Author: Ian Bothwell

I’m going to guess when 99% of us hear “That’s all folks” we immediately think of the conclusion to a Loony Tunes cartoon.  Usually it’s Porky signing off but occasionally Bugs has the honors.  For a few moments the thought crossed my mind that we will never hear “That’s all folks” in heaven because there will be a never ending supply of life, health, learning, talent development, etc.  No matter how skilled we get at a particular task there will be more time for more honing.

Then it occurred to me that we will indeed hear “That’s all folks.”  When the topic of death arises we can safely say with no possibility of correction, “That’s all folks.”   As for pain, “That’s all folks.”  As for crime, “That’s all folks.”  How about sickness and disease?  “That’s all folks.”

When I was a little guy I loved cartoons (still do) and was always just a bit disappointed to hear “That’s all folks.”  I wanted the cartoon to continue.  I never got (get) tired of Bugs outwitting Elmer Fudd and hearing Elmer say, “You wascal wabbit.”  There are certain things that are timeless and I have to disagree with Paul’s comment in I Corinthians 13.  Now that I am a man I still have not put away all my childish things.  Maybe it’s a male thing.  My wife really couldn’t care less about cartoons.   But I have occasionally seen her changing clothes on Samantha, her American Girl Doll.  Often when I am visiting someone in a nursing home I see a little old lady holding a doll. Or is it a dolly?

I was going to close with “That’s all folks.”  But I will write again tomorrow.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 16, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

It started in the gardens behind our home in East Africa and ended in the front seat of our Ford Cortina.  Somehow in my youthful foolishness I caught a seven foot long cobra and asked my wife to drive me to our school’s biology room.   I was pretty cool about it until, there in the small confines of the car, it began to struggle with me.  While holding it behind the head with one hand I tried to stop its thrashing about on my lap inches from my wife with my other hand.  As we pulled up to the school it relaxed but I did not.  Beads of anxious sweat ran down my face.  It was only when putting it in the biology room box did I understand its battle.  It was dead.  It had been thrashing for the precious air I was not allowing it to have.  It was the only thing I have ever strangled.  But perhaps not the only thing I have ever deprived of life, at least eternal life.

Paul speaks of being a stumbling block. “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”              I Corinthians 8:9.  So often we talk about people approaching us in heaven and thanking us for encouraging them.  But what of those we have discouraged?  As a teacher I wonder how often I flipped off a causal remark to be funny but actually deeply hurt a student.  What persons decided they didn’t want to be in heaven if we are there?

I once heard someone say if he had to live his life over again he wouldn’t do anything differently.  I thought, “What a fool.  He learned nothing along the way.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 14, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Winter has finally arrived.  We awakened this morning to a lovely white blanket covering our brownish yard and the maple and birch branches were outlined in white against the backdrop of a gray sky.  It is a heavy wet snow and perfect for snowballs.  It packs nicely and has given birth to a new population.  Here and there one will spot a portly fellow with a corncob pipe and long thin orange nose.

It’s a temporary population very susceptible to some promised 40 degree days.  Like people going into a sauna they will rapidly lose weight, but unlike most people they will not regain it the next day.  We also are a temporary population.  Our 70 plus years are as fleeting as Mr. Snowman.  We melt away and our molecules will most likely once again be used in another human or perhaps a snowman.

If all there is to life is this temporal experience one has to ask why.  Of what use or value is this other than a few years of happiness if we are fortunate?  I genuinely feel sorry for very bright people who have no hope beyond here.  They learn many languages.  They get many degrees.  Then it all goes the same place Mr. Snowman went.  Solomon speaks of its futility. I want so much for them to understand we have an incredible God who wants to build on what they have accomplished.  There awaits a never-ending acquisition of knowledge and to speak a multitude of languages without Star Trek’s universal translator button.   There is so much science to learn, so many poems to write, so many essays to study and so many places to visit.

