Category: devotional

The air is filled with the sound of leaf blowers.  It is the sound of now.   There was no such sound when I was a boy.  Then the air was filled with the smell of burning leaves.  It was a fantastic smell.  I realize why we cannot do it anymore but I still wish there was a law that said one day a year we could burn our leaves.  The tang of it filling one’s nostrils was better than any fragrance at Macy’s.   Nostalgia urges me to sneak into the backyard and burn just a tiny pile; just enough to once again savor the past.   Surely I could make it small enough the local authorities would not catch me.  It is then that the still small voice in my head says, “Remember Immanuel Kant.”

His Categorical Imperative is the ultimate moral code.  He wrote, “It is a moral law that is unconditional or absolute for all agents, the validity or claim of which does not depend on any ulterior motive or end.”  For my students I put it in my simple way of speaking.  “It is morally wrong for me to do anything it is not permissible for everyone to do.”

When one ponders it, it becomes but a variation of the Golden Rule.   Thus it is that sin can be anything that lessens the quality of my life and other’s lives.  I cannot throw a paper cup out my car window.  It is not for fear of the $200 fine, but for the fact that our world would look like a pig sty if everyone did so.  Morality can at times be complicated but most often it is simple enough for a child to grasp.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 18, 2015

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The acorns being crushed as one drives in and out of our driveway sound like we are making popcorn. The oaks must have enjoyed the dry summer because we have an abundance of acorns.  The squirrels are going crazy trying to cache them away for the coming winter.  They will be well fed during this January’s blizzards.

I love acorns. Holding them in my hand reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite authors.  She wrote, “As surely as the oak is in the acorn so surely is the gift of God in the promise.”  There are over 3500 promises in the Bible.   That’s a forest of good things to anticipate.  One of the last promises found in Revelation says, “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be my son.”  I don’t want to be greedy.  I don’t need to inherit “all” things.  I will be happy with forgiveness and eternal life with my loved ones.  But our heavenly Father is a lavish giver.  That’s a promise in Ephesians 2.   God isn’t content with giving us the basics.  He wants to give us “all things.”

Paul says what we will receive is beyond what we can now imagine.  The Gospel is a story of excess.  Excessive love, excessive forgiveness, excessive lifespan, excessive health, excessive intelligence, excessive power, excessive understanding and excessive happiness are just a few of the things we are promised.

Right now I am going to go out to my driveway and pick up a few oak trees and carry them about in my pocket today.  Then I will not forget how very much you and I are loved.  Oh, how grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 18, 2016

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It was a beautiful moment.  This morning I was walking down the hallway of a large elementary school when the principal announced over the loudspeaker that it was time to pledge allegiance to the flag.   I was where I could see into four classrooms as everything came to a halt and the children in all four rooms rose to simultaneously pledge to our flag.  But that was not the really great moment.  I had been following two little boys down the hall.

This was the great moment.  They stopped, stood at attention and facing a flag that we could see in one of the rooms they put their hands over their hearts and loudly said, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”  As they turned to continue on their way I noted one of them was wearing a yarmulke.

It was a proud and revealing moment for me.  When I was a little boy we always recited the Lord’s Prayer after the Pledge.  Sometimes I get all sweaty because we no longer have prayer in school.  But I have to tell you. This morning I was glad we did not.  I was glad we did not shove Christianity in the face of a proud little Jewish American, who most obviously loves his country as much as the rest of us.  If both or either boy wanted to pray there was no one stopping them from each having his own moment.

Sometimes we get overly egocentric and think this world and especially our country is all about us.  It is about “us” as long as “us” includes everyone else who is here with us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 7, 2010

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The traffic light turned green and the driver pulled out to make a left hand turn.  Just then another car appeared coming from the left at about 50 miles an hour.  It never slowed for the red light. Fortunately, there was no collision.  The driver of the other cars entering the intersection saw the speeding car and waited. But an assumption had been made by the driver of the first car; the light was green, and it was safe to go.   It is so easy to become complacent and let down one’s guard.  We assume life will go on the way it is supposed to.  We are not always careful.

Fifty times in the New International Version of the Bible we find the expression “be careful.”  There are some rather interesting verses connected with this phrase. Just one is found in Titus 3:8,9.  It says, “…those who have trusted in God should be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.  Avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.”

Written by Roger Bothwell in July 2000

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There is in central Connecticut an absolutely lovely little town that takes one’s breath away because of its quaint beauty.  The houses date back to the 1700’s and the lawns are expansive.  Giant trees shade the streets and the town square is out of a picture book.  There is an ice cream shop on one corner with an antique store close by.  A used bookstore filled with musty tomes beckons one to enter in search of treasure.  The village square has a bronze monument with the names of townsmen who gave their lives in wars dating clear back to the revolution against Great Britain.  An old canon sits on a concrete pedestal and is worn from the trousers of thousands of children who have sat astride its massive girth.

