Month: July 2019

One of the worst things that can happen to a charity is a cure for the disease for which they are raising money.  If a truly effective cure for cancer were found all the executives who work for the American Cancer Society would be hard pressed to continue their jobs and thus pay their mortgage and car payments.   This actually happened years ago to the March of Dimes when we discovered a cure for polio.   However, they were innovative and quickly shifted their purpose to raising funds for research related to birth defects.

I was wondering what would happen to some churches if we all stopped sinning.  Sometimes we refer to churches as hospitals for sinners. Obviously, this is a purely hypothetical thing as long as you and I are alive on earth.   The reason I even bring this up is sometimes when I go to church I hear more about sin than I do about Jesus.  Sometimes guest speakers spend thirty minutes telling us how bad they were and finish with thirty seconds thanking Jesus for rescuing them.   I actually wish the time frames were reversed.  Then sometimes I am told how bad I am. I don’t need that. I really am an authority on me.  I think preachers do this sometimes when they are leading up to a call for people to come forward to accept Jesus.

If we think of churches as worship centers the eradication of sin would not cause a problem.   There are some wonderful accounts of worship in heaven.See Revelation 7:9-12.  It is a very impressive scene filled with angels, elders and beasts.  I don’t want to miss mentioning that we also get to be there.  How grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 1, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

 

Today I reminded my students that the semester is over in two weeks.  I received a rousing cheer.  Other than the fact that I wanted them to groan because they would no longer hear my splendid lectures, I remembered being a student and thinking the same as they.  One student said, “I wish it was over today.” How often do we wish our lives away?  A four-year-old wants to be five.  A fifteen year-old wants to be sixteen.  I am sure it is so they can get a driver’s license.   So what happens along the way?  A fifty-five-year-old does not wish to be fifty-six.   Somewhere in the middle of life we realize the clock is running.

When we have an abundance of time we wish it away.  So often we fail to value now.  It was rainy today and my students were complaining about the weather.  Few if any treasured the gray, the mist, the sound of the wind wrapping around the corner of the building.   I love to sit here with a book in hand and listen to the rain on the copper overhang outside my window.   I don’t want this night to end.  I don’t want this day to close.  I want to taste it ever so slowly.

Jesus has promised us eternal life.  I don’t understand what that means.  We are so used to having life in this small box of time.   When there is no end will we want to squander it?  Will it matter if we wish a hundred years would go quickly so we could get somewhere else?  Will we savor those we love knowing we can always have them?  I so miss so many people.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 22, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

My students come from places I could not imagine.  They have done and seen things I wish never to see or hear of.  Today after class one of my students lingered.  I try to take note and not hurry out lest I miss someone who needs me.  He was in his twenties and from the Bronx.   I had begun class with a passage from John 10 where Jesus promises to hold us safely in His hand.   Not looking me squarely in the eye he said, “Why would God want me?” Great question.  Why would God want any of us?  Especially those of us who think we have reasons for being wanted.  We are most likely the worst cases with which God has to deal.

Opening my Bible I read to him from Ephesians 2.  Paul wrote, “God . . . hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”   Why do I like Christmas?  Why do I like birthdays?  So I can give those I love something nice.   There it is.  God saves us for the express purpose of showering us with exceeding riches of grace and kindness.  In ages to come we will be granted intellectual gifts, privileges beyond our present imaginations.

Thousands of years ago God said, “Let us make man in our image.”  He never stopped dreaming that dream.   Today before you go to bed look in a mirror and see the raw material of the image of God.  Yes, you.  Ages and ages hence you will be so like Him we will have trouble telling the difference. How grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 25, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

I was fascinated today to watch two women and one man eating at Taco Bell. For over ten minutes the two women were engaged in a conversation with each other while the man talked to them.  The problem was they weren’t listening to him.  It was as if he wasn’t even there yet he talked as loud as they were talking.  They just weren’t listening to him and he didn’t seem to notice.  He just kept on talking.

I felt like I was watching the Christian Church trying to communicate to the world.   The world is busy talking and the Church is talking but few are listening.  We spend millions on evangelism with little result.   In my home church in the past decade we have spent a quarter of a million dollars on evangelism and the attendance is the same or less than it was ten years ago. One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.   I fear we keep doing it because we don’t know what else to do.  But the world is not listening.

I know I should not speak of this unless I have a better idea.   We are hungry for a better idea.  It seems the number one thing on our prayer list is for God to inspire us with a better idea.  We want so badly to proclaim the Good News.  We want the world to know the joy of salvation.  Could the problem be the world sees little joy in our midst?   Could it be the Christian Church has become so involved in politics we have lost our primary mission?  Could it be that our presentation of the Good News sounds like bad news?   Just wondering.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 7, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

Once a year the college sends someone to watch me teach.   They are assigned to evaluate me.  Usually it’s a colleague who is quite sympathetic and for the most part says nice things.  To make it appear they were attentive to their assigned task they put down something I need to improve upon.  I appreciate that they tell me when they are coming.  It gives me a chance to be at my best.  He is coming this Wednesday evening.  I will make sure I am wearing a necktie and will have shined my shoes.  I would say that I will do a super lecture, but that would leave a false impression.   I try to do a super lecture every class.  My students deserve the best I can be.  Yet I still know 50% of what I tell them is wrong. I just don’t know which 50%.