Alas, without Jesus we are merely snowpeople.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 13, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Some years ago I was driving across the Indiana Turnpike and realized I was close to the university I had attended and if I tuned the radio to the university station I could hear the weekly church service.  Much to my delight when the speaker was introduced I knew him.  In the next few minutes my delight turned into keen interest for the sermon was one I had written.  A year or so prior the speaker’s brother asked if I could help him out with a half dozen sermons.  Apparently he had passed them on.  As I listened I was sure somewhere in that sermon due credit would be given.  It wasn’t.

Was I miffed?  Yeah, I was.  But the more I thought about it the more I understood how wrong it was for me to be miffed.  Number one – I gave it away.  Number two – I have never had an original idea in my whole life.  Everything I have ever written or spoken has been taken from others.  All I ever do is repackage the ideas with different words.  And number three – the whole point is to bring glory to God for giving us Jesus and saving us.  Why was I wanting the glory?  I really needed to put things into perspective.  It wasn’t about me.  It was and always is about Jesus.

By the time I got halfway across Ohio I had it pretty much worked out.  I remembered Revelation 5:12.  “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.”

Many times since I have reminded myself that it isn’t about me.  It’s all about Jesus.  At least it’s supposed to be.  Sometimes I forget.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 12, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

When God finished each day of Creation He said, “That is good.”  That was until the end of the 6th day.  Then He said, “That is very good.”  He had just created Adam and Eve.  They were magnificent.  Angels sang and Lucifer complained.  For the Psalmist wrote, “You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor.”  Psalm 8:5.  At least that is how the King James Version of the Bible is translated.  The translators could not bring themselves to translate the Hebrew word “elohim” which is usually translated “God” and so they substituted “heavenly beings” or “angels.”  Some translations render it with the usual translation.  It seems there was something special about Adam and Eve.  They had something the angels did not.  Until then Lucifer had been the most glorious fruit of God’s handiwork.

I looked in the mirror this morning.  How very depressing.  Sin has more than taken its toll.  The bloom left the rose a long time ago.  I just now noticed.  Years ago one of the saints, H.M.S. Richards, was asked if it was morally right for women to use makeup.  His response was classic, “If the barn needs painting, paint it.”  We do need a lot of care.  Clothing covers a multitude of flaws.  Glasses on older people distract us from the bags and wrinkles about our eyes.  Hair, if we have any, can be stylishly coiffed to enhance our plainness.  We can even grow it long by our ears and comb it over the top holding it there with lots of spray.

How very grand it will be when the promises of eternal life made to us by Jesus will come to fullness.  Forever young.   Forever in full bloom.  Forever in His image.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 11, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

One of the enjoyable things in the Gospels are the miscellaneous details.  An example would be the 153 large fish in the disciple’s nets in John 21.  One of my favorites isn’t a number it’s an aside in Luke 8.  Jesus had just raised Jairus’s little girl from death and He instructed her parents to get her something to eat.   I realize it is no big deal, especially in comparison to her resurrection, but it tells me so much about Jesus’ care for people.

Real religion isn’t about taboos, food and ceremonies.  Paul wrote in Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”  Real religion is what Jesus’ brother James wrote in 1:27.  “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”  I once witnessed one of the “saints” (?), who would die before he touched a ham sandwich, tell his daughter she had to get out of their home.  Talk about missing the point.

Some are going to be so surprised to meet people in heaven who never ascribed to any list of doctrinal points.  They “merely” loved, cared for and fed people around them.  “Merely?” I wonder if WE also have missed the point with our list about the Trinity, baptism, state of the dead, etc.  Lest I receive emails regarding this I do think beliefs are important.  My point is priorities.  Paul does say scripture is profitable for doctrine.  It’s just how much importance we place on such.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 11, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Once again the hate-filled church plans to dishonor another fallen American soldier with their bile laden picket signs.  Their mantra is “Thank God for IEDs” as they call our military dead “fallen fools.”

On December 26 in Israel a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews spat on a little girl and called her a prostitute because they deemed her shirtsleeves to be immodest.

Each week we hear news of suicide bombers in the Middle East killing people who are not their flavor of Islam.

