Category: devotional

Recently while kneeling in a prayer circle, instead of rehearsing what I was going to say when it was my turn, I decided to really listen to what the others were saying.  Gradually it occurred to me that this prayer circle was a strange ritual.  I got the feeling those praying weren’t really talking to God but were speaking for the rest of us to listen to how cleverly they could weave together a collection of cliques I have heard since I was a little boy.  I got the feeling they were praying for their human audience and I wondered if God bothered to pay attention.  If I was very wrong and they really were talking to God why should I be eavesdropping?   When I am talking to someone about really meaningful things I don’t particularly like having others listening.  They can listen when it is trivial but not when it counts.

I realize I am being judgmental and wrongly projecting my own cynicism on others.  So please forgive me.  The older I become the more personal prayer becomes.  The things I want to talk to God about are not for your ears or the ears of those with whom I work and play.  When I pray in public I want to ask God to indulge my trivia knowing that I will get back to Him later with what is really on my heart.

“Now it was in those days that Jesus went to a mountain to pray, and he spent the whole night in prayer to God.”  Luke 6:12.  Do you ever wonder what They talked about?  Surely it was a dialogue.  The following verses tell of Jesus calling the twelve to ministry.  That night they must have talked about each of the twelve one by one.  Now that’s a conversation I wish I had listened in on.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 8, 2008

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

It was like something from “The Twilight Zone.”  It could not have been more carefully scripted in a book.  This morning while eating breakfast my wife and I noticed an increased red squirrel population on the patio.  Apparently a new family had just left the nest and was exploring their new world.  As they were running around I said, “It’s a good thing hawks eat squirrels or soon we would be overrun.”   As my wife responded, “We also have coyotes and fisher cats” a red fox raced on to the patio and snatched one of the new baby squirrels.  I could not believe what I had just witnessed in relationship to our conversation.  Wow!

While I felt sorry for the squirrel I also hoped the fox enjoyed his breakfast.  He needed to eat and we needed to get rid of some squirrels.  As beautiful as our patio is right now with the rhododendrons in glorious full red bloom it certainly isn’t Eden.  It is full of eaters and the to be eaten.  I’m thankful to be at the top of the food chain even though one afternoon in Africa I wasn’t so sure I was.  I had inadvertently backed our car into a warthog hole and the only way out was for me to get out of the car and into the hole to lift and push as my wife drove.  Less than 50 feet away a family of lions watched me with great interest.  I must not have looked very tasty because I am still here.

Isaiah 65:25 has never ceased to fascinate me.  It describes a time when lions and lambs will lie down together.  Just how this will work I don’t know. But I, and I am sure you, are most anxious to see.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 6, 2008.

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

Our motorcycle helmets are stored high on a shelf in the garage.   It has been a few years since we wore them but I was still surprised when I took one down and was instantly showered with birdseed.  “Oh, no,” I thought.  “A mouse has a home in one and it has to be smelly and ruined.”   However, much to my added surprise, even though a good quart of seed came out, the helmet had not been chewed up, it did not stink and there was no mouse nest. Apparently some industrious little guy, who lives somewhere else, had a private stash just in case the bag of birdseed in the corner went empty.

How could I not but think of Jesus’ comment in the Sermon on the Mount? “Stop storing up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moths and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. Instead, store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust don’t destroy and thieves don’t break in and steal.”

In this particular case I was the thief.  I broke in and destroyed his cache. It is impossible to have a totally destruction proof place for one’s belongings. I lived in a country where people buried large sums of money to keep it from the government.  The government merely changed its currency and all the buried money was instantly useless.  

The only thing we can store and keep is God’s Word in our hearts.  That is the most valued thing in the universe and no one can snatch that away.  So be rich.  Memorize, store God’s Word in your mind

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 11, 2008

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

I’m sitting here looking at a full-page magazine ad for a watch.  It stirs the soul.  The man pictured wearing the watch is ruggedly handsome with three days growth of beard.  He is wearing a wet suit and is grimacing as he peers into the water that is beating his face.  He is strongly clinching to a rubber raft that is rushing to some crisis he will conquer.  His watch is front and center and will obviously be the key to his success.  Wow.  I want one of those watches.  No, I don’t want one.  I need one.  I too want to be a ruggedly handsome hero that saves the day.