It reminds me of my walk with Jesus.  Fifty percent of my speech and behavior is not fit for His companionship.  Again my problem is I don’t know which 50%. I am so steeped in 21st century American culture my thoughts, my ideas, my values are just not worthy.   I am a child of now and I long to be a child of the future; His future in a perfect place.  I’m sure you are the same as I am.  We try.  I had a man tell me he had stopped sinning.  I almost laughed in his face.  How could he be so ignorant?  He didn’t know what he didn’t know.  Grace.   Grace is the name of the game.  Without it we don’t have a chance because not one of us knows what we don’t know.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 18, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

We spent the entire psych class this morning talking about friendship. There seemed to be a consensus that it would be difficult to maintain a friendship unless there was some mutual interest.  There needs to be some common ground for a lasting relationship. Someone laughingly said, “My boyfriend likes me and I like me so there is our mutual interest.  That’s our common ground.”   Despite the fact that she might have been telling the truth, there has to be give and take.  A real friendship cannot long endure if all the giving and all the getting is one way.

If this is true I found myself wondering about Jesus’ comments in John 15 where He calls us His friends.  It is very obvious what we have to get from Him. He is like a river of blessings flowing toward us.   I note the Mississippi flows only one direction.  What does He get from this relationship other than disappointmentsin our behavior and attitudes?

Surely we are more than trophies that He has won from Satan.  We are not in some cosmic game to see who ends up with the most souls.  The joy in heaven over just one being saved has to have a deeper reason than merely giving us eternal life.   Or does it?  Is God’s love so unselfish and so genuine that our joy is His joy?  I know I am extremely happy when I see my children doing well. Their success and their prosperity more than compensates for any rough spot we might have had when they were adolescents.  I must admit that I do in many ways live vicariously through my children.  Could it be that God lives vicariously through you and me?   Is this why Jesus told us to call Him Father?

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 12, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

This past week I heard at least four different parents say how much they miss their children but they are making the sacrifice of being away so they can earn enough to give the children the things they, the parents, never had.   Did any of them stop and listen to what they were saying?  The things their children need are not material items purchased with money earned by absentee parents.  The thing children need the most is to be with their parents.  They need love.  They need security.  They need parents reading to them at night.  They need parents attending little league games and they need parents’ hugs.  I could understand it if it were a very short term experience but in the case of the persons I heard, they were speaking of a long time absence.  I understand sometimes circumstances, like military service, take parents away.   What I am speaking of is being away by choice to chase a pot of gold.   We must never think things are more important than our presence.  No golden whatever can ever replace the warmth of sitting on mommy or daddy’s lap.

On the bright side we do live in a world filled with media devices that allow us to have daily contact with loved ones no matter where they are. Tiny cameras on or built into computers enable us to see and talk with loved ones.  The only thing missing are the hugs.  This evening my wife and I were talking to and looking at each other on our laptops.   The unusual thing was we were in the same room just a few feet apart.  However, the images on the computer screens had traveled literally tens of thousands of miles.  We are a long way from the old party line telephones.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 28, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

I continue to be fascinated by language.  We learn words when we are very small and use them all our lives, often never thinking of why we use a particular word in a particular situation.  This morning we were welcomed to our spring graduation service.  I do not know why but suddenly the word “welcome” bounced off my brain.  “Welcome.”  “Well.” “Come.”  I do not know the etymology of the word but it surely must mean “come here and be well.”   “I am happy to see you” and “I want you to share space and time with me and we will have a well time.”   I do remember once hearing someone say, “Welcome to my misery.” That must be an oxymoron.

Jesus once said, “Take up your cross and follow me.”   That does not sound like a welcome.  However on another occasion He said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  If we have to bear a burden in life this certainly does sound like a welcome.   Then there is Matthew 25:34, “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  That is very much a welcome.

Saying welcome in our culture is like saying, “How are you?”    Most of the time we really don’t want to know.  It is merely a greeting and we aren’t overly happy when people actually tell us how they are.   From now on I shall think about saying the word “welcome” and really mean it.   I am sure someday each of us will hear Jesus say, “Welcome to heaven.”   He will mean it and it will be “come” and be “well”  forever.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 11, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

When I was a little guy my mom took me to see Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. For days prior I dreamed about seeing Trigger and Buttermilk.  I was sure that somehow I would get close enough to touch them. (Not Roy Rogers or Dale Evans.  I didn’t care about them.  It was all about the horses.)  Finally the day arrived.  It was the grandest morning of my life as we made the journey to the arena.  Have you ever been anticipating something for days, weeks or a life-time only to be seriously disappointed when the reality occurred?  For two hours those two people strummed guitars and sang.  Finally at the end Trigger came out on the stage for about thirty seconds.  That was IT!  Buttermilk never did show up!  I disliked Roy Rogers and Dale Evans for the rest of my life.  When my Dad wanted to take me to see a Roy Rogers western movie, I didn’t want to go.

For a lifetime I have been looking forward to meeting Jesus and I have to tell you if when I get to heaven I only see Him for a few moments from afar I am going to be horribly disappointed.  Now that I have said that I know I do not have to fear that will occur because I have memorized Revelation 3:21 which clearly promises the following, “To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”  Now I realize it might take a few thousand years for my turn but just knowing it will happen is enough.  I have learned to be patient.  It is one of my few virtues.

P.S. You too will have your turn. How grand.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 14, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

As much as people have tried, it remains very difficult to reconcile the picture of God in the Old Testament with the character of Jesus.  The problem becomes even more interesting when we read the close of Jesus’ prayer in John 17.   He prayed, “O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You.”

Jesus came to earth for three reasons.  Number one was to redeem us by His sacrifice on the cross.  Number two was to prove Satan was wrong when Satan claimed it was impossible to keep God’s law.  And number three was to show us what God is really like.  That is why Jesus responded to Philip in John 14, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”

Prior to Jesus the world had dimly seen images of God.  It was like looking at an image in a steamy mirror.  There is a form but it is blurred and has to be interpreted by what we think is there.  Jesus blew the steam away and the clarity of a kind loving Father appeared.  We must never forget the subject of the sentence in John 3:16 is the Father.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 30, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org