How is it that the one thing in our lives that should make us better people instead fosters extremism, hatred and cruelty?   Extremism is a vice that eats away at our humanity and turns us into subhuman creatures willing to do anything.  Often times religious people frighten me.  If a man thinks he is doing God’s will by killing me he will do it with a smile on his face.  They are more frightening than “bad people” who merely want my wallet.

It does not matter if one calls oneself a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, if one’s religious experience does not make one a more loving, more generous or more peaceful person they are deceived and are children of the disgraced one who was cast out of heaven.  I am so happy I discovered who Jesus was when I was a child and was not yet aware of what is done in the name of religion.  If I had not done so I am fearful I might never have been anything even closely associated with any religion.   How delightful it is to know that real religion is one’s personal walk with God and not dependent on human associations.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 10, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Preaching is something of which I have an acquaintance.  This is a strange activity where a group of people assemble to listen to one person – hopefully speaking uninterrupted.  I call it strange because in most of our life’s activities it can be difficult to get people to listen.  Often when it appears we are listening we are really waiting for the person speaking to take a breath so we can jump in with our opinion or story.  People go to counselors and pay a hundred dollars an hour so someone will listen to them. (Real counselors don’t tell people what do to.  They listen and help people sort out their issues.)   Yet once a week or so people gather to listen to one person for thirty minutes or so.  Instead of paying someone to listen to them, the congregation pays to listen when the offering plate comes by.

In a college setting I meet many young people who aspire to the ministry and I wonder why.  If I ask they will tell me God has called them.   I believe He does call some.  However, often I think some are not even aware of their personal need to be important and to have other people listen to their thoughts.  Preaching feeds one’s ego and threatens one’s soul.  Personal glorification slowly replaces one’s desire to glorify God.  Preaching can be extremely dangerous as one believes the nice things people say to you.  We forget that the unnice things are saved for when we are absent.

In 1 Corinthians 1:21 Paul speaks of the foolishness of preaching that people might be saved.  Often I think the person who most needs saving is the preacher and not the congregation.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 9, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

In the morning I will be scanned.  No, I am not going through an airport but instead to a local hospital.  The intrusive rays of the giant donut-like machine will peer into my inner parts and show all the flaws and irregularities that have resulted from so many decades of life.  I cannot help but think of        Psalm 139 which begins, “You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” Ah, now there is something the scanner cannot see – my thoughts.  Those are private between me and my Creator/Savior.

Verses 13 and onward read, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

That is spectacular.  We are watched and known prior to our birth.  According to this Psalm there is nowhere we can go that He does not watch and care.  Finally, the last two verses say, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

If the doctors see something strange on my scan hopefully they can fix it.  When God sees something strange in my thoughts, He promises to fix it.  There is no “hopefully” about it.  It is for sure.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 8, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Linus once said, “I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand.”  After we finish smiling the meaning sinks in and we realize the little guy was quite wise.  When we are face to face with individuals we see their quirks and flaws and are annoyed by them.  When we speak of people in general they are more than tolerable.  I find myself wanting to give money to people far away but not to people downtown.  I stood in line this past weekend behind a fellow who was covered with tattoos.  I confess that I was not overwhelmed with feelings of warmth and care.  It was then that I dropped my keys and before I could stoop down he had scooped them up for me.  He was beaming a big smile as he handed them to me.  It was then that I saw the tattoos covering his arms were Scripture.  His right arm was the 23rd Psalm and his left arm was Romans 8:38 & 39.   While I have never desired a heart tattoo with MOM written under it, I almost wanted to do what he had done.  Alas, my arms would not have been as impressive as his large biceps. He was a walking macho sermon; so much for stereotyping and prejudging people.

I realize that while Jesus told us to love others He never told us to like others.  Often I have used that as an excuse for my sometimes unlikeable behavior.  While I don’t wish to discourage you from helping some small hungry child in Central America, I would like to encourage you to help a child nearby.   Not only will it make Jesus happy, it will make you happy.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 5, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org