Author: Ian Bothwell

By now, if you have not had a bucket of ice water dumped on your head, you have at least seen videos of others reveling in the chilling joy of a miniature Arctic Ocean cascading over their domes.  The ALS challenge has spread across the world faster than a speeding bullet.  Sorry Superman something is faster than you.  It is called the Internet.  I have a friend who teaches school in what has to be one of the remotest towns in America yet he has Internet service and can read this devotional as soon as my neighbor across the street.  My friend Rob lives in Gambell, Alaska, a tiny town on the western edge of St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. He really knows about ice water.  He doesn’t need a bucket.

Communication has come a long way since Jesus preached to and passed out bread and fish to 5,000 men plus women and children.  It is with confidence that we can say that the Gospel has gone to the entire world.  For anyone anywhere it is a mouse click away.  But just because someone is able to hear the Good News or has heard about the Good News doesn’t mean they understand the Good News.  I know people who have gone to church all their lives who don’t understand the Good News.  They can tell you Bible stories and recite memory verses but they still worry about not being good enough to be saved.  That is tragic.  The Good News is not one of us will ever be worthy (good enough).

In Revelation 5 there is a search for one worthy to open the book sealed with seven seals.  There was only one.  That was Jesus.  It is an inspiring chapter.  Please read it sometime today.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 25, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

There she sat, calmly looking at us through the glass door of our woodstove.  She did not seem upset and obviously had no idea of her precarious situation.  She was a sparrow that had come down the stovepipe into our family room.  The odds on her finding her way back up the pipe and out to freedom seemed very minimal.  My wife rescued her and set her free.  The last we saw her was on a branch of a Japanese maple.

We live in a world rife with weapons designed to kill millions.  There are groups who think they will be doing God a great service if they can use them.  How they can think this is beyond my comprehension. Obviously their Allah is not the same God as our loving heavenly Father.  The reason is while they think Jesus was a prophet they do not see Him as a duplicate character of our Father.   Jesus did say, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”

While I do not want to spread fear and upset the tranquility of our lives, it would be Pollyannaish to ignore reality.  No, we should not be having our children jump under their school desks like some of us did in the 60’s.  But neither should we be thinking something horrible is impossible.  We don’t want to be like a sparrow calmly sitting in a stove.  Eternity is a topic worthy of our consideration and Jesus is the one and only hope for a world almost out of control.

We must also remember that Jesus offers us peace.  He did say, “Peace I leave with you. . . . Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 17, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

This afternoon I watched a small flock of sparrows trying, without success, to get food out of our birdfeeder. It is one of those feeders with a door that closes if too much weight is on the perch.  Sometimes it keeps the squirrels out but not usually.  They are smart enough to eventually thwart it.  The birds were flocking onto the perch thus making too much weight and thus closing the door.  No one could eat because too many were trying to eat.  This would be a good illustration regarding too many people eating off the government.  But that would be getting into politics so I will not go there.  Instead we can use the sparrows to talk about the disastrous effects of selfishness.

At first I wanted to excuse the sparrows because they were ignorant and did not know any better but people do.  However, on second thought most people don’t understand. When we live in a “me first, me first” culture, some end up with too much and some end up with too little.  Oops, that is also getting into politics.

Let’s try this.  The key to happiness is service.  The more we do for others the happier our lives.  This is a major construct of Christianity.  Jesus did not call us to be rulers of others but to care for others.  This results in the abundant life that He promised us in John 10:10.  If someone is sitting home alone feeling neglected the solution is getting involved with others.  This can happen in a family, in a church, in a civic club or in a hospital doing volunteer work.  The idea is to get the focus off of self and unto others.

If only I could have gotten the sparrows to understand.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 20, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org.

 

Some evenings are just about perfect.  Try to imagine a small New England town park.  Add to it being with your best friend, 78 degrees, a clear sky with a half moon, katydids in the trees, an ice cream truck, small children laughing and playing on the newly mown grass. Add to this idyllic scene one of best country bands ever, playing from the town gazebo.  Watch a couple of old babes trying to revive their youth by dancing on the lawn to the classics about Alabama, Tennessee, Texas and, of course, sweet Georgia.  If one closed their eyes they could have been serenaded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Blake Shelton and be on the road again with Willie Nelson.  Sorry, there was no Dolly Parton, it was an all male band.  The mosquitoes were few and the summer breeze was an evening zephyr.

