Category: devotional

Long I stood in the pet store trying to find the chameleon.  I felt pretty stupid considering it was in a glass enclosure that wasn’t overly large.  Finally I saw it, but only after it moved.   As I examined how well it blended in I remembered the first time I ever saw one.  When I was a little boy someone brought one to church.  I remember being told how evil it would be if we blended into our culture and people couldn’t tell we were Christians.  They quoted Romans 12:2 and made a real impression on me.

Years later when I was a teen all I wanted to do was to blend in.  It is a common characteristic of early teens.  They have so many changes happening to them physically and mentally they don’t want to look or act weird.  Even as we age, to be reasonably fashionable is not something to shun.  To be modestly dressed in the manner of the day is not wrong.  One of the best advertisements for a product is to be appealing and we would not make Christianity very appealing if we were a gazing stock noted for our bizarre clothing. The Amish people are a wonderful people noted for their honesty, but we certainly don’t see people flocking to join them.

The best way to not blend in and to be different from others is to be the kindest, most caring, and most unselfish person in our circle.  How grand it would be if we were noted for never being a gossip and being the one person in the crowd who always had something nice to say about others.  That is a nice kind of weird.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 16, 2011

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If I thought he was crotchety you should have seen her; gray, hunched over and making those shuffle steps unique with the aged.  What happened next was wonderful.  He opened the truck door for her as she crawled into the passenger’s seat.  Using the truck for balance and support he went around to the driver’s side and mounted himself behind the steering wheel of a bright red Dodge Ram 1500 with a Hemi.  The hood was scooped and ready to suck air.  The special mufflers rumbled as he pulled away leaving me a view of his chrome pipes.  It was magnificent!

Life only stops when we decide it is over.  I have known people in their fifties who pretty much stopped.  Obviously it wasn’t this elderly, I will not call them old, couple. I wondered if they were heading home for an evening of romance.  I wouldn’t doubt it.  Maybe it was a first date or perhaps a 5000th!

Life is a wonderful mystery that takes place in our minds.  As our senses pour data into its library we classify, sort and decide just what we are going to do with the data.  Some use it to reinforce bad memories and others use it to springboard ahead for the next adventure.  In John 10:10 Jesus told us He came to give us the abundant life.  That’s for now and the future.  He shares the secret of that abundance.  It is service and being inventive in hospitality.  The more ways we conceive for helping others are more ways for blessings to come our way.  Blessings are like tide.  They go out and shortly thereafter they come flooding back.  It’s a great system designed by the One who is Himself the source of all blessings.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 25, 2011

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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

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In 2013 Nik Wallenda crossed the little Colorado River Gorge on a tight rope.  In an interview on NPR he spoke of the balance that comes from a lifetime of practice.  He spoke not just physical balance on a wire but of personal balance in his life.  He spoke of a lifetime of ordering one’s priorities if one is to live a full life.  It is easy to become absorbed in one facet of life and let things shift out of balance.  We have all seen people who major in their diet and others who major in going to church; if the results are not vibrant health and being a loving person than something is out of balance.

Much too some people’s surprise Jesus was not overly religious, at least by the then community standards.  He rarely attended religious services and when He did it didn’t always end up very nicely.  He had harsh words regarding the religious leadership.  He kept bad company and yet He spent entire nights in prayer.  He liked boat trips on the Sea of Galilee and beach trips to the Mediterranean. He didn’t talk like the priests.  He told stories about real life.

I don’t consider myself to be a religious person and yet after performing weddings I often disappear early on in the reception party because I know people are more comfortable celebrating if “the preacher” isn’t there.  Most of the people Jesus made uncomfortable were the religious ones.

Balance comes from a lifetime of experience.  Eating, socializing, studying, playing, resting, praying, working, telling stories, laughing, and being with family are just a few of the important things we balance in our lives that we might live an abundant life.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 1, 2013

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When I think of Wells Fargo, I think of stage coaches rocking and bouncing their way over dusty roads only to arrive in town with pretty ladies getting out without a hair out of place nor having a speck of dust on their flowing dresses.  I think of horsemen with handkerchiefs over their faces robbing the stage and taking the strong box.  On a lighter note I think of a song from the musical “The Music Man”.  “Oh, the Wells Fargo wagon is a’coming down the street.  Oh, please let it be for me.” But now a new picture comes to mind.  It seems that Well Fargo has become the robber.  Alas, another childhood image dashed.   Don’t get me started on Columbus.

Psalm 146:3 wisely says, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.”  I can promise you the only person never to let you down, never to be dashed to pieces by revelations of immorality, never to be sullied with tales of misconduct is Jesus.  Guilt by association is the worst thing they could say about Him.  He did run around with an unsavory lot.  He would even have had dinner with you and me.  How about that?  It seems that God has no taste in people.  He loves all of us.

Read the following from Hebrews 4:15 and be amazed. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet he did not sin.”  When He says, “Trust me” we really can.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 13, 2016

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I think I was about five years old the first time I heard Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”   It made a great impression on me.  I recall associating it with a picture of Peter drowning in the stormy sea because he had taken his eyes off Jesus.   He called and Jesus grabbed his hand and together they walked over to the boat.  I am awed by this now, let alone the impression it made on me at five.  I determined right there that I would always be ready to call to Jesus.  It wasn’t until I went to an academy (high school) in Bible classes that I unlearned Romans 10:13.   What I mean by unlearning is my Bible teacher added a lot of “buts” to the promise.  According to him, while it was true I was saved by calling out to Jesus I then had a list of do’s and don’ts if I was going to stay saved.  It was most depressing.  I almost gave up on the whole thing.  Sadly to say many of my classmates did give up.

