Category: devotional

While dedandelioning my yard I was smitten with how beautiful they are.  Not only do they have that lovely yellow blossom, the white orb of seeds is great fun to blow into the wind.   If it were not for those not so beautiful leaves and the plant’s veracious hunger to consume our lawns we would most likely purchase packs of seeds each spring.  They remind me of the alcohol commercials I see during football games.  Beautiful horses pull spectacular looking wagons down gorgeous country roads.   Handsome young men are shown singing and laughing as they mingle with incredible looking women.  It looks so good and so inviting.  We are enticed to believe we too can be like those happy people if we would only drink their product. They, of course, never show the destroyed lives and livers, the broken homes, the abused children, the smashed cars and the lost careers.

Solomon nailed it when he wrote, “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”   Sin is anything that ultimately harms us or others.  Many activities start off looking so very good.  If they didn’t they wouldn’t be an issue.  However, they do look good.  Especially when we are young and adventurous we don’t understand why we cannot experience all that life seems to offer.  In defense of teens I must point out that the frontal lobes of our brains, where we do our best logical thinking in regard to right and wrong, don’t actually fully mature until their early twenties.  Often by then our behaviors are already in place and most difficult to change.

But we must not despair.  There is nothing too difficult for God.  He will, upon our request, struggle with us to dedandelion us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 7, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

One of my students brought me a dandelion expressing how beautiful it was.  She was right.  It was glorious with its bright yellow petals splaying out in a perfect circle.  What surprised me was she did not know what it was.  She did not know its name and she did not know that it was the same thing as those round balls of white seeds one can puff into the wind.  She was an inner city girl.

At first I was incredulous that she would not know but I took a deep breath and thought of all the things I do not know.  Surely God must shake His head at my ignorance of things I should know having lived so long.  At this point I could start listing my sins and point out that I should know better.  But not wanting to embarrass myself or my family I will just say the list isn’t short.  God must think, “How can he not know after all this time.

Many of my students who I so arrogantly think don’t know much are multilingual.  I am not.  I have students who speak fluent English, French and Spanish.  Yet I have the unmitigated gall to think I know more than they just because I happen to be lecturing in my field of study.  It isn’t that I know more; I just happen to have a skill set in a narrow area that is required of them for graduation.  In real life they know so much of which I am totally ignorant.   Just Monday afternoon I mentioned a country music song to one of my Mexican students who immediately looked at me and told me the name of the artist and what year it was recorded.  So much for thinking I knew something!

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 5, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

While channel surfing this morning I came across an old Hopalong Cassidy film.  I had forgotten how wonderfully unrealistic they were.  Hoppy always shoots the gun out the bad guy’s hand without wounding it.  The bad guy’s bullets never hit anything the bad guy is aiming at.  The bad guy can hit Hoppy on the head with the handle of his six-shooter only to have Hoppy wake up in a few minutes with no wound, no concussion and no headache.  Hoppy’s hat never falls off and his pure white horse is faster than any of the bad guys’ horses.  Hoppy is played by an actor name William Boyd and I did notice as I read the credits that the movie was a William Boyd production.  Yes, he was in charge of all the details.

This world is God’s production.  But it was hi-jacked.  God is no longer in charge of all the details.  The hi-jacker has filled God’s creation with pain, dishonor and death.  A billion things a day happen here that are not God’s will. The bad guys do shoot good people.  The bad guys are sometimes faster than the good guys.  When the Creator Himself came to save us He did not wake up from a smash on the head.  He died.  However, lest we be disheartened, just like a Hopalong Cassidy film our Hero will ultimately win.  He rose from His grave and all who love and believe Him will join Him in His victory.  Instead of a hat He wears a crown.  And, yes, our Champion rides a white horse.  “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.”  Revelation 19:11

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 5, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I began one of my classes this morning by reading the close of I Thessalonians 5.  Verse 24 is wonderful.  It says, “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”  The mind is a strange thing.  Memories that have been tucked away for decades are suddenly released as if someone turned a key and opened a door.  As I finished voicing the text my mind immediately remembered something that happened to me sixty years ago.  On Sundays my Dad and I would take our dog and head for the mountains in central Pennsylvania.  He knew where there were saw mills and they were great fun because of the giant piles of sawdust generated from the saws. We loved to climb to the top and then roll end over end to the bottom.

