The Yellow Light

We’ve all been there.  We are approaching a traffic signal when the light turns yellow. We have less than half a second to decide a. to press hard on the brake, b. press on the accelerator to get through the intersection before we see red, c. just maintain because we are okay to make it.  The human mind is amazing.  It processes distance, speed, coming traffic, presence of a patrolman, braking power and horsepower.  It does it all in less time than it takes to say “one ten thousands.”

I wish I could make all my decisions so quickly and with such a good record of success.  But, life is full of decisions that require serious ponder time.  Who should we marry?  Where should we go to school?  How long should we stay in school?  How many degrees are too many?  What regimen of diet, rest and exercise will best serve me?  What career should I seek?  Should I take time for religion?  If so, where should I go to church and what tenets should I accept as authority?  None of these should be decided in less than a second.

At the close of Deuteronomy Moses exhorted, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, . . .”   I do hope that one doesn’t take too long to decide.  Finally, how grand it is that God chose us.  He decided to send us His son.  He once said to Jeremiah.  “Before you were born I chose you.”  What an awesome thought.  Since He doesn’t play favorites that means you and I were chosen from the beginning of eternity itself.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 13, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Pigs

It just occurred to me that Jesus’ story of the wise man who built his house upon the rock is the same story as the three little pigs.  Instead of the floods coming up it’s the big bad wolf blowing lots of hot air.  It is very much the way life is.  People, like two of the pigs, make lots of bad decisions and need to be rescued by those who made good decisions.

I sometimes hear people complaining about having to help people on welfare.  We jump to the erroneous assumption that they all have chosen that path as a way of life.  It is true some have.  But most are in their predicament because of unwise decisions or just plain old misfortune that also happens to people who make good decisions.

I know you are expecting me to say we need to help them because it’s the Christian thing to do.  It is.  However, it is also the smart thing to do.  When people get very hungry they grow desperate and desperate people can become very dangerous.  We really don’t want to live in a city with hoards of hungry people.  No matter how many wise decisions we have made in life, those who have, will become prey.  That’s not a good thing!

Our assets, our talents, our education, and our good fortune are the fruit of good decisions and God’s blessings, which He bestows on us to see how well we handle them.  Am I my brother’s keeper?  Yes.  If I recall the story correctly I believe the pig with the brick house gave shelter to the other two.  It’s also good to remember they were all pigs.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 10, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

The Grammys

The Grammy Awards remind us of how important music is to us.  It can make us cry or fill us with overwhelming joy.  Surely there hasn’t been or isn’t a culture anywhere that does not have its music.  Billions of dollars are spent each year celebrating life with harmonies and tunes.  We have our particular tastes in what music is beautiful and is not.  Music fills our cars, our homes, our malls and our churches.  Almost always what we like is what we have heard in our youth.  Often when we hear something strange and new we object.  When churches began to sing the hymns of the Wesley brothers multitudes were scandalized.  Along with Fanny Crosby’s hymns, the Wesleys’ hymns dominate church hymnals and used to dominate our worship experiences.

The longest book in our Bibles is a hymn book.  The Psalms were not written to be Scripture but were the songs of worship.  Many of them were written by King David almost a thousand years before the birth of Jesus.  Three thousand years later we still thrill to their beauty.  David was a rock star in his youth.  When he played girls swooned and danced.  I Samuel 16:23 speaks of him giving private harp concerts to King Saul to soothe Saul’s wits of depression.

There will never be a time without music.  Revelation 15 speaks of the redeemed playing harps (guitars?) and singing “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty.  Just and true are your ways, King of the ages.”  Some of us lament our lack of musical talent and envy those gifted ones in our midst.  But surely there will be a time when we all shall lift our musical gifts up in praise before the One who has redeemed us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 11, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Just Wondering

Our storm has begun. As I sit down to write fine tiny crystals of snow are decorating the curled rhododendron outside our front windows.  The mountain across the road has disappeared behind a wall of white. Outside the back windows four doves have yet to take shelter as they hunker together under the bird feeder.  The governor has declared a curfew and there is a 500 dollar fine for driving in Massachusetts.