Fortunately, I went on to college and I am so grateful that once again I relearned Romans 10:13 along with some accompanying verses like verse 9.  “If thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shall be saved.”   I also learned that Paul wrote in Galatians that the moment anyone adds a ‘but’ he has negated the cross. I think some people fear this will lead people to live a self-centered life of sin.  But it is just the opposite.  Because I have been given such a gift I don’t want to sin.  I want to be like my hero – Jesus.  That’s the way it works.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 17, 2009

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One of the great wonders of the human mind is the ability to create the world it wants.  We see the things that support our worldview and are blind to the things that do not.  If we see the world as a hostile place our mind will focus on slights and will spin things into a negative.  Paranoia comes on a sliding scale from one to ten.  Some of us are so anxious for this age to come to an end and for the second coming of Jesus to occur we see “Signs of the Times” everywhere.  They are usually negative because that fits an end time worldview.  See Matthew 24.

Then there are those who do not believe the world is any worse off now than it has ever been.  The wars and earthquakes and threats of violence fit into a pattern of history that has been with us for thousands of years.  Increased numbers are merely the product of better reporting in an age of instant worldwide news coverage.  For these people the world has always been a dangerous place, so live with it.

There is a third kind of person who, while not being a total Pollyanna, sees the blessings they have and are grateful.  While they recognize bad things do happen, those bad things are far outnumbered by good things.  They minimalize bad things and refuse to let them set the tone for their life. They long for the second coming but are happy to make the best of what is.

There is such a wealth of incidents, good and bad, our minds are intriguingly capable of defining, with an overwhelming amount of evidence, the history and present we desire.  The most difficult educational framework to design for schools is social studies.  Just whose viewpoint will be emphasized in the limited number of pages a history book can contain?

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 27, 2010

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I was sitting in a Burger King this evening when an employee started yelling, “No, no. Please no.”   My imagination immediately created the worst possible scenario.  I was ready to run for an exit or hide under a table as I imagined someone had entered with a gun.   What a relief to know it wasn’t what I thought.  A bus had pulled up to the door and offloaded forty-six teenage girls who then lined up at the order counter.  The financial boon for Burger King meant a whole lot of work for the three employees behind the counter who were contending with a never-ending line of cars at the drive-up window.

So I wondered why it was that my mind had first gone to something bad. Could it be that we have developed a culture of fear because of all the bad news we continually hear on our radios and televisions?   Twenty-four hour news channels have a voracious appetite for content.  In order to stay fresh they garner all the bad stories that occur all over the world and frighten us into thinking our neighborhoods are filled with all the gruesomeness they can dish up.   Organizations with a need for government or charitable funding hype their cause and exaggerate so they can maintain their existence.  The end result is we have come to believe the worst.

I would like to state that while it is true some places in the world are racked by war, famine and genocide, that is not the norm.  The norm is so much better.  I don’t want to be a Pollyanna but if we really believe we are under the shadow of the Almighty we can truly say to each other, “Fear not.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 15, 2010

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When we moved into our home in Massachusetts we discovered the former owner left behind a wonderful old leather-bound set of Encyclopedia Britannica published in 1910.  I learned it was a classic edition.  While doing some research this evening I wondered what scholars thought about my topic exactly one hundred years ago.  So I pulled down Volume XIII – Harmony to Hurstmonceaux.  While doing so I remembered as a child we had a set of World Book Encyclopedia, not quite in the same league as Britannica, but respectable for a child.  I used to wonder what it was like to be so famous one got an article about oneself in such books.  This evening I turned page after page of such names without recognizing one name.  I realize my education is limited but really I should know some names.

Who or what was Hurstmonceaux?  Why should I care?  Does anyone in the 21st century care?  Probably the people who live there care.  It is a village in England.  In 1818 Percy Shelley wrote the famous poem, Ozymandias about an old statue in the desert.

“And on the pedestal these words appear:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Greatness and fame are a fleeting thing in this world.  So tonight I think of my childhood curiosity about fame and realize the only place I want my name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life mentioned in the book of Revelation.  There is Someone in charge of that book who will never forget us.  Let the ages pass and we will not only live in His memory but be alive forever in His kingdom.  How grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 2, 2010

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We’ve all ordered pizza over the phone.  It wasn’t something new or unique when I called Papa John’s this evening.  Twenty minutes later I was walking in the door ready to do battle.  The price they quoted me on the phone was quite a bit more than the sign on the door that said, “Any Large Pizza – $10.”   But wait; they didn’t have my order.  It was then that I realized I hadn’t called Papa John’s.  I had called Papa Gino’s.  How I wish I had called Papa John’s.  Their pizza was so much cheaper.

Now back into the truck and on my way to Papa Gino’s, Frank Sinatra started to sing, “My Embraceable You”, which of course contained the line, “Come to papa, come to papa do.”  My grandchildren call me “papa” as they also call their other grandfather “papa.”   I even heard a sermon where the preacher said Jesus referred to His father as “papa.”   There are just too many papas around.

Or are there?  Is that even possible?  If God loves me as much as I love my sons and their children then I’m okay.  I’m in a very safe place.  I couldn’t help not thinking of Romans 8 where Paul says, we “received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”  The word “Abba” is well translated as “papa.”   This personal fatherhood of God is a very New Testament idea.  Jesus wanted us to know what God is really like.  There really can’t be too many papas.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 20, 2010

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