It is amazing how images affect us.  From the moment we are born we copy the behavior and seek to be like the people who impress us.  A baby will very quickly learn to stick out his or her tongue if their caregiver sticks out their tongue.  We learn to be kind, honest, helpful or vice versa depending on the actions of our role models.   Any lasting value of moralistic teaching vanishes quickly if the environment does not match the words.  How many times I have heard parents say in regards to their children, “But I took them to church every week.”

I never cease to be impressed by Acts 4:13, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.”  There it is.  Peter and especially John, because of his youth, watched Jesus and copied Jesus.  He was and is the ultimate rugged hero that saves the day.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 6, 2008

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

My wife was standing in a line at a customer service desk.  There were two people behind the counter.  One woman was helping someone when the other looked up and said, “I’m not ignoring you.  I’m leaving.”  I think that is a form of ignoring.   Nevertheless, during the discussion that ensued we commented on the difference in service one gets from a person who owns a business and from a hired hand.  I like it when I am doing business with an owner.   Which brings me to the Owner of this world.  I like doing business with Him.  He is attentive and responsive.  He really cares about what is happening.

Despite the rebellion in Eden, God has always maintained His ownership. Notice Psalm 50.  “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.  I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.”  Also there is a wonderful passage in Job 38 when God asked Job a host of questions about the heavens and the earth.  God definitely has not relinquished His claim.

In John 10 Jesus speaks of us being His sheep and knowing His voice.  He loves to have us be His.  And when we are, He takes excellent care of us. When we go astray He will go out into the night to search for us.  He already risked all and paid all to have us.  In His parable of the pearl of great price, we are the pearl.  He paid an enormous fee to claim us as His own.  I hope you feel loved because you are both loved and cared for by the Owner.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 8, 2008.

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 945874

Within the next few days the Massachusetts highway department will need to cut down a beautiful white birch tree that is leaning more and more over the road.  It has not been bowed down by ice or by some boy climbing.   It has just decided to lean.  If trees could talk surely one of the larger trees would have warned it not to lean that direction.  The result of leaning that direction will always be a chainsaw.

Johnny Cash used to sing a song entitled “Don’t take your guns to town son.” It’s a ballad of a mother wise enough to know certain actions produce certain results.  He died.  It is the story told over and over again. Parents try to tell their children not to go a certain way because they know where it leads.  How often do children think parents and churches are just there to spoil sport?  There is wisdom in listening to those who have traveled the road ahead.  Unfortunately so many are wise too late.

Disasters begin with tiny movements and tiny deviations from the right way. Pilots know that a very small variation will over the course of a few hundred miles lead one way off the intended destination.  The challenge for parents is how to set our children off in the right direction.  This is where prayer and the claiming of James 1:5 is extremely important.  We need divine guidance so we can in turn guide.  One who cannot or will not take counsel is never fit to give counsel.  Only God knows everything.  The rest of us need help.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 7, 2008

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

I watched a very messy nuthatch this evening.   As day was coming to an early ending there was a host of sparrows and squirrels enjoying a rainstorm of birdseed.  I don’t know what kind of seed the nuthatch was looking for but he was whipping his head about in the bird feeder spraying seed everywhere.  I don’t know if he ever found anything for himself but he certainly was a source of blessing for the others.  I was wishing I could be that much of a blessing to others.

The primary prevailing philosophy in today’s world is existentialism.  If you asked a person if he or she was an existentialist they would most likely stare at you wondering what in the world you were talking about.  But if you explained what it was and asked them a few questions about life, they would discover that  is what they believe.   If I may oversimplify, I will just say it is a person on a quest for meaning.  There is much more involved but basically people want a reason for being. 