Fire is dancing behind the front glass of the woodstove.  Soft music fills our rooms mixed with the warm fragrance of baking brownies.  It’s a nice place to be.  Yet I miss the ferny frost patterns on the insides of the window panes. Double-paned windows have made them relics to be remembered.  It was fun to place your finger in the beautiful patterns and watch the ephemera melt away only to return when you finally withdrew your hand.

I find myself amidst all this comfort and yet unsatisfied.  While I am here with my very best friend I still miss my mother, father, sisters, sons and grandchildren. Oh to have them all here on this white winter night.  Why is it that as blessed as I am I hunger for more?  Astronomers now tell us there are over 5 billion potentially inhabitable planets in our galaxy.  Will we ever see them all and if so will we still want to see more?  We are made in God’s image.  Is He also in want of more?  Surely He longs for us to be rescued from this place of death and sorrow.  Yet is there a quality about Him that wants to make more and more and more.  He is a Creator.  Will He ever forget those not saved?  Will He always miss them?  I was just wondering on a cold snowy winter New England evening.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 9, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Pieces of Puzzles

I’m sitting here with a piece from a jigsaw puzzle I picked up off the street while walking my lab this afternoon.   Somewhere in my neighborhood there is a puzzle that cannot be finished because I have the missing piece. There are so many theological and philosophical puzzles that are an enigma because we do not have all the pieces of the puzzles.  The problem of pain, a loving God in a world of suffering, did dinosaurs and men live on earth at the same time, who wrote Hebrews, ifJesus is coming again why is He waiting; these are just a few.  Paul says we are looking through a glass darkly.  He’s right. We, with our finite minds, continue to try to understand the mind of an infinite God and we don’t have all the pieces.

Throughout the ages God, a self-revealing God, continues to share a few.  In times past He spoke through the prophets but then He revealed Himself via the birth of Jesus.  Jesus was and still is the finest vision of God’s true nature.  Jesus said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”  Our continued problem is we see Jesus through the eyes of a tax collector, a fisherman, a physician and a homesick missionary.  Each of them were limited in their ways to express what they saw and remembered.  Therefore, we continue to see God through a foggy glass.

As we grow, as we seek, God is delighted to find opportunities to give us glimpses and insights.  Hopefully, I understand more now than I did when I was forty or fifty.   Note I didn’t say twenty because then I knew it all.   Jesus said, “Ask and it shall be given.”  I’m asking.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 9, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

A Book of Cultures

Like most American cities Leominster, Massachusetts is a rich blend of a variety of cultures and occasionally there are some misunderstandings as each group makes adjustments to accommodate the others.  The more we understand each other the more we live in harmony.  Nothing causes more difficulty than one group wanting everyone to be like them.  I have noted similar problems when reading the Bible.  We sometimes err by thinking the writers of the Bible were like us when nothing could be further from the truth.  Not only do we have the cultural differences of various groups of people but horrendous differences in chronology.  Just as our great grandparents would suffer culture shock if they could resurrect now, so we think far differently than people that lived two and three thousand years ago.

Often we err by looking at the Bible as one book written at one place in one time.  There are over 1500 years between Moses and John.  Also it is easy to project Christian values upon Old Testament characters.  But to do that falsely colors the stories.  Abraham and company were not Christians.  They weren’t even Jews.  The Jews were the descendants of Judah, the grandson of Abraham.  There is the issue of the occidental mind and the eastern mind.  Paul was an extremely unique individual educated in both arenas of thought.  His letters are an amalgamation of two worlds, two cultures, two philosophies and one very special way to salvation.

How fascinating that God chose to reveal Himself to us via shepherds, politicians, fishermen, farmers, tax collectors, historians, warriors, a philosopher, a physician and a scholar.  And the sum of it is an amazing story of God’s love for all cultures, all people and not just our little group.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 8, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

The Creator

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”  “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: . .”  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”  In my dictionary the definition of create is “to use imagination to invent things.”   In His likeness God gave us the power to create.  We are constantly producing new things and new art.  We are continually creating knowledge and literature.  It is the hallmark of the human race.  Without the power to create we would have no freedom.  We would be confined to the ancient paths set out for us with no power to really think or choose.

