Author: Ian Bothwell

We have this nice kid in our neighborhood.  He is about 10 years old and has a two year old dog named Buddy.  Buddy is beautiful and weighs about the same as his master, who very faithfully takes Buddy for a walk each afternoon after school.  Maybe I should say Buddy takes his master for a walk.  Buddy is a handful and goes pretty much where he wants to go pulling his master after him.

Buddy reminds me of strong habits and propensities in our lives.  We struggle to keep them in check but so often they pull us where they want to go.  But this I know.  There is no sin or desire so strong that we cannot overcome or control.  Unlike Buddy’s master who is doing it on his own we do not have to face temptation on our own.  Jesus’ disciple John wrote, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”  That promise is in his small letter of I John in chapter 4.  If you will put the word “overcome” in a concordance you will discover there are five promises about overcoming in I John.  John was a son of thunder and he overcame.  He was an overcomer and wants each of us to share the victory available in Jesus.

Here’s one of two promises in chapter 5. “Everyone born of God overcomes the world.”  The world is a pretty big place filled with many temptations and addictions.  But none of what the world has is bigger or stronger than the power available to us. We have overwhelming power just a prayer away. It’s even stronger than Buddy.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 16, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Masses of people were scurrying about trying to finish their list before Christmas Eve.  Fortunately for those of us in New England this year we don’t have any snow to hamper our doings.  While doing my doings I heard people greet each other with “Are you ready for Christmas?”  Some people had reduced it to “Are you ready?”  I thought it might be a great greeting all the time – referring to the second coming of Jesus.  Are you ready?

I grew up in an environment where it wasn’t PC to say “Yes.”   We were trained to say, “I hope so.”  After all we might have sinned in the past hour and hadn’t had a chance to ask for forgiveness.  As a child of God who has read the Gospels and the letters of Paul I now understand how insulting that is to God.  It takes love out of the equation and replaces it with a computer-like program of ons and offs.  Sin and it’s off.  Ask for forgiveness and it’s on.  That is really pathetic.  If we as parents loved our children that way the state social service should remove them from us.

Salvation isn’t about ons and offs.  It is about family.  Being in God’s family with Him being the best ever Father is what Jesus talked about.    Just as a good human parent would not cast his child out of the house for an infraction of some sort neither will God reject us; especially for an unknown sin of some kind.  Salvation is about belonging to the family.  We enter the family by accepting the invitation.  So do it.  Once done we can always answer with a big “Yes” to the question “Are you ready?”

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 24, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

We have grown up hearing that it is better to give than to receive.  We have heard it so often and for so long it has almost become a religious tenet.  To say otherwise would be heresy let alone making us appear to be selfish spoiled bratty adults.   But inside we all know how terrific it is to receive.  Yes, it is good to give.  It is terrific to give.  But receiving is really satisfying.

God is a good Father.  He is the best.  He would not do something that would not be for our benefit and the most famous verse in the Bible is John 3:16.   “For God so loved the world He gave us …” That makes us receivers.  He, also enjoys receiving.  Thus Psalm 107:1 and Psalm 136:1 admonishes us to “Give thanks unto the Lord.”  Isaiah 42:12 tells us to “Give God praise.”   This makes Him a receiver.  He wouldn’t be a receiver if it wasn’t a good thing.

Actually giving and receiving are so interwoven it is difficult to sort them into something different.  How many times have we given only to have been so rewarded internally for doing so that it outweighed what we gave?  We received.   It also works in reverse. When we graciously receive we give another person the same feeling of warmth we get when we give.  Often receiving is a very unselfish act of care toward the giver.

God is a giver.  We are givers.  God is a receiver.  We are receivers.  Yes, it can be abused just like any good thing can be twisted into something harmful.  But if we are reasonable fairly intelligent people we have to admit that receiving is great.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 22, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

So I figured I would get a Christmas haircut just in case people wanted to take pictures around the tree.  I went early to the barbershop – 8:15.   But there were already four really old guys there, one in the chair and three waiting.  While I was waiting two more old guys came in.  The gray hair on the floor around the barber chair was piling up – not a dark hair to be seen.

