Category: devotional

I really like Nestles Butterfinger candy bars.  However, I cannot seem to get the hang of eating one without making a mess.  Little pieces of the chocolate shell and also the nougat inside end up either on the outside of me or on the floor.  The cleanup process almost counters the enjoyment of the eating.  As I hold one in my hand I weigh the pleasure verses the cost.

It is pretty much the same consideration one must make before committing a sin.  Sinning makes a mess.  It ruins or at least complicates relationships or our health.  Before committing a sin one surely would want to decide if the momentary pleasure is worth the lifelong complications.  God knows these things.  That’s why He has told us that certain things are sin.  He wants us to be happy and He knows the complications that follow certain behaviors.  It’s not that God wants to deprive us of pleasure.  The issue is quite to the contrary.  He wants to prolong our pleasure for many years to come instead of watching us spoil those years with a few minutes of destructive behavior.

The wages of sin mentioned in Romans 6:23 are just that.  The consequences of sin are not God punishing us for certain things.  The wages are the natural fruit of certain behaviors.  It is a sin to put leaded gas in a modern car not because the manufacturer will find us and fine us.  It is a sin because it will ruin modern computer refined engines and catalytic converters.  It is just that simple.  God will not add up the number of times we smoked and subtract a month for each pack.  The cigarettes themselves will do that without God’s interference.

This is not rocket science.  It is just plain common sense.  Listen to Him.  He knows.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 17, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Each morning last week I was given mega doses of steroids.  The hoped for results have been stunning and we are pleased.   However, there has been one side-effect.  I can’t taste anything.  I even went to Taco Bell this afternoon to get something super spicy just so I could taste something.  Cold doesn’t register and I also need to be careful of hot things.  As I sat there eating my cardboard tasting bean burrito I realized how we can lose our taste for things.   Our diets, physical and mental, very much shape our desires.  I grew up putting salt on watermelons and cantaloupes.  To this day I need to put salt on them to find them really good.  Some of my friends who grew up without salt on their melons think salt on melons tastes horrible.  It is like liking or not liking olives.

There is a television station that only plays reruns of sitcoms from thirty or so years ago.  I do so enjoy them.  They are pleasant without the violence and smut.  As for most of the (excuse my expressions here) really stupid and usual vulgar reality shows, I just have no appetite for them.  But obviously someone does or they wouldn’t be produced.

Once again I fear insulting your intelligence by mentioning this applies to our reading materials, our music, our styles of worship and our devotional habits.  If one wants to get to really know Jesus one must read what He said,  about what He did, what He promises to do for us and what He does for us right now.  Time spent will whet one’s appetite for more.   Appetites can be changed.  It just takes a bit of effort.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 22, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

I learned this week that if one’s infection fighting cells are extremely low one’s body automatically produces a fever without there being an infection.  This protective measure aids in warding off any exposure to infectious germs while the infectious fighting cells are limited in their ability to protect us.  It’s a magnificent backup system.  We are wonderfully designed and made.  It is no wonder after God made Adam He said, “That is very good.”  It was and despite the effects of sin it is still very good.

Over and over again we hear evolutionists ridicule creationists, as if we are naïve hicks from the 14th century.  Really?  Can they explain just this one backup system developing from a process of tiny changes?  They speak of our needing a ridiculous amount of faith to believe in a designer.  However, that is only one leap of faith for us.  In order for humans to be as sophisticated as we are happening in tiny steps one needs a billion or more leaps of faith.  Maybe they are more religious than they know.   Perhaps we are the ones with little faith?

We have been treated with pictures of earth taken from Saturn by our Cassini spacecraft.  This amazingly beautiful blue dot against the backdrop of deep space is awesome.  It sounds totally egocentric to think that we are special.  However, we are.  This blue orb is the focus of the intelligent universe for it is here that God sent His only Son to make right our wrongs.  It is here where the universe saw the depths of horror to which men would go when they beat and tortured to death the Creator of all things. See Hebrews 1.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 24, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

In the beginning of September, October and November I received very high doses of steroids to compact a white cell blood count that stubbornly stayed above 135,000.    5 to 10 thousand is normal.   Several kinds of chemo would not work.  Some of the chemo treatments seemed as benign as drinking water.  Others made me quite ill without any positive effect.  However, the steroids were successful beyond our hopes and my white count plunged to normal and has stayed that way with one noticeable side effect.  Each of my ten fingernails has three lined indentations corresponding to the dates of the steroid treatments.  The indentations are all spaced the same. It is like rings on a tree recording historical events.

