Category: devotional

My wife was gone this weekend and I had to fend for myself.  I don’t usually eat very well when she isn’t around.  I have a bowl of Cheerios in the morning and the rest of the day is just picking here and there; maybe putting some leftovers in the microwave.  Last evening I found three packs of M&M’s.  Fascinating how much better things taste when one is hungry.  That first pack of M&M’s was fantastic.  So I went for two.  Great eating.  At this point I realized no one was home to chastise me for intemperance and so I ate the third pack.   It took about thirty minutes before I started to feel strange.  Wow.  It was a bad thing to have done.

I heard a sermon once asking what kind of person would I be if I lived where no one knew me.  I think I know the answer.  Unless I developed some self discipline I would be a physical wreck who dies young.  It’s nice living with someone who watches over me.  I never grew up.   Really now, if I was smart I would always live the same way if someone or no one was watching because God only wants the best for me.  It’s about the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10:10. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

Being a Christian and living like God wants us to live is about being SMART.   If we live SMART we can always live like no one is watching, even God and my wife.  Both of them will be very happy.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 16, 2015

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In 1940 the battle for France had been lost and the battle for Britain was to begin.  Speaking to Parliament on June 18, 1940 Winston Churchill uttered these immortal words, “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”  Marina Abramovic, a modern day performance artist, is quoted in Time magazine as saying, “I always believed that people don’t do anything really important from the state of happiness.”

Could it really be?  To be great, to produce something of substance, to pull from our depths the richness of our talents, is it necessary for us to be challenged with hardship, pain or loss?  Do we not rise to our apex unless we suffer?  Was Churchill right about Great Britain or was this merely inspirational rhetoric to steel the British people for what was ahead?  I ask this because I think of what we have been promised.  Will we not in an eternity of peace and prosperity rise to higher and higher levels of achievement and excellence or will we sink to mediocrity because there will be no pressure?  Can we not be happy and still produce feats of great importance to us and to the universe?

Surely God will continue to need us and present us with tasks designed to challenge us and bring out our best.  Perhaps the wonders promised us are not luxuries but instead metaphoric mountains to climb, problems to solve, needs to be met that we and we alone can be the solution.  Whatever it will be, of this we can be sure.  It will make us happy.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 15, 2016

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Today was a honey-do day.  One of the tasks was a fairly easy refastening a shelf to a wall.  But sometimes I find easy tasks ending up being not as easy as I thought they would be.  Have you ever started a simple plumbing job only to end up making five trips to the hardware store and then surrendering and calling a real plumber?   The challenge of today’s shelving task was finding just the right screw.  I needed one that expanded when it was screwed in.  Those aren’t so rare but I needed just the right size.  I needed a Goldie Locks screw – not too big and not too little.

On my workbench I pawed through cans of shiny and rusty nails, screws, bolts, washers, etc.  Surely I fingered through a few thousand such items when suddenly there it was; just what I needed.  As I picked it up it must have been thrilled.   For decades it had been overlooked.  It must have despaired thinking it was quite useless and would never be used.  Everything longs to be used.  Everything needs its moment that justifies its existence. As I screwed it into the wall I remembered a somewhat disheveled man who we asked to help take up the offering one worship morning. He beamed. He stood two inches taller. He could not stop thanking me for asking.  The next week he showed up with his hair combed and his shoes shined.

God has something special for each of us.  Never despair.  Never think you don’t matter.  Never think your life is or was of no importance.  God has a task just for you.  Each day be available and someday whether you know it or not, God will use you for something no one else could have done.  Oh how grand.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 14, 2016

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Many schools no longer teach cursive.  Children are so keyboard literate it seems the only use for cursive is to sign one’s name.  I always despised penmanship class.  We had to make endless ovals which for me always looked like a tornado on its side as the ovals got progressively smaller as they approached the right hand side of the page.  Paul had Tertius write for him.  However he did write the closing lines in his letters.  “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters.  This is how I write.”  2 Thessalonians 3:17.