We were sorry it had to come to an end.  Heaven isn’t going to be all classical music or hymns.  God is very eclectic, if He weren’t, He wouldn’t have passed out such a wide variety of gifts.  But I don’t imagine the songs there will be about heartaches and tears on pillows and drinking beer sitting on the end of the dock and Folsom Prison.  Actually, the evening was quite grand knowing there would be no more prisons or tears.

Sometimes we get a taste of the abundant life.  No, that is a wrong thing to say.  Jesus would have us feast on the abundant life.   He promised, “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”  That is not just for the future.  That is also for now.  Don’t miss out.  Make Jesus the Lord of your life right now.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 21, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Today I wrote a check for twelve months of car/home insurance.  Ouch.  As I did so I remembered one of my high school/academy teachers who didn’t believe in insurance because he returned his tithe to God, who promised to rebuke the devourer.  I wonder what he would have done if he lived in Massachusetts where auto insurance is required by law?  To my knowledge he never had an accident nor did his house ever burn down. Was it random chance or did God honor his faith?  It’s one of the questions I have to ask God someday.

I thought about not paying for my house insurance for my former teacher’s reason.  Was my purchase of house insurance an act of disbelief in God’s promise? I don’t think so.  I had to pay because I believe God expects us to do as much as we can to protect ourselves and He will do the rest.  Actually it was He who made sure I had the funds to purchase the insurance.

Was my professor being foolish?  I don’t think so.  I believe God treats each of us in a unique manner.  He knows our thoughts.  He knows our levels of faith and why and how we arrive at our conclusions.  Thus for me it would be foolish not to purchase insurance.  But, what about people who have watched in agony as their children die because the parents would not seek modern medical care and trusted in prayer?  God didn’t save their children because of their parent’s faith.  So the issue is murky in my mind.  There are so many issues about which I wish I knew more and someday I shall know.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have all the answers?

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 21. 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

The well-known phrase “If you think education is expense try ignorance” is playing out around the world.  In Liberia ignorant people stormed an HIV clinic and carried away infected patients.  How can we begin to assess the price this is going to cost mankind?  In the Middle East extremists are beheading people, burying people alive, crucifying people and doing other horrors in the name of Allah.  Paul was one of those extremists and he said in I Timothy 1:13, “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.”

Paul was an extremely well-educated man, who could hardly be classified as ignorant.  Yet, he orchestrated the stoning of Stephen.  Paul knew Scripture but, he didn’t know God.  He never knew God until He met Jesus.  To the Ephesians he wrote regarding those who don’t know Jesus, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.”

He also wrote in Ephesians 4, “. . . we all reach unity in the faith in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”  Ignorance is expensive because it retards our growth.  When we learn about Jesus we can grow into the whole measure of being like Him.  That knowledge equips us for an eternity of becoming.  Let’s shed the “I want to go to heaven for material things.”  Let’s want to go to heaven that we might understand the deepest secrets of the universe and that we might be everything God wanted us to be when He first said, “Let us make man in OUR image.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 19, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

It’s been another quiet summer day in Leominster, Massachusetts.  The hummingbirds have been busy at the window feeder.  It’s hard to believe they will be gone soon on their winter trip to the Caribbean.  We think it’s possible that the orioles are gone already along with the catbirds.  It seems too early for them to leave.  Maybe the neighbors have better grape jelly. One wants to eat at the best restaurant in town.  That’s what the first commandment is all about.  Our Heavenly Father wants us to eat at the best place possible.  Why should we serve gods who are not alive and can give us nothing?  What He is saying is, “Don’t be stupid and eat and drink from polluted, poisoned wells. I’m here and I have the best for you.”

