Author: Ian Bothwell

Children love to taunt each other with “I’ve got a secret.”  Secrets are fun to hear and fun to tell.  They spark our curiosity and whet our appetites to know whatever the hidden information might be.  The Bible contains secrets. According to Deuteronomy 34:6 the location of Moses’ grave was a secret lest the people turn it into a shrine.  When the Babylonians came to destroy Jerusalem in 586 BC the priests hid the Ark of the Covenant in a secret location lest it fall into pagan hands.  In Job 38 God reveals to Job just how little Job knew about the secrets of nature.

In Matthew 13:11 Jesus said to His disciples, “The secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given to you, but not to them.”   In I Corinthians 1 Paul speaks of the message of the cross being foolishness to those who do not believe.  It is because they do not know the secrets.  To comprehend the power of the cross is only possible when the Holy Spirit whispers understanding.  It is heard only by those who want to know. To those who want to mock there is no dearth of human logic to bring to bear.  The cross is insane.  How could one individual atone for all the sins of this world?  How could God care so much as to send His only Son here in human form?  The story is not logical.  And those who do not believe look at those of us who do believe and think we are a bit addled and have very low IQ’s.  However, it is just the opposite.  You see we know a secret.  It is the secret of love.  It is the secret of eternal life.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 12, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

Peter and John were able to get into the courtyard during Jesus’ trial that fateful Thursday night.  The horror of the incredible abuse being heaped upon Jesus filled them with almost uncontrollable emotions.  How could it be happening?  This was their Messiah.  He silenced furious storms on the sea.  He put new fingers on the hands of lepers.  Surely He could escape.  They had on past occasions seen Him escape death.  In Nazareth His relatives and neighbors tried to throw Him off a cliff.  He just vanished.  So why not now?  They did not understand.  Their feelings soared and plunged as they witnessed the incredible cruelty.  With each blow they must have thought, “That’s enough. Now He will stop it.”  But He didn’t He just continued to take all the vileness Satan could inspire in those sorry individuals who really had no idea with whom they were dealing.

We also have moments of not understanding the vicissitudes of life.   One day all is well and we are filled with thanksgiving and the next day things are not well and we doubt if God is in control or if He really cares.  If He is God why can’t He stop the pain and make things go the way we think they should go?  We are just like His disciples.  We do not understand the larger scenario.  There are forces battling for our souls.  What is intriguing is God has to play by the rules.  His nature dictates fairness and love while the enemy deceives, lies, steals, causes pain, etc.  It seems like it is not a level playing field; however, the really good news is God will ultimately win if we continue to trust and He will help us trust if we ask.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 11, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

If our household is in anyway normal Americans are recycling more than we are trashing.  At least it appears that way by the fullness of our trash container verses our recycling container.  While recycling might seem to be a product of the last decade or so, it has been around for a long time.

God is a recycler.  He started with Adam and Eve by promising them a return to their lost garden home.  He has been recycling ever since.  One of His great recycling projects was David the adulterer and murderer.  The really great thing David had going was he was an excellent repenter.  The man knew how to be genuinely sorry.  That’s what God is looking for.  Another great recycling project was Jonah.  One cannot run away from God.  He will chase you down merely for the joy He gets from recycling you. Many of Jesus’ disciples were marvelous examples of recycling.  There was Matthew the tax collector, Simon the Zealot, James and John – sons of thunder.  Peter the betrayer is most likely one of the most poignant examples of Jesus’ recycling someone. Actually all of us are recycling projects for God.  There is no one righteous.  No not one.  Romans 3:10.

So just in case you are feeling a bit discouraged about your poor performance be of good cheer.  Be like David and be a good repenter.  As Jesus said, “There is great rejoicing in heaven when someone repents.”  The parties in heaven are recycling parties.  There is a party for you and one for me and that makes heaven a very happy place.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 10, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Both Margaret Thacker and Annette Funicello have passed away.  One is known for her iron-like leadership of Great Britain for eleven years.  The other is known for her wholesome Mickey Mouse Club/Disney beach movies of the 60’s.  Could any two people be more different?  Yet each left their very distinctive mark on our world and culture. It takes many different kinds of people to make a world.  We are an amazing hodgepodge of variables and together we make a pretty good whole.  Not that the world is perfect.  It is a long way from that.  But if we could learn to appreciate the differences of others instead of hating them, what a wonderful world this would be.  We used to turn on the news from Northern Ireland and hear about Catholics and Protestants killing each other.  That has now been replaced with Sunnis and Shiites killing each other.

Why is it that we want others to be like us to the extent that we will kill them if they are not?   Could it be a basic insecurity that is only compensated for by having others join us, thus telling us we are right?   What seems to be basic is we are the product of time and place.  I go to church where my mother went to church and so on for most people.

How grand it would be if we could learn to value the beautiful things about others.  If we could see the richness of others’ differences and perhaps learn to incorporate them into our own experiences, how much better we would be.  Paul certainly understood this when he wrote to in I Corinthians 12:25, “. . . there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 9, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

Do you remember playing with maple tree seeds when you were a kid?  Do you remember tossing them as high as possible to watch them twirl like helicopters as they fell back to earth?  Windy days were the best because you could throw handfuls into the air and see them twirl off toward the neighbor’s yard.  Ah, the simple pleasures!  And those seeds so playfully thrown into the air?  Come spring as the sun melted the snow each little helicopter sprouted driving a tiny taproot into the neighbor’s grass raising itself upright to the sun.  The mind is a wonderful thing.  Even as we can remember playing with maple tree seeds, we can also imagine a grove of maple trees that might have grown from all those seeds.  We can imagine each tree standing proud and tall with buckets full of sap hanging onto their trunks.  Alas, because of a lawnmower that grove was never to be.

