Category: devotional

“Everyone has a passion.  A new idea to share.  What will your verse be?”  This is Apple iPad Air’s latest advertising challenging us by appealing to our core.   Everyone has a passion.  We might never have stopped long enough to probe our inner being and put it into words.  Maybe for the first time we are asked to articulate just why we think we are here and what will be our legacy.  Others form ideas of who we are.  Unfortunately, they are not always positive.  But we are the owners of ourselves.  We are the ones who should define ourselves.  We have the right to reject other’s flawed projections. We have the right to say who and what we are.

There has never been another like you.  There will never be another like you.  You are unique in eternity.  What is your verse?  What do you want to say that no one else can ever say?  What passion fills your life?  How will the world be different because you were here?

You are not a cipher. You are not an accidental combination of DNA resulting in your consciousness.  God is not a God who plays favorites and He said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; . .”  In Ephesians 2 Paul wrote, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”   In God’s great plan you have an appointed task no one else can do.  It is your God given passion. One of life’s great tasks is to discover it, identify it, give it flesh with your words and do it with all your might.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 13, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

When we arise in the morning we begin a marketing campaign.  We shower so we will not offend other’s olfactory nerves.  We shave or trim.  We brush our teeth. (Please do.) We put on makeup to add some color.  (“If the barn needs painting, paint it.”  H.M.S. Richards, Sr.) We comb our hair and hopefully put on clothes that match.  We are marketers and the product is us.  This is not a modern phenomenon.  For thousands of years humans have been decorating themselves.  Tribes deep in the rain forests put on their best.

Off to the workplace we go, often pretending that we know what we are doing.  One of life’s basic rules is fake it until you can do it because perception is important. What is sometimes disconcerting is when we are given awards for excellence and we think we are still acting.  I often feel like this in regards to my role as a Christian.  If people knew what I really think about things, I would be put out of any congregation.  But I pretend to be nice and I pretend to know things even though I am not sure of many things.  I owe it to my Savior.   I am not only marketing myself but more importantly I am marketing Jesus.  I want people to see Him and desire to be like Him and that most likely will not happen if I, who profess His name, am offensive.

Just as the CEO of a major corporation has a lot at stake for the sake of his shareholders, we have an eternity at stake for those who know us.  What is fascinating about all of this is little by little reality replaces the pretending and we really are what we are marketing.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 12, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Here I stand staring into the refrigerator.  It is full but there is nothing to eat.  There is a carton of milk and one of O.J.  But I am not thirsty.  I’m hungry.  There are bottles of salad dressing but no salad.  There are bags of frozen peas and corn but I don’t want to cook.  I just want something now.  There are weekend leftovers but they really don’t look that good.  There are Pillsbury cinnamon rolls but I have to bake them for twenty minutes.  This is pathetic because there are people in the world who would think they just died and went to heaven if they could have the contents of our fridge.

Here I sit with my Bible in hand.  I’m hungry.  I’m not in the mood for poetry so that eliminates 150 psalms.  I know about David and his mighty men and King Saul’s rants and raves. Genealogies don’t do it for me.  The Sermon on the Mount overwhelms me with its really high standards.  I’m not into the monsters of Daniel and Revelation. Paul seems too heavy for me tonight.  Ah, but wait there is the Gospel of John.   John is like the Goldilocks book.  It is not too heavy and not too light. It’s just right. I will save Paul for another night and the Psalms for another day.

John – “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  Actually that is pretty heavy material.  But he whets my appetite for more.  John 3 – This Nicodemus guy seems interesting.  And the resurrection of Lazarus in 11, well that is really exciting.  For tonight John is just right.  Tomorrow I will probably be hungry for Isaiah.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 29, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Lesson #1 -We had a large maple tree removed from our back yard today.  It was young, strong and promising of many years of summer shade.  That was the problem.  When in full leaf it turned our back yard into a green cavern where grass would not grow from lack of sunlight.  I have seen that tree survive strong summer and winter storms.  It bent in the wind and let the blasts of air move on by.   I have seen other trees that refused to bend, snap and topple to the earth.  We could learn much from trees.  Some of us pridefully take a stand on some particular issue only to be taken down not to serve another day.  While others have the ability to discern principles from pride, while they would stand firmly to maintain a principle they will bend when they realize the issue is merely a matter of taste or preference. These are the survivors who stay around to pass on their wisdom.