I wonder how much Paul would have left us had he a computer.  It does seem that we are missing one of his letters to Corinth.  Many scholars believe II Corinthians should be III Corinthians.  Had he the tools to send out a thousand emails each evening I’m sure we would have lots of details regarding his adventurous travels spreading the Good News.  I wish we knew more about Tertius.  Was he merely a recorder or did they discuss the wording of passages in Romans?

I am most grateful to be able to use modern technology to tell you how much Jesus loves you.  My sorrow is my lack of grasping the deeper things, the mysteries, of which Paul speaks. His mind was amazing.  Romans 5, 6, 7 and 8 make my mind swirl with an attempt to grasp Paul’s depth.  Even Peter speaks of struggling to understand.  See II Peter 3:16.

Suffice it to say we are thankful to know the basics.  We are sinners.  Jesus’ death enables the Father to lavish us with grace and we are saved.   That’s enough for now.  Probably would be enough forever, but more we shall know.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 25, 2016

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In one of my  classes some of my students taught me a new word.  I had no idea this word existed.  It is “subitize.”   It is pronounced “sue baa tize.”  I felt a bit dull because it wasn’t the high school math teachers who taught me this word.  It was the kindergarten teachers.  Subitize means to perceive at a glance the number of items presented.

In Matthew 10 Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”  Our Heavenly Father is the Master Subitizer.

On a very clear night with little light pollution the average person can see about 2000 stars.  We cannot subitize them.  They were counted by astronomers with sky maps.  That is such a small sampling of what is really out there.  “He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name.”  Psalm 147:4.  He doesn’t call them Sirius and Arcturus.  Those are the names we have given them.   He calls them by the names He has given.  Each is special.  I have often wondered what is His name for our sun.

Our personal names are those our parents gave us.  I wonder what He calls us.  We shall know someday.  “I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.”  Revelation 2.  One thing we know for sure. He knows you and me.  He knows all about us because He is the Master Subitizer.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 12, 2016

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We have a hairy woodpecker in our yard that deserves to be reported to the National Audubon Society as an endangered individual.  He must think it’s Halloween because all morning he has been knocking on my back door and flying away when I answer.  No sooner do I sit down than he is back knocking knocking, knocking.  It was cute the first two or three times but really enough is enough.  I feel like I am trapped inside an Edgar Allan Poe poem.  “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.”  We can call this one, “The Woodpecker.”

Jesus said, “Behold I stand at the door and knock.”  However, quite to the contrary He doesn’t run away when we answer.  But He is just as, or even more so, persistent as our woodpecker. He never had to chase me.  I have loved Jesus as long as I can remember, but I have known persons who were persistently chased, courted, harassed and beleaguered by the Holy Spirit, who would not let them go.

Just before His death Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives looking over Jerusalem and He mourned, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”  The truth is we are loved and God is just not willing for us to perish. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”  II Peter 3:9.

And so He continually knocks, raps, taps at the front door, side door and backdoor of our hearts.  He really wants in and will never fly away.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 27, 2016

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We have a small music box containing three separate cylinders, thus it plays three different tunes.  I like it best when all three songs are playing at the same time.  I know that sounds strange but each time the music is a different delicate cacophonic dissonance of never before heard music.  Each time is an original composition created by different starting times. If you concentrate you can pick out each separate tune as you filter out the other two.  I know the definitions of cacophony and dissonance imply unpleasant jarring sounds.  But the softness of the music box produces something eerily beautiful.

There are millions of prayers simultaneously ascending to God’s ears.  Each moment He hears the beautiful sounds of His children intermingled with need, worship and love.  As a teacher I sometimes have to ask my students to politely wait their turn for I am not capable of grasping their concurrently spoken ideas.  Our Father has no such limitation.  You can speak.  I can speak.  We do not need to wait for our turn.   Neither the softness of our thanksgiving nor the pained anguish of our needs interfere with His caring cognition.

The wonder of our Heavenly Father will challenge our intellects forever as we seek to grasp the immensity of His love for us.  Paul wrote, “Open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”  Ephesians 3.