God’s law isn’t burdensome unless we decide to make it so.  It is a law of freedom.  It frees us from the tyranny and violence of others.  It gives us the guidance to be free from the retaliation of others, since they will have nothing to retaliate against because we haven’t harmed them.  Actually, that only works if they are intelligent people.  So often other’s selfishness wants to harm us when they see us living so well.  They don’t understand.  They think somehow we are cheating them.  However, “Thou preparest a table before me.  My cup runs over. Goodness and mercy follow me.”  They just don’t understand that they too could have the same daily banquet.  God isn’t playing favorites. Obedience bears good fruit.  When we understand we get it.  When we obey God we are obeying ourselves.  The fruit is what we really want.

Psalm 119 tells us that God’s law makes us wiser than our teachers.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 18, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Just two weeks ago if asked what kind of squirrels do you have in your neighborhood I would have responded, “Gray and red.”  I had no idea that we had flying squirrels.  It seems they are nocturnal and since I am diurnal I had no knowledge of these big eyed creatures.  But for the past two weeks one has taken up residence at night at our bird feeder.

I am delighted to learn something new about my own backyard but at the same time I am a bit chagrined regarding my ignorance. It has been a good experience for me.  It reminds me of how little I really know.  Occasionally someone will phone me asking a Bible question.  When I was much younger I would pontificate answers with great authority.  However, as the years have passed by, I have become aware of the vastness of Scripture and my very minuscule knowledge.  Also, some of what I thought was so I now know isn’t or wasn’t so.

The smartest time in my life was when I graduated from high school.  It has been an intellectual downhill journey ever since.   I have discovered that the more education one obtains the more aware they become of how much there is to learn and how little we know and how little time there is to learn more. Once I heard someone bragging about her education and wondered if she got her degree from a Cracker Jack box.

If you would enjoy the treat of being humbled, just spend a few evenings on a clear night enjoying the two thousand plus individual stars we can see with our unaided eye.  If that were all there was we would be overwhelmed.  But there is so much more, much more, much more, much more to learn.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 18, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

It’s been a quiet day in Leominster, Massachusetts.  The sun drifted across the sky warming the maples and birches to 75 breezy degrees.  It was a day to go into the backyard with a salt shaker and pick vine ripened tomatoes. We don’t have any tomato plants but we do have a generous neighbor who says, “Come and help me.  I have zillions of tomatoes.”

One of the things I don’t like about the 21^st century is the lack of children playing outside.  We loved summer evenings in the 40s and 50s when everyone’s yard was a playground for all the children to play hide and seek and to fill a mason jar with lightning bugs.  Fortunately the ice cream truck still creeps through the neighborhood playing Turkey in the Straw.  But I do miss hearing “Ally Ally in Free” echoing down the street.

After reading the Gospel of John in one sitting I have this gut feeling that our God is frustrated.  I think He has an urge to say something that just will not work.  Have you ever wanted to say something but just couldn’t get it out?  Is there someone you love but every time you start to tell them the words get caught in your throat?  In a new relationship who will be the first to say, “I love you”?  What if you say it and the other person doesn’t say it back?  Does it sort of just hang out there in no man’s land?

God has certainly been able to tell us He loves us.  He not only said it, He demonstrated it for thirty some years.   Jesus was a walking “I love you” card.  So what is it that He wants to say but can’t?  “Ally Ally in Free.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 18, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Are you as irritated as I when the phone rings and you get up out of your easy chair, rush across the room, only to listen to a recorded message telling you that you have been called in response to an inquiry you made?  You know you never made any such inquiry.

In the mornings when I record the day’s devotional on our 800 line* I sometimes discover on the messages left behind that one of those machines called our machine.  In order for it to send its message it first has to listen to ours.  Only then can it leave its message.  I am amused at the idea of the machines talking to each other.  I wish their machine would as a result of listening to our machine repent.  If so then it would stop calling you and me.  A hundred years from now, if Jesus has not yet returned, we can send our personal robot to church in our self driving cars to listen to the robot the pastor sent.  Upon returning home our robot can deliver to us a word for word recitation of the morning sermon.

Sometimes I get the feeling that even though we are in church in the flesh that the same routines and the same prayers are not much different from robots.  If we have a friend to friend relationship with God I doubt if saying the same thing over and over really works.  Imagine an evening out with friends where you said the very same things with the very same words that you said the week before and the week before that. Jesus did say to us in John 15, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 14, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org