Lesson #2 – The tree men did not cut down the tree with one cut from their chain saw.  They climbed to the top and took it down branch by branch finally leaving only the trunk to fell.   How like our characters.  There are times we compromise our principles – not big – small compromises.  It is easier the next time and then the next.  Branch by branch we lose the majesty of being God’s children.  We forget and eventually have little left.  How much better it is to stand for principles and “be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.”  Isaiah 61:3

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 30, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I am so depressed.  I just watched the 6:30 evening network news.  It wasn’t just the news about Ukraine or the terrorists in Nigeria trying to turn the clock back to 1500 AD.  That was bad enough.  But there was the addition of an endless amount of commercials for drugs for disorders I have never even heard of.  Drug companies must sit around inventing new afflictions so they can sell medications not only for real ills but for fantasy ills.  Knowing how suggestible people can be they know there is always a percentage of the population that will say, “Hey, that’s me. I need to tell my doctor I need that pill.”

I have figured out why we like to talk about the good old days, which were not.  We were just uniformed.  We didn’t know about all the horror around the world.  But now we have network news on TV.  Night after night there are reports from some part of the world with the day’s worst stories.  Maybe I need one of those advertised pills for depression. I didn’t need one until I watched our planet’s worst.  That must be the drug company’s marketing strategy.

Whatever happened to the good news? Unemployment continues to drop.  Then there is the really good news.  I mean Good News.  We have a great report.  Jesus is alive and well.  He loves us.  He is preparing a place for us.  While we by ourselves can never be worthy, He is worthy.   He is anxious to have as many as possible take advantage of what He did for us.  Just accept the Gift and it is ours.  There, now I am not so depressed.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 9, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I have a new definition of futility.  This morning I watched a hummingbird trying to get nectar from fake flowers my wife has on the porch.  If it isn’t real there isn’t anything worthwhile.  Many years ago I heard an entire sermon telling us not to worship idols because it makes God mad.  He never addressed the issue as to why it made God mad.

God is our father. Like any good parent He wants the best for His children.  He is frustrated when He sees us wasting our time and other resources on foolishness.  Jeremiah said it so well in chapter 10.  “Someone cuts down a tree from the forest; it is worked by the hands of a craftsman with a chisel.  He decorates it with silver and gold.  It is fastened with hammer and nails, so it won’t totter.  Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch, their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them for they can do no harm and they cannot do any good.”

Don’t go to an empty well for water.  Don’t go to a harvested field for a crop. It is all worthless.  If the Bible tells us something makes God angry we must always ask why.  Otherwise we make Him out to be a selfish being whose feelings have been hurt.  There is no self in God.  We cannot hurt His feelings.  But we can fill Him with frustration when He offers us the best and instead we settle for some pretty trinket or fake and end up without anything of value.

My poor hummingbird was wasting its time and energy.  Those fake flowers were pretty but that’s all they had to offer.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 8, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

It was a glorious day in New England.  I took a book and sat outside.  It was perfect except I was continually interrupted by birds.  A steady stream of finches, sparrows, catbirds, robins and warblers kept interfering with my reading.  Those were nice interruptions compared to what followed.  Shadows passed over the pages of my book.  Looking up I saw two huge vultures circling over me.  Really?  I’m flattered that I looked appetizing but not today.   No, not yet.  I am still in the oven.  God isn’t done with me.  I still have grandchildren’s graduations and weddings to attend.  Not that I am not already a great grandfather, but I would like to be a great-grandfather.

Actually God is never done with us.  We are like a house whose owner keeps making improvements. It gets grander as the years go by.  While we might fall asleep until resurrection morning the improvements will continue from the moment we wake until forever. There are new skills to learn, new talents to develop, new fields of expertise to master and more improvement to our characters. I have a friend who like me is totally musically inept. He contends he will masterfully play the piano his first day in heaven.  I think he is so very wrong.  Life is about growing.  The journey is usually more exciting than the destination.  If we just popped onto the Great Wall of China without making the journey think of all the things we would miss along the way.