Old guys get a senior discount – only 12 dollars.  But the first guy gives her a twenty and says, “Keep the change. Merry Christmas.”  So the second guy gets out of the chair, gives her a twenty and says, “Keep the change. Merry Christmas.”  The third guy does the same.  So it was my turn.  By now there are three old guys watching.  What could I do?  Did I want these crotchety old guys to think that I was either a jerk or unsuccessful in life?  So much for the senior discount!  I learned a life lesson.  Never get a haircut a few days before Christmas.

Life is full of learning experiences.  A lady was in line ahead of me at a Kmart checkout.  She was coughing over and over into her hand.  Then she picked up that pen-like thing to sign for her credit purchase.  Well, I quickly put my credit card back in my wallet and paid in cash.  See, I do learn.  Another thing I learned along the way there is no better life than a life in Jesus.  He provides peace, resolution and a fantastic out of this world future.  So come with me.  Learn the same lesson from an old guy whose gray hair is on the floor mixed in with lots of other old guy’s hair.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 23, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

One of the disadvantages of aging is the closing of doors and the growing limits on possibilities.  Lessened physical prowess and the restrictions of remaining years squelch dreams and ambitions.  When I was young I dreamed dreams of adventure and accomplishments.  Now that youth is in the rearview mirror reality forces upon me the truth that options are fewer and fewer with the passage of years.  Jesus and His gift of eternal life are not some nice idea.  They are a necessity for the continuation of life’s possibilities.  With Jesus all is limitless.  Age is but a bit of temporary inconvenience.

Emily Dickenson, our recluse New England poet, said it so well.

“I dwell in Possibility

A fairer house than Prose,

More numerous of windows,

Superior of doors.”

She closes with “The spreading wide my narrow hands to gather Paradise.”

With Jesus personal possibilities are limitless.  With eternal life there is time to be a poet, a writer, a musician, a painter, a sculptor, a builder, an architect, a mason, a carpenter, an athlete, an organist, a singer, a plumber, a pilot, a tourist, a skier, a golfer, a botanist, an astronomer, a biologist or an orator.

Come with me and dwell in Possibility.  Make Jesus the Lord of your life and open your mind to all that you can be.  Age ceases to be a limiter and becomes a foundation for more and better.  Some speak of spending eternity standing in God’s throne room singing His praises.  I will instead show Him praises by becoming everything He dreams for me.  Occasionally I will visit His throne room to say thank you and then off again for more adventures because Possiblity is more numerous of windows and superior of doors.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 21, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Most likely everyone has a box filled with useless things that we cannot throw away.  Usually they are the fragments of one’s childhood or of our children’s childhood.  Artwork from first grade, father’s day cards, cheap souvenirs from a family trip, golf score cards, kissing pictures from a photo booth, ticket stubs from a roller coaster ride, a pressed four-leaf clover.  These are important things. My heart breaks for people whose homes are destroyed. While one can always buy new things, one can never reproduce a box filled with useless (wonderful) mementos of a time long gone. Surely in heaven Jesus has a box with a favorite tool from His carpenter’s shop in Nazareth, a driedel, a lock of hair, something from His bar mitzvah, a temple coin from Jerusalem, a collar from a favorite puppy.

My box has an old metal dog tag with my name pressed into the soft aluminum.  Vividly I remember making it on a machine at Hershey Park.  It was in the 1940’s just after the war.  My dad put the 10 cents into the machine (a lot of money) and helped me turn the wheel with the letters.  Then I pulled the lever that pressed my name.  I put it on a string (didn’t have a chain) and wore it about my neck like GIs.  It was wonderful.

Jesus wants to press His ID on us.  We are already written in His heart.  Now He longs for us to allow Him to be written in ours.  He wants us to be so like Him we don’t have to tell people we are Christians.  They will just know because of how we treat them.  He said, “Hereby shall men know you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 18, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Anyone who owns a car has at least one time gotten in and turned the key only to hear a click.  It’s a sickening sound.  Most of us who are optimistic turn the key again only to rehear the click.  And if we have really lost control of our brains we turn it the third time.  If it didn’t work the first two times it isn’t going to work the third time because the battery is dead or so close to death it needs hospice.  It’s time for the jumper cables.  Hopefully there is a kind soul about who will let you connect to their car for electrical sustenance.

We could be the one who needs the power or the one who supplies the power depending on our personal supply.  When we are with Jesus we are charged with enough power to overcome the world.  That’s a promise in I John 5.  But there are times when we aren’t so supercharged.

