Author: Ian Bothwell

It was a scene out of Tom Sawyer and I loved it.  I had two thirty-something guys stop by my house today.  They knew about my log-splitter and of course I wanted to show it off and tell them how much fun it was.  They spotted a couple huge rounds left over from an elm that came down in an ice storm.  The rounds were way too big for me to muscle around and I had wondered what I would do with them, but they jumped at the chance.  So I sat down and watched them have fun.  It was great.  At one point I actually had to stop them from spending their day splitting all my wood.  I think I am going to start charging admission.  How grand!

One of life’s great secrets is how to get other people to do your work.  It is the secret of success.  It’s all about motivation.  God motivates us to do His work here on earth.  His motivation is love.  It’s the best kind.  The joy of working for God is because we want to share His love and the Good News. Considering how simple this seems I am somewhat puzzled when I hear preachers exhorting us to do good works. I’m not sure about you but that never works with me.  Instead of exhortation, inspire me.  Make me want to do it and you will not have to exhort.  As a matter of fact, too much exhortation gets the reverse reaction from me.  I won’t do it just because you said I had to.  I know that is really immature but it’s the way I react.  Are you different from me on this?

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 26, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Today I heard about igneous rock.  I learned about granite, obsidian, amphibole and pyroxene. I also learned I am not as smart as a sixth-grader while I was observing a science teacher working to upgrade her credential.  The sixth graders were jumping up and down wanting to answer the teacher’s questions while I sat in the back of the room reading the glossary in their science text.  I learned about intrusive and extrusive rocks.  I also learned not to give much credibility to the next politician I hear harping on the quality of education in Massachusetts; especially since our students rank first in the United States and third in the world in science and math.

Having confessed my ignorance of sedimentary rock I do want to proclaim my knowledge of and confidence in the Rock of Ages.   Paul wrote, “For other foundation no one can lay, but that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus.” (I Corinthians 3:11)  And again Paul wrote, “. . . they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ. (I Corinthians 10:4)  Peter calls Jesus the Chief Corner Stone.  (I Peter 2:4)  Also over and over in the Psalms we find the metaphor of God being the Rock of our salvation.

So I might not be as smart as a sixth-grader and be like those whiz kids who are able to answer questions about magna, but I do know the importance of putting our trust in the One who loves us dearly and might respond to the nickname, “Rocky”;   then again probably not.  He is far too awesome for such commonality.   He is the Rock of the Universe.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 25, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

This is devotional number 6500.   That’s a lot of evenings sitting here staring at the computer screen.  One would think about now I would run out of things to write about but life is so very interesting there usually is something.  Someone asked me if I have ever repeated myself.  I’m sure I have.  I just can’t remember what all 6500 of them are about.  Once in a while people ask me why I don’t write a book.  I have.  It has 6500 pages and adding.

I am excited that today’s devotional can be a celebration of something fun.  Last week my wife and I were in a farm store.  It is fun to look at all the things farmers use.  On the way out my wife noted they were having a drawing so she filled out the slip and put it in the box.  This afternoon they called.  We won the grand prize.  Now that is very awesome because this very week I was going to start splitting my pile of firewood for the winter.  Guess what we won.   A log-splitter.  I couldn’t believe the timing and the blessing.  This past week I put a new handle in my axe in preparation for a lot of swinging.  That axe is going to feel neglected as I just push the button and watch.  I hope we have a really cold winter because I am going to have a lot of wood to burn.

When I was very little I learned “my cup runneth over.”  It does and with something so much more special than a log-splitter.  I am surrounded by wonderful family and friends like you who once in a while read some of the 6500 devotionals.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 24, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

These past few days thousands of workers for one of the communication giants have been on strike.  You most likely saw some of them with their red shirts and picket signs standing in front of one of their work places.   I certainly can understand the need for unity and solidarity when negotiating with a giant organization.  What I don’t understand is one of the strikers was wearing a button with the company logo above the word “Evil.”   “Evil” is a very harsh word and I wondered now that the strike is over, how can that person continue to work for an organization that is evil?  Would that not mean that he too is evil by using his talents to foster the health of that evil organization?   Should he not use his gifts to totally stamp out evil or does something cease to be evil once we get from it what WE want?  Then who is the evil one?