One would think I would never forget about one particular day but I had until I read the above verse.  We tumbled down an especially huge pile of sawdust and arrived at the bottom surrounded by rattlesnakes that were not overly pleased by our sudden appearance. We had disturbed their sunbaths.  Instantly my father said to me, “Freeze. Don’t move at all.  I’ll take care of them.”  Was I afraid?  Most likely I should have been.  But my Dad said, “I’ll take care of them.”  And so I sat frozen in place as one by one he took care of them just as he said he would.

And so this morning a door opened in my mind as I remembered Jesus saying, “If we as humans know how to give good gifts unto our children, how much more will our Father in heaven.” Thank you Paul for I Thess. 5:24.  “The one who calls is faithful.  He will do it.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 4, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I am about to reveal how uninformed and unobservant I am.  While I was staring at the keyboard on my laptop I saw something new to me.  There is a small number 1 on the j key and a 2 on the k key and a 3 on the l key.  I have had this laptop for five years and use it daily.  I never noticed this prior to now.  If I hold down the fn key while pressing one of those keys with the little numbers, that number appears on my screen instead of letters.  Duh!  They are right there before me and had you asked me about it I would have insisted there was no such number pad.

So, how many other things are right before me that I have never seen?  Am I uniquely unobservant or could this be a shared human trait?  I don’t know what I would say if asked in a court to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  I don’t know what the whole truth is.  I can only say what I know and what I know appears to be very limited.

So many churches are convinced they are the repositories of truth.  Members knock on my door and have been very definite that I will be lost because I am not one of them.  That is so fascinating because that is salvation by being right.  Paul is so very clear that we are saved by faith in Jesus.  Truth for them has become the avenue to heaven but is there anyone with the truth?  How much is right in front of us and we have never seen it?   I am most anxious for the day when Jesus will say to us, “You all were wrong.  Let me now tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 3, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

At the Connecticut/Massachusetts border on I-84 there is a unique restaurant that not only has good food but also allows you to browse shelves of books and take a book home – free.  It’s one of my favorite places.  This past week I found a treasure.   Before my eyes was a copy of Conrad Richter’s Trees.   I was ten years old when I read it.  I could hardly wait to get home to once again lose myself in the forests of Pennsylvania and Ohio when Indians roamed between the walnut and oak trees.  Soon I was absorbed, not in the story as I was as a boy, but this time in the quality of writing.  Richter’s descriptions are awesome.   After the first ten pages I left my dictionary on my lap because I kept getting up to look up a word.  Did I really know those words when I was ten or did I just skip them?  If I knew them I have a terrible memory.

If it’s been a few years (decades) since you read one of the Gospels maybe it’s time for a reread.  You have matured and you are bringing a different mind to the text.   Authentic reading is a mental dialog in which you bring to the page just as much as you take away.  A careful reread will surprise you with ideas you did not find there the first time around.   Your more mature mind gives the Holy Spirit so much life with which to work.  Try David and Goliath, Daniel with the lions, and other stories you think you know.  You are in for a surprise.  Many of the proverbs will make you smile.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 2, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Recently I met a man who cannot read.  He doesn’t know I know.  It took me quite a while to catch on.  He is very skilled at covering.  When eating out he will browse the menu and then always say to the server, “I’ll have what he’s getting.”  If outside he will say things like, “The sun is in my eyes can you tell me what that sign says.”  He is an excellent listener.  He has honed this skill and never needs something to be repeated.  I have tried to imagine how very challenging life must be for him.  Use of the Internet must be very limited.  I spent some time in Russia and I remember feeling handicapped because I could not read signs.  That was for a short time.  It must be most unpleasant for it to be like that all the time.

