reason the first commandment tells us not to worship any other god except Jehovah, our Heavenly Father.  No matter how cunningly they are presented to us, they are ignorant and unable to do anything for us.  Fearful that some might think that about the story of Jesus, Peter wrote, “We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”     II Peter 1.

One of the truly great things about talking to our Heavenly Father is His intricate and intimate knowledge of us.   He knows our likes and dislikes.  He knows our quirkiness and our peccadilloes.  Despite our limited knowledge of life He never makes us feel stupid.  He is patient and forgiving.  A huge part of our problem is we don’t know what we don’t know.  However, He knows what we don’t know and is understanding when we majorly mess up.  A big problem is when we know what we are doing is wrong and yet we still do it.  We have all done it.  We can’t claim ignorance for all our sins.  But the forgiveness is still there.  It is a matter of repentance.

He is faithful and just to forgive all our sins.  I John 1:9.  He’s the best.

Written by Roger Bothwell  on November 16, 2016

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Our Children Are Philosophers

We are all born philosophers.  Our children are philosophers.  That’s why children delight in playing the Why Game.  It is what philosophers do.  Socrates spent his life playing the Why Game.  The city fathers couldn’t take it anymore and finally sentenced him to death.  Somewhere along the way most of us ceased asking why and changed it for what.  Maybe it happens when we go to school.  Teachers rarely ask children why.  Often we ask for the information we have poured in and hope it can be poured back out.  Thus children with good memories get good grades.  Alas, good grades don’t always mean a child knows why.

Maybe this is what Jesus meant when He said in order for us to enter the Kingdom we have to remain as children.  Maybe He wants us to keep asking why.  Now that we have Google the answers to “what questions” are just a few keystrokes away.  But Google doesn’t do as well when we ask why.

Why is there anything?  Why are we loved?  Why does life seem to need death?   Why can’t we mature and maintain?  Why has God redeemed us?  Why do we have choice?   When I was small and asked my Sabbath School teacher “why questions” he told me I wasn’t to ask such things.  I guess he just didn’t know the answers.  Maybe that’s one reason children stop being philosophers.  We tell them not to ask such things.

Why do radicals believe God is pleased when they blow themselves up and take other lives with them?  Why do they think they are pleasing God when they spread death and terror?   Perhaps it is because they have chosen the easy way.  It is easy to kill.  It is easy to destroy.  It is hard to build.  It is hard to save humanity from disease, hunger and ourselves.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 19, 2015

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