All of my life I have been educated to think that Satan is evil.  I certainly don’t want to be on his team.  Therefore, when I tell a lie, it really isn’t evil, it’s just a little white lie.  I haven’t really participated in his campaign to overthrow God’s Kingdom or have I?  When I feed my lower nature am I not at least a private in his army?  At least I’m not a captain or a general.  Those positions are for others I know but will not identify here.

It seems so easy to disparage others and excuse ourselves.  I usually come up with some very good excuses for my misdeeds but rarely want to give others the benefit of the doubt.  They are just plainly evil!  Alas, I need a heart transplant

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 23, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

The Lord made some people gardeners.  The Bothwells were not some of them.  We do not grow food.  We eat it.  For a short time when our boys were very little in Africa we had a small garden cut out in the midst of a patch of elephant grass.  At no time in our lives in America have we grown eatables.  We have gathered wild blueberries and asparagus where God planted them.  So this year when my wife decided to grow a tomato plant in a tub we were pretty much garden virgins.  You can imagine our dismay when a ground hog started munching on it.  But my wife fortified the plant with chicken wire and we now have tomatoes.  It was a rare day this afternoon when I walked by it, plucked a nice round red juicy fruit (or is it a vegetable?) and ate it right there on the spot.

They certainly do taste better than the ones from the supermarket.  It brings new meaning to Genesis 1:11- 12.  It was the third day of creation. “The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.”

Now I am wondering if brussel sprouts and okra taste good if they come fresh from the garden.  But alas, I think it is too late for us to become gardeners.  We do live in New England and the growing season really isn’t very long.  Maybe in heaven God will put a garden area in my back yard with no weeds.  I hope I don’t disappoint Him if I fail to use it and instead buy my veggies from a neighbor with a squash patch.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 24, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Do you ever feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football?   Opportunities appear before you and you take a deep breath and go for it only to have Lucy yank it away at the last minute.  So you pick yourself up, brush yourself off and keep on keeping on, waiting for, hoping for another opportunity.  Maybe, just maybe, the next time Lucy will forget to yank the ball.  Do you ever look at the news and see masses of people and wonder what opportunities they have or have not had?  It is so easy to be critical of illegal immigrants but maybe this was their only chance.

Those of us who were born hearing the Gospel often smugly write off the billions who have never heard.   Or if they did hear they heard it through us flawed messengers who failed to make it attractive.  The Good News is so wonderful when rightly presented.  However, our actions so outweigh our words, we nullify attempts to share with others.  Instead of being the one trying to kick the football we become Lucy.  We are the one who yank it away just when someone begins to consider.

During the time it took to read this far another thousand people died without hearing the Good News.  Are they lost?  Do they not have an opportunity to rejoice with us on resurrection morning?  There is a text in Romans 1 that hints to us there might be many more opportunities in this universe than we know.  God can’t be put in our small mental box.  He is way too big and far more loving than we.  I believe He is the God of opportunities.  Lots of opportunities.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 21, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I bought a time machine.  It is a wonderful device by which I am digitizing 45 years of slides.  Before me on my computer screen are these two very thin dark haired people with two little boys.  Who are they?  They are very good looking and appear to be very happy.  Oh!  I know who they are.  It’s us – my wife and boys.  Wow.  We looked good.  So what happened?

Even though the slides have lost much of their original color and are often covered with dust spots there is the wonder of Photoshop.  A few clicks of the auto color button and the pictures look like I took them yesterday.  A few clicks of the replace button and the dust specks disappear.  Oh, this is grand.  I wanted to say this was as easy as getting the spots off my record in heaven.  But this is much easier.  This photo process cost a few dollars while the spots on my record required the cross of Jesus.  That was the most expensive price ever paid for anything.