Psychologists tell us our brains record almost everything that happens to us.  Not remembering isn’t because memories are not there.  We merely can’t retrieve them.  Our problem isn’t memory.  It is recall.  If psychologists are correct then we are affected and changed each day by our mental intake.   At the close of each day we are either a better person or a lesser person.  If we were voting on this I am sure we all would vote to end each day being a better person.

Many things that happen to us are the result of circumstances beyond our control.  Today I got caught in a massive traffic jam.  All I could do was sit and wait.  However, there are things that are under our control.  Our reading, our use of media, our interactions with family, friends and colleagues are just some of the things we can control.  If we consciously use them to better ourselves and others we can finish each day being a better person.  Check out Philippians 4:8.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 20, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Snow blowing is quite fun.  Shooting snow several feet into the air creates a beautiful sight.  However, you can’t do it without getting it on you.  Either going out the driveway or coming in, one way or the other the wind will catch you and turn you into Frosty the snowman.  It is much like slinging mud on another’s reputation. We deliciously tell a tale about someone but in the telling we ourselves have lost stature.  “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret.”  Proverbs 11:13

Granted it is difficult to keep a juicy bit of information secret.  Like small children we want to walk around saying, “I know a secret.  I know a secret.”  But really there are some things better left unsaid, both for you and for the other.   I grow nervous in church when before someone prays they ask for prayer requests.  Sometimes, and I don’t think for some it is innocent; some will use the occasion to spread a story while pretending to cloak it with Christian care.  It usually goes something like this.  “Please pray for my husband’s brother who was arrested this week for beating his wife.”   Ouch.   We didn’t need to know that.  God knows all about it.  We don’t have to inform Him in the presence of anyone.

Now that I am as old as I am, often I am tempted to write a book about being a pastor.  I could fill it with wonderful stories of care and miscare and trust and betrayed trust.  I would give the characters fake names but people are smart.  They could figure out who I was writing about.  So the book will go unwritten as it should.  Just as God blots out such things so should we.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 19, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Today was paper grading day.  Every job has its bad aspect and this is the part of teaching I totally dislike.  Making judgment calls on essays can be so subjective even when using a rubric.  What is the difference between a B+ and an A-?  I don’t really know.  While plowing my way through the essays it occurred to me that if we had to take an exam to receive eternal life we would be in big trouble.  Eternity requires perfection.  You have to ace life every day.  A 99% just one day and it’s all over.

In Romans 5:12 Paul wrote, “. . . through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, . . .”   So we are lost not only because we didn’t get a perfect score but because Adam didn’t get a perfect score.  At first this might strike us as being very unfair.  However, one thing we can always count on is God is very fair.  Therefore, Paul goes on to say in verse 15, “For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”

Jesus did it.  He was perfect.  He gives His perfection to us.  It is His gift to us.  By grace we become citizens of His kingdom and members of His family.  One thing we can never say is God isn’t fair.  He is faithful and just.  This is an incredible thing beyond what someone could invent.  It is not a cleverly designed fable.  This is the core truth of eternity.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 18, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I first saw The Sorcerer’s Apprentice when I was a little boy.  It is part of Disney’s film “Fantasia.”   Mickey Mouse is the protagonist.   He is the apprentice whose master has gone away leaving Mickey to carry water from the well.  It is hard work and with no one watching the apprentice casts a spell on a broom so that it will carry the water.  But soon it goes awry.  The brooms multiply until Mickey is almost drowning in the water being carried in.  He lost control.

Many years passed before I first read Ephesians 5:1 – “Be imitators of God.”  Paul is speaking of imitating God’s character but I wanted to imitate His power. I wanted to be like Elijah, Elisha, Peter or John.  I wanted to say, “Rise and walk.”   And I could not understand why God would not allow me to help people.  It was then as an adult I once again watched The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and then I understood.