Spending time in the Gospels and Paul’s letters keeps us connected and allows His power to flow through us to others.  These days, before the holidays, are especially hectic and busy and the time we have to pay attention to our spiritual life can be quite limited.  Often we have to really purpose it. If we don’t, life’s chores just crowd our days leaving very little time for Jesus.  It’s ironic that the celebration of His advent becomes the very thing to pull us away from Him.  If you find yourself feeling a bit separated from Him don’t chastise yourself.  He understands and is grateful for any time you can devote to Him, be it five minutes or an hour.  Just don’t let it be zero or you will hear the dreaded click.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 17, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I grew up in a culture that rarely read the Bible in context.  Instead we pieced together ideas by taking a text from here and a text from there.  Unfortunately this often leads one to believe they know much about the Bible when they do not.  It is most beneficial to sit down and just read without trying to find texts to support ideas we already have.  But just read and wonderful things will happen.  The Holy Spirit will paint pictures in our minds of things past and things to come.  They will be fresh pictures unlike our preconceived concepts of what is supposed to be there.

Try the Gospel of Mark.  It was the first one written. Try not to approach the text with an “I already know these stories” attitude.  Try to read them as if you did not know and were reading them for the first time.  An average reader can read Mark in about an hour.  That is if one can keep reading.  My problem is my mind wants to fill in details of the story which slows me down.  That’s okay.  Smelling the leper in chapter one, listening to Jesus voice, seeing the hungry multitudes crowding Him is an enlightening experience.

In chapter two Jesus tells us to put new wine into new wineskins.  Don’t try to stuff what you are reading into your old wineskin (frame of reference).   Let the Holy Spirit give you a whole new wineskin for your new insight. (You will have a new perspective.)  Reading Scripture is unlike reading any other book.  It is not merely the thoughts of wise men.  It is God’s Word for our time.  It is for all times.  The Holy Spirit will make us more intelligent.  And who does not want to be smarter?

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 19, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I just had a fascinating conversation where the other person said, “My father taught me to take a stand.  Something is either right or wrong.  There is no middle ground.  If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.”  “But,” I said, “what if you discover you were wrong.”  “Then,” she said, “at least I stood for something.” It seems the virtue wasn’t knowing truth but being intransigent.  I am so thankful I am not married to that person.  She had learned something from her father and she was not going to change.  Taking a position was to her a righteous position.

She is not the first person like this that I have known.  One such person was someone who prided himself on the number of Bible studies he gave so others could learn his truth.  The irony was he wasn’t open to change but he wanted those to whom he gave Bible studies to change.

The older I get the less I know.  I don’t think it is the result of senility.  I think it is the result of meeting righteous people who see life differently than I.  I rejoice in the Biblical truth that we are saved by grace and not by knowing the right things.  I do so hope in heaven when Jesus tells us the TRUTH we all will come to realize we all had it wrong.

If we were all like my intransigent lady we would destroy the world because peace talks, negotiations and compromises would be impossible.  The only thing left would be to agree to disagree or to destroy the other.  I fear we would choose the latter.   Only God who knows everything can stand firmly without changing.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 18, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

In the musical “The Music Man” there is a wonderful song called, “The Wells Fargo Wagon.”   The words are “The Wells Fargo wagon is a-comin down the street. Oh, please let it be for me.  I wish – I wish I knew what it could be.”  Every time the big brown UPS truck comes up my street my brain sings that song.  I kind of like it because it’s a fun song.  It reflects an immature childishness of wanting something.  Just something.  Nothing in particular.  That bothers me a bit. Because I am sated with things.  I am like the Laodicean church in Revelation.  I have need of nothing.   I can only wear one pair of shoes at a time.  I have a pair.

The world has two billion people who really need things – essentials.  Here I sit in a warm home surrounded by my books and electronics.  My fridge is adequately full and yet I want more.  I could beat on myself for this.  But I teach psychology and I know it is just being a human being.  I am sure Bill Gates has moments when he wants more.  He cannot help himself.  He’s human.

This is why it is essential that we give.  We must give to counterbalance this primitive selfishness that lurks beneath our thin shell of being civilized.  Perhaps it feels so good to give because we have a moment of knowing we are not just animals.  We are sons and daughters of the living God who made us to be like Him and He is a giver.  He gives us everything we need each day.  And so we give.  When someone gives us something, we receive and we just gave them an opportunity to also be a giver.  We both grew.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 17, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org