Thusly as we all speak to Him it is music to His heart.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 11, 2016

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History provides us with moments of great importance.  Decisions, decisions, decisions weigh heavily on our hearts.  Sometimes proximity blurs the importance for us and we forget other much more important moments.  A  Thursday night 2000 years ago a decision was made not for the continuity of the Roman government but for the universe.  God had sent His Son, His only Son, to earth and the culmination of that was would He or would He not while  being human suffer one of the most horrific of deaths at the hands of those He had created.

There was silence in heaven as He fell to the earth in Gethsemane begging His Father for another way to save mankind.  There was not another way.  Satan pressed in smothering Him with the prospect of eternal loss, not only for Himself but for everyone.  Rising from the ground He made the decision.  But even yet the physical horror was yet to come.  We can now count the beatings, the humiliations, the number of thorns in His brow, the betrayal of Peter, the wooden cross on his back almost stripped of all skin by the lashes with barbs embedded in the strips of leather, the nails in His hands and the thirst-the incredible thirst.

Satan was sure he could break Him.  No one would so endure when with the flick of an eye bring it instantly to an end.  All heaven and all hell waited to see what the end would be.  Any other decisive moment in time pales in comparison to this.

On Sunday morning the angels sang because WE won.  We won not just four years.  We won eternity for everyone and anyone who will decide to accept the gift.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 9, 2016

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While walking my dog this afternoon we met a lady with a snarly little dog.  My dog which was for sure five times the size of the offender was a model of decorum.  I was so proud of her.  The lady said to me, “You will have to excuse her.  She’s pregnant.”  I’m tempted to say, “That’s not the first time I have heard those two sentences.” But I won’t say it because I don’t want to get into trouble.  Being that I have never been pregnant makes it appropriate for me to say nothing.

So very often saying nothing is the correct response to a majority of comments.  I have often thought the Quakers were really on to something significant. “Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles.”  Proverbs 21:23   How often have I returned from being at a gathering or a committee meeting and wished I had refrained from opining.  Usually what I had to offer was not constructive and was only spoken because I wanted to appear bright.  I wasn’t.

Jesus, the smartest man who ever lived, could have silenced His accusers in so many ways, but instead He chose to be quiet.  “And the high priest arose and said to Him, ‘Do you answer nothing? What is it these men testify against you?’  But Jesus kept silent.”  Matthew 26   So many love the sound of their voice while not realizing what they hear is not what others hear.  It’s usually a bit shocking to hear one’s recorded voice for the first time.  We barely recognize the person speaking.  And yet even though I think this to be a wise course of action, we should not miss the opportunity to say something encouraging and uplifting to a discouraged soul.  A few wise words are a treasure.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 8, 2016

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It only lasted one day.  A heavy rain stripped bright yellow and red leaves from their summer branches and blanketed our lawn.  For twenty-four hours we had the most magnificent carpet anyone one could imagine.  The leaves had not yet begun to dry.  They were lush and pliable.  Walking on them was like being in an enchanted land of colors that dazzled with each step.  Jackson Pollock would have sacrificed a year of his life to have produced something so unworldly.  Van Gogh would have cut off his other ear to have added such beauty to his portfolio.  Could I have preserved it I could have become a rich man by charging people to see it.  But the next day it was diminished.  Its prime was past.

I was tempted to write that it was like people.  We have a prime and then it is gone.  Rarely are we aware when that prime is.  We just wake up one morning and look in the mirror and be it ever so subtle we are not the same. Every day that follows steals a bit more.  We are pilfered by time. But unlike my gorgeous carpet which will never be again, we have a “primer” prime awaiting us.  We will never reach our “primest” because each day will bring yet more vitality and beauty.

Paul wrote, “Just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.”  I Corinthians 15:49.   A sperm and an egg are not much to look at but put them together and the splendor of a baby is.  A wrinkled old man is not much to look at but unite him with Jesus and the grandeur that will forever grow “primer” and “primer” is beyond words.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 26, 2016

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