Month: October 2020

Living in New England is a delightful experience of constant change.  This coming week our maples will turn scarlet reds and yellows followed by the rust colors of the oaks.  The birches are already yellow.  Then November will be a beautiful worstered gray as we wait for December to turn us white.  I relish knowing that under that layer of snow, life is getting ready to once again turn us green.   Each spring we have a pleasing patch of Lily of the Valley.  For years I have been picking small bunches for our breakfast table.  They smell so good.

Well, you can imagine my horror just today to learn that Lily of the Valley is extremely poisonous.  According to the Wikipedia website Lily of the Valley contains about thirty-eight cardio glycosides and we should wash our hands after handling it.  How could it be that something so lovely, something that smells so good be so dangerous?

When we are first born our sense of right and wrong is completely based upon our feelings.  If it feels good it’s right.   If it hurts it’s bad.  If it’s pretty and smells good it is right.  It’s a very low standard of morality.  Unfortunately occasionally we meet people whose morality has never advanced from that of a newborn.  The closing words to the romantic song “You Light Up My Life” are “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?”  It is difficult to grasp the truth that some seemingly beautiful relationships can be absolutely toxic.

Paul exhorts us in 1 Corinthians 13 to stop thinking like a child and think like a grownup whose sense of right and wrong are based on God’s Word.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 11, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

There was rumbling moving closer and closer.  Black clouds were moving our way.  There was that smell in the air as the barometric pressure lowers and nitrogen escapes from the ground.  We were definitely going to get it.  And what to my wondering eyes did appear but a man at a driving range.  There he stood with his metal shaft pointed high in the air as he focused on that golf ball.  The only thing I think he could have been thinking was he paid for that bucket of balls and he was going to get his money’s worth.  I was transfixed as I watched.  I have never seen anyone struck by lightning and I figured if he was going to get it, I was going to see it happen.  Fortunately it did not.  What made it really sad was he had a horrible swing.

As I was thinking how stupid he was, the thought occurred to me that I too am that stupid when I eat things I know will clog my arteries, when I fail to exercise, when I tolerate being overweight and when I neglect my devotional life.  My IQ isn’t any higher than that guy with the golf club pointing to the sky.  Alas, it is so much easier to see other’s mistakes and ignore our own.   It is so grand that we have a Savior who was and is one of us.  He knew about human stupidity and hypocrisy. He talks about it in the Sermon on the Mount.  He said, “How wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?”  Alas, we, at least I, do it all the time.

 Written by Roger Bothwell on August 26, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

This afternoon I watched with a mixture of amusement and disgust a very impatient driver just laying on his horn at the truck in front of him.  The light was green.  Of course the truck should go.  However the driver of the honking car could not see what was in the crosswalk in front of the truck.  There was a lady with one small child in one hand as she was trying to push a baby carriage with the other hand.

I was a bit chagrined as I realized that I and many of my former colleagues at our little college that closed were just like the honking driver.  We complained and we criticized and we had all kinds of advice for what should have been done when we could not see everything that was going on.  It is easy to sit back and offer all kinds of critical advice when we speak in ignorance.  How often we critique others behavior when we have no idea what kind of home they come from. It has taken me many years to learn what I am about to say.  But I totally believe the following.  “Most people are doing the best they can.”   Just because they do not do something the way we would do it does not make what they do wrong.  It merely means they do it differently.

I love Galatians 6 in The Message paraphrase.  “Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day is out.”  I think I like this so much because I have so often been the one needing the forgiveness.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 28, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

One of my favorite commercials is produced by Volkswagen.*  It’s the one with the little kid in a Darth Vader outfit trying to use “The Force” on various things around the house. He fails at everything until his father comes home with the car.  How startled he is when the car starts as he projects his force upon the grill.  Of course it is his father in the house with the remote.

“Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”  John 5:19.   One of the big differences with the little kid and Jesus was Jesus was never startled when His miracles worked.  When He said, “Lazarus, come forth” He knew Lazarus was coming out of that tomb.  Jesus knew if He was to be our role model He would have to limit Himself to the very powers that are available to us.  And so He did.  If we are to live successful lives we must never rely upon our own powers.  If we do we are doomed to failure.  The Holy Spirit has been given to us that we might be able to reach beyond our humanity and grasp onto and utilize the power of the Father.

In II Peter 1 we are encouraged to reach for the sky.  “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”  We can participate.  We can share.  We can have our Heavenly Father pour out incredible blessings once we get past our egos. Not an easy task.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 29, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Don’t you just love “ambulance chasing” commercials; bloodthirsty law firms preying on other’s miseries and making it extraordinarily expensive for doctors to treat us?   Yesterday, I think I heard the most amazing one yet.  “If you or a loved one has taken “A….” and died, dial 1-800 … immediately.”  Really!  I replayed it three times to make sure I heard correctly.  I think we better start putting cell phones in coffins.