God is a creator.  If He only made the things that He had made before, He would be a manufacturer.  Life and planets would be nothing more than clones.  God would be a prisoner in the universe bored by thinking the same old thoughts over and over.  He would be reduced to a fabulously complicated computer program.  He is so much more.  He is a lover.  He is a nurturer.  He dazzles with His creations.  It is we who have uglified His handiwork.  Yet we also create beautiful new things.  I live near an amazing art museum.  When I first enter I think I want to stay all day but after an hour or so I need to leave.   It is not because my feet hurt.  There are plenty of places to sit down.  It is my brain that hurts.  It is over stimulated by the richness of ideas and beauty.

I am doubtful about God’s physical appearance being very much like us.  But I have no doubt regarding the gift of creativity that He has shared.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 7, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

Reserved Premium Seats

One of our friends invited us to his high school drama production.  Each year he works diligently with his students preparing a really great production.  We went a bit early to be sure to get good seats.  We need not have hurried.  When we walked in the door there were two premium seats with signs that said in big letters, “Reserved – Bothwell.”  How grand.  We felt important.

In Revelation 14:9 we understand that a third of the angels of heaven accompanied Lucifer when he left heaven.  That certainly left a lot of empty seats in God’s throne room.  And how will those seats be filled?  I cannot but think they are now reserved for the redeemed.  Just as Jesus said there is a place for us in His Father’s house (John 14) it makes good sense to follow that with an understanding we also have a seat in the throne room – a reserved seat with our names engraved for eternity.

I have a friend who for the past several years has served in the House of Representatives in Washington.  He does not have to search for a seat each time he attends.  His seat is well marked.  It is his.  Just so we need not fear there will not be a place for us.  Our seat is well marked and we will use that seat each time we attend of God’s events.

Unlike today where my reserved seat partially blocked the view of a little guy behind me there will be no blocked views in God’s throne room.  Some years ago upon entering a large room I asked the attendant for an unobtrusive seat in the back.  He stared at me and said, “We have no such seats.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 6, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

On Being Perfect

On our way to Philadelphia we came up behind a car being very poorly driven.  The driver changed lanes several times without signaling and when we passed him he was on his cell-phone.  The real surprise was the business name on the side of the car was Farmers Insurance.  So much for being a role model.  I realize not one of us is perfect but this was excessively bad.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  That could be a source of major discouragement. It is setting the bar so high we can’t even see it let alone get there.  Perhaps the issue is one’s definition of perfection. John Dewey, the great American philosopher, urges us to understand that perfection is a process.  He proposes that no matter how good someone has been if he ceases to grow he is a bad person.  And a person with a morally unworthy past, who is moving to be better, is a good person.  I like this concept but fear for the elderly.   I have watched some very kind, generous people age into someone not nice to be around.  Surely we can take comfort in the knowledge that God knows the condition of their aging minds and treats them with love and understanding.

For those of us who think we are still mentally running on all eight cylinders our challenge, our goal, our destination is to be a better person today than we were yesterday.  A comforting promise is found in John 15.   Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will abide with and in us so we do not have to do it alone.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 4, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Walking Commercials

For four million dollars we could have purchased thirty seconds of airtime to advertise whatever we like during this year’s Super Bowl.  When someone spends that much they definitely want to maximize the experience with the most creative and interesting advertising possible.  Or to put it more crudely, “Get the most bang for your buck.”

I was wondering how we would use thirty seconds to advertise Christianity.   Would we show a reenactment of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead?   Would we show Jesus restoring fingers and facial features to a decayed leper?  Would we show Jesus on the Cross or perhaps better Sunday morning coming from the tomb?   Perhaps we would broadcast a few of His fabulous promises?   Or we could read highlights from the Sermon on the Mount.

It would be very difficult to reduce the grandeur of the Gospel to thirty seconds when one is advertising the gift of eternal life.    Better than all the above is a single individual living a kind, loving, unselfish life.  We are walking commercials for the best product ever conceived.  Our lives, the brief and extended contacts we have with others, our influence makes more of a difference than we can imagine.   Temporary lives become eternal lives because  of us.  We are God’s ads and He spent so much more than four million dollars to have us on His side.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 3, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org