If you have Jesus in your life, it is cared for.  Jesus has a task for each of us.  Our quest is to find it and with God’s help fulfill our commission.  In a way that makes each of us a Christian existentialist.  However, the person who lives without Jesus is quested to invent meaning or live a life of quiet desperation so well-pictured in Edvard Munch’s picture “The Scream.”

Our task is to be a source of blessing to those about us.  To be like Jesus is to touch lives with love and promise for a better tomorrow.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 3, 2008

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

There is a poster on the wall of my office depicting the heroism of Desmond Doss, a non-combatant medic that won the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism in WWII.  This morning a young mother with her two little girls were looking at it when the five-year-old asked about the picture.  I was curious as to what one would say about such a man to an innocent child.  Her mother wisely said, “It’s a picture about a very good man.”  Immediately, without a moment’s hesitation, the little girl exclaimed, “Oh! It’s about Daddy!” He is a science professor at our little college.  He is a good man.  He is the hero in two little girls’ lives. Need I even have to say how grand it would be if all children would respond that way when someone mentioned a good man?  

Need I say how grand it would be if we responded that quickly to think of our heavenly Father when someone used the word “good”?  The Islamic community chants that God is great.  That is true.  I wish we Christians would add to that “and God is good.” He is such a good Father.  He adopts us into the family and enables us to be co-heirs with His son Jesus.  He is so unbiased and so unselfish that each of us, the redeemed, receives all the blessings we can contain.  See Romans 8.  In Ephesians 3 Paul prays for us to know the length and width and depth of our Good Father’s love and to know the love of Christ that fills us with all the fullness of the Father.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 5, 2008

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

The worship hour at my church begins with the ringing of the church bell. However, as we waited this past weekend all was silent.  The bell ringer got more than he expected.  Instead of a pleasant vibrant sound filling the sanctuary he got a cascade of rope.  The bell rope broke.   Without a connection the bell sat silent and will do so until we get a new connection.

Our bell is just like people without a connection to their Creator.  We can run about working our heads off and completing our to-do lists but we will not live up to our full potential until we take advantage of God’s offer to fill us with divine power.  One of the most incredible verses of Scripture is found in II Peter 1.  “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him  who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature.”

Often I see what appear to be very successful people who do not have a relationship with God and I wonder what they could be or could have been had they taken full advantage of God’s offer.   God wants to ring our bell.  He wants us to fill the atmosphere around us with a crisp, clear sound that will enhance our lives and the lives of those around us.  Just as our worship service was impoverished by the lack of a connection so all are impoverished by not uniting with the divine power of the universe.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 22, 2008

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

Don’t you hate it when one of your favorite stores closes down?  We had a feed store in town that creaked with old age.  The wooden floors squeaked and groaned as we wandered about wondering about all the interesting farm things.  It wasn’t as if we would ever need or purchase cow dehorning equipment. We went there to get bags of wild bird seed, but I was fascinated by the baby chicks and the cat that ruled the place without eating the chicks.  There was this great smell of grain mixed with salt licks and leather straps that I have no idea of their purpose.  It was another world apart from my academic realm of smelly old books.  But now it is gone. There is another feed store in town but it’s a metal building with a concrete floor.  It isn’t anywhere nearly as nostalgic and exotic as the old wooden building with the deteriorated shingle roof.

Why does everything have to change?  Today was the last day of classes for this semester.  I have grown to enjoy my students, some of whom I will see again next semester because they are psyc majors, but the students of other majors who took my class as an elective will move on.  Perhaps the next time I see them will be on graduation day as they move across the stage in their academic peacockery.  I would like to hug them but they would not understand an old man’s pride in their success.  They might return on alumni day and I will be embarrassed because I will not remember their names.  Shame on me, but I can blame it on a senior moment or some other such human weakness.

Our college town was founded in 1653.  That was 46 years before Jamestown,Virginia.  The town cemetery is filled with people who never heard of the United States.  When they died Massachusetts was a British colony.  I have come to know the only thing that doesn’t change is God’s love for us.

There’s an anchor we can count on.  See Malachi 3.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 4, 2008

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