Inside the antique store are some of the most amazing prices!  Simple small nightstands, chairs and desks with thousand-dollar price tags.  And according to the proprietor, none of these pieces of furniture had been previously owned by some famous American like George Washington or Alexander Hamilton.  You don’t suppose this proprietor simply drove to Vermont, bought the items for twenty-five dollars and then brought them back to his up-scale Connecticut store?

But then God put a horrendous price tag on us.  In the eyes of the angels we must look like we are worth twenty-five dollars, if that.   But obviously God thought differently.  For you and me He spent His only son.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 28, 2000

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Three days ago a snail crossed the driveway.  His slime trail is still there.  It is just like some people we know.  Everywhere they go they leave a trail.  They are the kind of people that impact your life.  Sometimes for good and unfortunately sometimes the opposite.  Sometimes they leave a happy pleasantness, and sometimes they leave slime.

Now of course we are the kind of people that always leave happy pleasantness.  It would be impossible for people as loveable and likeable as we to do anything else.  After all, don’t we always have other’s interests before our own?  Are we not always careful to guard our tongues so we only say things that elevate others?  Are we not generous with our assets so others who have little have more because they have met us?  Are we not careful never to pass on gossip?  Of course that’s the way we are.

We are not leavers of slime.  We are better than that; are we not?  Even as Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica he would write to us, “Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 25, 2000

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Three days ago a snail crossed the driveway.  His slime trail is still there.  It is just like some people we know.  Everywhere they go they leave a trail.  They are the kind of people that impact your life.  Sometimes for good and unfortunately sometimes the opposite.  Sometimes they leave a happy pleasantness, and sometimes they leave slime.

Now of course we are the kind of people that always leave happy pleasantness.  It would be impossible for people as loveable and likeable as we to do anything else.  After all, don’t we always have other’s interests before our own?  Are we not always careful to guard our tongues so we only say things that elevate others?  Are we not generous with our assets so others who have little have more because they have met us?  Are we not careful never to pass on gossip?  Of course that’s the way we are.

We are not leavers of slime.  We are better than that; are we not?  Even as Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica he would write to us, “Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 25, 2000

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Robert Burns said it best.  “The best laid plans of mice and men aft go awry.”  It was two weeks until Christmas.  She had carefully put the charge for her husband’s Christmas present on a credit card they seldom used.  She ordered the present delivered to the neighbor’s house instead of her own.  There was no way he was even going to see a box and guess the contents before Christmas.  Then it happened.  The husband received a telephone call.  The voice on the other end said he was calling from the credit card company to check on possible fraudulent use of the card.  Had they made a credit card purchase at Adventures Unlimited on a specific date?  He said, “No.”  The wife was listening from the other room.  She had to tell her husband the charge was legitimate and he filled in the missing details.  She was in tears.  Her surprise was blown.

Giving nice things and surprising loved ones is such an enjoyable thing.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him….”

There it is—the promise of wonders we cannot imagine.  I cannot imagine our Lord’s keen disappointment if we do not allow Him the joy of giving them to us.  The process begins by our accepting His forgiveness.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 11,2017

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A watch battery is such a tiny little thing.  Yet it will power a timepiece with precision for two or three years.  In a two-year period it will push the second hand around and around 1,051,200 times.  If it lasts three years it will push it around 1,576,800 times.  How does that tiny battery contain all that power?

When we hold our Bibles what enormous power is in our hands!  Real power!  We hold the power to change human lives.  Our Bibles contain the ideas of God.  Nothing is more powerful than an idea.  Nothing is more powerful than idea from God. Ideas change the world.  God’s ideas change the universe.  And when we hold our Bibles, we hold those ideas in our hands.

The ideas of God render the ideas of man to kindergarten.  The ideas of God are the wisdom of the ages.  The ideas of God answer the great philosophical questions of mankind.  The ideas of God—not Plato or Nietzche–tell us who we are, why we are here and where we are going.

God’s ideas are the power unto salvation.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 4, 2000

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A Beamiliar hymn begin, “For the beauty of the earth,….”  Those words create a mental slide show of snow-capped mountains, flower filled meadows, pastel sunsets, rainy mornings and snowy evenings.  The beauty of the earth is all of the above, but it is also the mathematical precision of an atom, the double helix of DNA, the infinity of numbers, the curve of a normal distribution and the tenacity of life. 

Our heliocentric solar system with its balance of gravity and distance that enables us to safely fall in yearly cycles dazzles the mind.  Einstein’s theory of relativity, Feynman’s quantum physics and Sagan’s cosmos are layers of beauty unfolding a depth of artistry far beyond the hand of Michelangelo.

In Ecclesiastes 3:11 Solomon wrote, “He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  All this beauty that surrounds us is the handiwork of the creative artistry of our heavenly Father.  And He has created us to see, taste, feel, hear, and fathom this beauty.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 31, 2000

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