But for now I have a message for the vultures.  “Not yet.  Try me again in about twenty years.  You can have the body because I am getting a new one.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 7, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Hummingbirds arrived at our house today.  We did not yet have a feeder in place on the breakfast room window but the hummingbirds came to the very place at the window where the feeder had been last year.   I continue to be amazed.  They are looking good.  I should think they would be tattered and ratty looking after their journey of thousands of miles.  I wonder where they spent the winter.  They were smart to leave this year.  Did they cross the Caribbean and lounge about on a Costa Rican beach while we shoveled snow?

Humans seem to be superior animals but we don’t have all the gifts.  I could never make that trip without a jet plane.  It would be a challenge for me to find the same house and go to the same spot on the same window.  My dog with ear flaps that cover her ears can hear the mailman coming several houses away while I hear nothing.  Bees can go back to the hive and via a sophisticated dance tell the other bees where to find flowers.  I should not be so very smug about being human.

William Bryant said it so well in “To a Waterfowl.”

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,–
The desert and illimitable air,–
Lone wandering, but not lost.

He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

In Matthew 6 Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 6, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

It’s May and time to work on final exams.  Writing exams is a challenge.  You can spend a little time writing the test but those kind usually take a lot of time to grade. If you spend a lot of time preparing the exam, grading can be swift and efficient. Exams have to be fair.  It is easy to fill them with obscure things you said during the semester.   The challenge is to find the essential details of a class that hopefully you were sure to have emphasized.   I have heard profs say, “I taught it but they just didn’t get it.”   My response is, “If they didn’t get it, you didn’t teach it.”   Teaching isn’t merely mentioning something.  Teaching is making ideas understandable and memorable.

Sometimes I am frustrated with sermons most of us can’t understand.  Now I understand that I am not the brightest guy on the block but neither am I the slowest.  I’m quite average and I figure if I can’t get it most of the congregation didn’t get it.  I am frustrated because the Gospel is NOT complicated.  It is true, as Peter said, some of the things Paul said were difficult to grasp; however, the basics are graspable by children. Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.  It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in systematic theology to get that.

There is a final exam for all of us regarding salvation. The questions are not secret.  Number one – Do you love Jesus?  Number two – Did you ask for forgiveness? Number one is natural if you said “yes” to number two.  It seems like a no-brainer.  I have a couple of students in my classes who are poor test-takers.  I know they know the material but they seem to have a brain freeze when I give them an exam.  So I take them aside and ask them to tell me the answers and they can.  Jesus is like that.  He is so anxious for all of us to pass He will do anything even it is reading our minds.  He knows our hearts.   By the way, this is a pass/fail exam.   There are no grades.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 1, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

In 2011 the United States military spent 300 million dollars on camouflage uniforms.  It costs a lot to blend in so no one will notice you.  Adolescents tell their parents they want to be different; however, the irony is at the very same time they want the same jeans and the same shoes as their peers – so they can blend in.  The cost of blending in comes in other forms than cash.  Often one has to pretend to be someone they are not at the expense of knowing what is right and doing the wrong.  Perhaps I am being overly harsh on adolescents because adults are not innocent of such activity.  Often I have sat in committees that required a vote only to watch people hesitate to put up their hands until they see which way the majority is going.  Then they quickly join in, acting as if their vote was their true decision, thus the value of secret ballots.

It isn’t just teens who want to be liked by those around them.  Some people spend miserable lives wondering what others think of them.  They have more than one camouflage outfit.  They have one to wear to church and another to wear to work and yet another to wear to parties. Peter tried to play this game the night Jesus was crucified.  He even added curses to his denial of Jesus.  Surely that would be cover enough.  Unfortunately for him Jesus heard him. The rooster crowed and they looked at each other.  Peter was crushed to think that he had fallen so low.

If you really want to be camouflaged dress up in good works and unselfish care for others.  You will blend right in with Jesus.  People might not know the difference.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 15, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org