Hopefully, though we might not look as good on the outside as we did decades ago, we are much better looking on the inside.  Hopefully our characters have been steadily improving and behavior-wise we are much nicer, much kinder, much more generous people than we were.  Sometimes we shudder when we think of some of the things we did and said to others.  Hopefully, should we be in similar situations we would react in a much more loving way.   This growth is what life is all about.  To be more today than we were yesterday and yet more tomorrow.  Here’s looking forward to the day when we will never again need to be Photoshopped.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 20, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

One of my richest blessings in life is I have always been surrounded by very smart people.  One of my aspirations has always been to be the least informed person in the room thus giving me the opportunity to learn something new and wonderful from each person around me.  To be hungry to know is a great blessing.  I have friends who are wonderful artists and some who are scientists and some who are theologians and some who understand psychology.  It is a treat to be with them. There is so much to gain.

My father was a teacher and he would read to me.  Perhaps that is what made me hungry to absorb all I could.   We had a set of World Book Encyclopedia and I would take A or D or K, it didn’t matter which one, and turn each page looking at the pictures and wishing I could know all those things.  You could imagine my excitement the day I first read Colossians 2:3. “In him are stored all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”  To know God, to spend time with Him, is the secret to an ever-expanding understanding of life and the mysteries of being.  He knows all that is known and because He is a creator He continues to think new thoughts and create new knowledge.   Spending eternity with Him means we get to share not only His old ideas but also His new ideas.

Someone once tried to convince me that God knows all that can ever be known or thought and I could not accept that.   It would mean He would be bored.  But He can never be bored because forever He will be thinking of new ways to bless us and shower us with His mercies.  See Ephesians 2.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 19, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I had lunch today at McDonalds and ended up sitting in a booth behind two quite elderly silver-haired ladies who were very engaged in a rousing discussion.  It was very easy to hear and I was amused at the exchange.  I can’t print much of it here but I will quote to you this great line.  “I know the old biddy is trying to get him.  But I won’t allow it.  He’s mine!”

Ah, hope springs eternal.  As well it should.  As Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”  Never stop living for the future and I mean both here and then.  Unfortunately, I do know some people who have stopped living for now and have all of their hopes and plans in the “Then.”   Everybody needs something to look forward to “now” and “then.”  I think we start to run out of steam and can’t do as much as we used to.  Okay.  We understand.  But that is not an excuse to do nothing.

In Ephesians 2 Paul tells us that God has specific things for us to do.  We don’t know if they were for us in our twenties, thirties or nineties.  How distressing it would be if we gave up in our seventies and found out when we are in heaven that we missed the really big task that God had for us.  “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” “It’s ain’t over ‘til it’s over” and as long as God gives us a mind with which to think and ponder we should be creatively planning things to do with our families and our communities.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 18, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

We had only driven about a mile when my wife noticed a tiny spider clinging to a strand of web that was connected to the passenger side mirror.  There he was in a forty mile an hour wind holding on for dear life.  Nothing would do except we had to pull over while my wife rolled down her window and helped the little guy back into the safety of the case that holds the mirror.  Only then could we proceed.  I was fascinated because my wife really dislikes spiders.

At first I wanted to compare this to God and us.  Romans 5:10, “If, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”  But then I realized it was not a good analogy.  God loves us despite our sins.  Our sins He definitely hates.  But He does not see us and our sins as one in the same.   In His Fatherly care He is able to separate us from our behavior.  That in itself is amazing. It is the spider itself my wife dislikes even though she actually understands their presence makes our home a better place.  They catch and eat all kinds of flying, biting, stinging things.

So why was she so concerned about the little guy clinging in the wind?  Perhaps she admired its tenacity.  It certainly wasn’t giving up.  All it needed for survival was a break.  It needed someone to intervene.  And so we did.  Often times it is that way with us.  Times get tough and we hang on for dear life hoping for a break. When it comes to our eternal future we got the biggest break anyone could imagine.  God intervened and we are saved.  Amazing.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 29, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org