Moses must have been frustrated over and over because so very few of those he led out of Egypt could read.  Visuals are very important to us.  We are judgmental and hard on the Children of Israel for building the golden calf.  But Moses was gone.  They did not yet have the Ten Commandments and even if they did they couldn’t read them.  We are blessed to have our Bibles.  We can read and reinforce our faith when we have moments of doubt.  We can delve into the treasures of God’s wisdom in His word.  We can use our imaginations and walk with Jesus through the crowded streets as we read the Gospels.

We must not take the gift of literacy for granted.  Even today there are millions of people who cannot read and cannot feed on the riches of God’s Word.  If you were able to decode the words in this devotional you are, in the history of the world, very special.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 1, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

Last summer a sea gull tagged the top of our car with two large white deposits.  Much to my distress they would not wash off.  I tried different kinds of auto polish and WD 40 and gasoline, all to no avail.  I exhausted my repertoire of solutions and finally resigned myself to the fact that they were permanent.  This Thursday while getting in the car I inadvertently reached up and wiped my hand across them and presto they came off.   I didn’t rub.  I didn’t polish.  I merely swiped my hand and they were gone.

While driving down our hill I remembered Lady Macbeth lamenting her grave sins and crying, “Out damned spot.”   It is a powerful passage regarding the futility of human efforts to atone for sins.  We can shower, we can chastise ourselves, we can try to buy forgiveness but the spot is still there.  We have not the power.  We have not the means.  We have not the competence. If it were not for Jesus and the gift of forgiveness we would be most miserable.

This is why the first four books of the New Testament are called Gospels.  They are the incredible good news that there is a way.  Someone with the power, and the means and the competence loves us and does it for us.   The Old Testament system provided for a Day of Atonement.  The New Testament provides us with 24/7 atonement.  It is available any moment we need it.  One of my friends once said to me, “Someday in heaven I am going to check your records and find out the truth about you.”   He is going to be so disappointed because all the dirt vanished when Jesus swiped His hand across my account.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 28, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Jesus was a very social person who apparently enjoyed gala events and weddings.  Many of His parables are built around weddings and feasts. As a matter of fact the only real accusation his enemies could mount against Him was His attendance at feasts with questionable people.  This is one situation when the old adage about birds of a feather just didn’t hold true.  He likes the metaphor of a marriage when He speaks of our relationship to Him.   In Revelation there is a brief description of the wedding feast of the Lamb with Him being the lamb and the bridegroom.

One of my favorite feast stories took place at Simon’s house when a woman of a most questionable reputation bathed Jesus’ feet with precious anointment.  It really was scandalous.  It would be surprising if there were not men in the room who had tasted her favors.  I wonder how many of them were silent and if any were critical. How often do we play Mr. Holy when the real truth about us would be shocking and devastating?   I just love it when Jesus told the critics in the room to leave her alone.  She had honored Him above even the host of the feast.

My next favorite is when there was room at a feast for more and the servants went out and rounded up anyone and everyone.  Whosever will come.  Awesome.  Street people, bag ladies, people who hadn’t had a bath in who knows how long.  There is room – bring them in.  Fill the banquet hall because there is provision for all.  To me this story is the essence of the Gospel.  One thing for sure, it strikes right at the heart of any exclusiveness we might want for ourselves.  God is an equal opportunity saver

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 29, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Do you have your invitation in hand?   Do you have your plane tickets to London all booked?  Did you buy a new suit?  Well, just in case you are one of the rest of us peons who did not receive an invitation to the royal wedding, I have something even better for you.  It’s found in II Peter 1.  I am going to use The Message paraphrase.  Just enjoy.  “Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.”

Jesus personally invites us to God.  He gives us the wedding garment.  Check out Matthew 22.  We don’t have to rush out and purchase a new suit.  It comes with the invitation and it is very well tailored.  It fits us to perfection.  Literally.  What is really good about this is we are not just invited to watch.  We are invited to participate.  We now participate in a divine experience.  Literally.  This is not a wordy empty promise.  This is an absolutely terrific promise that says we can actually begin right now living a divine life.  When God adopts us into the family we begin to develop family traits.

I have a young man in one of my classes this semester whose father I have known for years.  One would not have to tell me which student in the room was his son.  He is his father all over.  Rubber stamp!   This is our invitation.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 28, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org