I would misuse it.  I would use it for self.  I would abuse it and like Mickey abusing his master’s power; soon it would destroy me and those around me.  It is not a matter of God not wanting to share.  It is His wisdom that knows better.  In Ephesians 4:13 Paul speaks of our attaining a whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  It sounds wonderful.  It makes me hungry.   I once heard a preacher say he like Elisha wanted a double portion.  Frankly, I would be happy with 50%.   Fortunately we are the children of a very wise Father who is vigilant and diligent in His gift giving.  We don’t give a Ferrari to someone too immature to have a driver’s license.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 17, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Behind my desk there is a bay window with a copper roof.  It is one of my favorite things because when it rains the sound is comforting and almost hypnotic.   The slow steady rhythm of the rain drops are a music all its own.  Neither Aaron Copland nor Samuel Barber has ever written anything so comforting.  If I listen carefully past the gentle sounds of blood moving through my ears I can hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the next room.  Time moves on.  My black dog occasionally stirs beside me and she sighs.  I’m sure she wants to go for a walk,  later after the rain.

Sometimes when we have guests there is this social compulsion to fill the silence with talk of family and things.  My best friends sometimes come and don’t talk.  They listen to the silence with me.  It is a bonding time so much stronger than catching up on the marvelous, wondrous, magnificent deeds of our perfect grandchildren as good as that is.  In the quiet this evening my eyes have fallen on a life sketch of one of my professors.  He was my homiletics teacher.  He was harsh on me.  In class he would stop me and make me go back to the typewriter.  He never tolerated any theatrics.  I look forward to someday telling him how much I appreciated his no-nonsense approach.

If we turn off the merciless, endless streams of media from Verizon and Comcast we can actually think our own thoughts instead of letting others fill our brains with their biases which if listened to long enough become ours.  Best of all in the stillness one can begin to hear that still small voice that wants to fill us with love and care.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 25, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

We came into the supermarket parking lot just in time to see an old man trying to park his car in the area reserved for shopping carts.  When another shopper tried to stop him he became angry.  If it had not been so sad it would have been funny.   I wondered about the cause for his anger.  Was he angry at the person who was trying to help him?  Or was he angry at himself for attempting something quite stupid?  Or was he angry at life and the process that slowly eats away at our vitality?  Perhaps he was angry at all three?

Often we use angry as a cover for being embarrassed.  That way we can shift the blame to another.  Blaming others is very human.   Perhaps it was mankind’s second sin.  The first was eating from the tree and the second was blaming Eve.  “The woman you gave me, she made me do it.”  Actually Adam is blaming God and that has been the focus ever since.  Lucifer tries his worst, he has no best, to put this whole mess at God’s door.  That became more difficult for him after he murdered Jesus.  At some point truth has a way of shining forth.

Living a good consistent life is the way to silence one’s accusers.  No one could have been more consistent than Jesus and the Father.  They have been flawless in their committed love for us.  Though we call tragedies acts of God it just isn’t so.  God understands old guys who try to park in strange places.  God is old.  That is comforting because it means there isn’t anything He hasn’t seen.  He has seen it all and He loves us more than ever.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 16, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

It isn’t rare for us to live our lives in automatic.  We have routines so familiar and so well practiced that we don’t need to pay keen attention to get them done.  Have you ever driven home and once in the driveway realized you cannot remember any details of the trip?  We get busy thinking about work or what we are going to say when we see someone so our subconscious takes over and drives for us.  I was in automatic this morning.  I brushed my teeth with hydrocortisone cream instead of toothpaste. Without looking I picked up a tube, squeezed its contents on my toothbrush and yuk!  It didn’t take long to snap to attention and start spitting.

Unfortunately we sometimes go into automatic with our families and forget to focus on them.  We fail to comment on their achievements or don’t mention how nice they look today.  We take for granted that the house is clean or that there are always clean socks in the drawer.  Elves did not put them there.  Often times we are nicer to strangers than we are to the people we love merely because we have gone into automatic.  It isn’t malicious.  It is just forgetting to focus.

It is the same with our worship experiences.   We sing hymns and never notice or think about the words.  We pray the same prayers over and over as if they were a mantra.  Being aware and reacting accordingly is a secret to a full and happy experience for us and for those about us.   It intensifies life and creates memories we would have missed. I can guarantee it is much better than having a mouth full of hydrocortisone.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 28, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org