Nevertheless, somewhere there was such a field of seeds and a mower did not come.  The seeds grew.  God’s wonderful earth never stops providing for the future.  As old maples snap and tumble in the winter storms, spring brings the young.  “God did good.  He gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”  Acts 14:17

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 3, 2003

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 84574

Rogerbothwell.org

In our home in Africa my wife heard our littlest calling from outside “nake nake.”  Looking out the window she saw him running across the yard, not away from, but after a snake.  Before she could get outside she saw one of our students, who was working in our yard, tear across the grass and swoop up our little guy and continue running – away from the snake.  It was a spectacular rescue, considering our boy didn’t know he needed to be rescued.

This is pretty much the case for most of humanity.  God has provided a spectacular rescue and most people don’t know they need one.  Jesus said, “For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.”  Matthew 24   When the end comes life will be going on as usual.   Jesus also said, “Then will appear the Son of Man in heaven. And all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.  And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

If we believe that Jesus is who He said He is and that He tells us the truth, we have to assume things will not always be as they are now; thus the need for us to avail ourselves of His rescue plan.  So what must we do?  It really is very clear.  Please read John 5 for details.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 8, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

It all happens in a millisecond.  You place a buy order on the stock market and a computer notes your offer and because it is a faster computer than yours it quickly buys that stock at your price and then the stock at your offering price is gone.  If you still want it you now have to pay more.  The price went up.   It happened many times faster than it takes to blink an eye.

This entire idea of communication occurring so fast and action being taken so fast reminds me of Isaiah 65:24. “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.”  Our heavenly Father is so attuned to our needs He answers before our lips can form the words.  Before we say, “Give us this day our daily bread” He has.  If He is so attentive and so giving, which He is, then why do we need to pray?  Surely it is not for some angel with a quill and roll of parchment to record our words.  God didn’t need to hear them.  It must be because we need to hear them.  There is something to be said for articulating one’s thoughts.  They become more real.  Often we surprise ourselves as the content develops.

Sometimes my wife will ask me what I am writing and my answer is “I don’t know I haven’t written it yet.”  When finished I think, “I didn’t know I thought that.”  The human brain creates when it is called upon.  Our prayers focus us not only on our need but on the One who answers and enable us to understand why we have what we have and where it comes from.  Our prayers make us wise, sagacious, thoughtful and more intelligent.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 4, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

The Queen of England is not legally required to have a driver’s license or use her seat belt.  Upon learning this, my mind went to a silly thought.  Would God always use His seat belt?  The question raises some interesting issues regarding God and His laws.  Inherent in this is the nature of Jesus’ miracles. According to my dictionary the definition of “miracle” is “an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God.”  Does God perform miracles?  Does God break or supersede or overrule the very laws He Himself established?  And if so, does He have immunity?  We must not miss the word “appears” in the definition.

God does things that “appear” to us to be miracles.  But He does not break His own laws.  If so, Lucifer could have a heyday accusing God of making laws that cannot be kept and saying that God Himself does not keep them.  I don’t think God would open Himself up to that horrendous allegation because that is the very heart of the struggle between good and evil.

God is a scientist. There are scientific secrets not yet discovered by us.  Twenty years ago few of us could have grasped the technology that now aids our daily lives. He was not breaking a natural law when Jesus restored sight to the blind.  He is the Creator of eyes.  He was not breaking a natural law when Jesus put new fingers and lips on the lepers.  He is the One who said, “Let us make man in our image.”  When airplanes zoom us quickly around the world and rockets shoot us to the Space Station, it isn’t superseding laws.  It’s being educated.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 2, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

“Solomon said, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”  During an earthquake in Chile 300 prisoners escaped.  It almost sounds like a story in Acts 16, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”  The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”  They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

Well, it isn’t exactly the same.  While Paul and company could have escaped they stayed and the results were terrific.   One thing you have to say about Paul is the man was consistent.   When he was Saul he was a completely committed member of the Sanhedrin with all their rules.  After he became known as Paul his message had a consistent clarity.  Salvation wasn’t about all the rules he lived by as Saul.  He now gave his total being and future into the hands of Jesus.  He truly upset his old colleagues.  Once they realized they couldn’t best him in face to face confrontations, they followed him around and when he moved on they moved in and tried to poison the new Christians with their rules,.   Thus Paul wrote back to the Galatians, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 3, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

This evening my wife baked a dozen muffins.  I ate one.  It was really good.  So I had another.  At this point my head said, “Fine.  Good stuff.  However, that’s enough.”  But my nose and eyes kept looking at the tray saying “Just one more.”  My head said, “Okay.  But that’s all.”  I don’t know how to explain the next half hour.  I must have taken out my brain and put it on the mantel because after that I ate three more.  I don’t feel so well. Why did I eat until I was on the brink of ill?

Why do we do all manner of “pleasurable” activities when we know the results are not going to be good?  God gave us brains to govern but we foolishly surrender to desire.  It’s not that pleasure is bad.  It’s a question of moderation.  The very thing we so desired becomes repugnant.  I really don’t want to see another muffin, at least not for quite some time.

There are the pleasures of the flesh but also pleasures of the mind.  Why could I not be this very moment filled with the pleasure of knowing I had allowed reason to prevail?  The mental joy would not have left me nauseous.  I would sleep better tonight and be more refreshed in the morning.  Alas.

The battle of reason over desire has been the bane of human progress.  What is very disconcerting is often we allow desire to distort our reason and we deceive ourselves into thinking we were reasonable when all we do is create excuses to feed desire.  Listen carefully the next time you hear an argument.  Note how each side invents spurious ideas to defend a passion.  It is not easy being human.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 3, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org