What is it about human nature that wants to blame others for our misfortunes?  It is true bad things do happen to good people.  But can we, in this world of sin, really expect everything to go our way?  I guess that’s why people buy lottery tickets or smoke when scientific evidence of its detrimental effect on our health is overwhelming.  We are optimistic and can’t imagine something bad happened because we made a bad choice or random mayhem occurred.

We have been blaming others ever since Adam said, “The woman you gave me made me do it.”  Freud capitalized on it when he developed psychotherapy; it must have been my mother’s fault or my father’s.    It is true that sometimes people do bad things to us and it is their fault, but that is where forgiveness comes in.   If I don’t forgive you and dwell on your bad deed then I enable you to keep on hurting me every time I run the video tape in my head.   But if I am wise enough to forgive you then you only hurt me once and now it is erased.

Jesus was so wise when He told us to forgive if we desire forgiveness for our bad deeds.  But why should that surprise us?  He made us.  He knows how we tick.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 7, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

When Daniel Shechtman first discovered a new crystalline chemical structure that seemed to violate what we thought were the laws governing crystalline structures he was ridiculed by his colleagues and ultimately exiled from professional circles.  Yet he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

There are so many lessons we can draw from this.  First is the crowd isn’t always right.  Second is stand firm when you know you are correct.  Third is truth will ultimately be known.  Fourth is we don’t know all the laws of nature and the ones we think we know can be very different than what we think.

I am sure there were very depressing days when Dr. Shechtman’s friends rejected not only his work but his very presence.  His discovery was in 1982.   Almost thirty years is a long time to wait for this kind of vindication.  I’m sure there is great happiness in his home tonight.

The history of the world is filled with stories like this.   Graves are filled with people who never received recognition for their work.  Then there are martyrs who perished for believing and holding strongly to their faith.  Hebrews 11 is a very impressive list of such.   Hebrews 12 begins with “Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 6, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

I have a zit on the tip of my nose.  I am a combination of me, W.C. Fields, Jimmy Durante and Karl Malden.   When I was thirteen and this happened I would be mortified thinking all of my classmates were staring at it.  Now I don’t think it really matters that much except for trying not to keep touching it.  If someone does notice, so what.  I think most of us lose our sense of vanity after our chin doubles, dark bags grow under our eyes and age spots show up on top of the saggy cheeks. So what’s a zit but just another blotch?

When we were thirteen we were the center of the universe.  Now I am just grateful to be part of the universe.  I realize the center is far, far away and people have much to think about other than me.  It’s a good place to be in life.  It was so difficult being the protagonist.   I now realize center stage belongs to the One who really is the protagonist.  Jesus is the center of the universe.   He made it and He keeps it operating.  It is not a clock all wound up.  It takes attention.  Paul wrote in Colossians 1, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

Please don’t fail to notice the last phrase.  Things consist because He exists. We live and breathe because of His attentive care.  After all do you really think Satan wants us around telling people how wonderful Jesus is?

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 5, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

I am eating an ice cream popsicle – vanilla dipped in chocolate.  It would be a perfect gastronomic treat except my dog is sitting in front of me just staring with the most soulful eyes.  Ever so carefully she watches every bite.  There is a string of drool spilling out of the left side of her mouth.  The tip of her red tongue barely protrudes from her black lab mouth.  She is beautiful and pathetic.  I am awash with guilt. How can I continue to do this?  So I eat off the chocolate shell, since that is poison for her, and yield the vanilla ice cream.  I must say she is a lady.  Ever so delicately she cleans off the stick without once biting it.  I feel good.

Whether it is my dog or a child or one of my students I have to say it feels so good to share.  Since we were made in God’s image I believe we can safely assume He loves to share.  Paul says in Ephesians 2 that God plans to shower gifts upon us throughout eternity.  We will have no end of resources that we too can shower gifts on all we meet.  One of my students once asked me why God made us.  My answer was that it made Him feel good.  When He pronounced at the end of creation week, “That is very good” it had to feel good.

One very big difference between God and us and me and my dog is my dog gets the remnants.  God never gives us leftovers.  Everything from His hand is first class, top of the line with all the bells and whistles.  We don’t even have to stare with soulful eyes.  No drool from the side of our mouths.   How grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 4, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

I got three spider bites last week.  I have no idea where I was when I became lunch for the eight-legged creature.  A spider bite is a mosquito bite multiplied by twenty.  An ugly blister rose surrounded by a large blood red erratic pattern.  It’s not a pretty sight.  Then there is the itch. The worst itch I ever had occurred while I was preaching.   There I was holding forth in front of my congregation when suddenly on the bottom of my foot in the middle of my arch screamed this incredible itch.  I tried my best to ignore it.  I was sure if I concentrated on my sermon it would fade away.  It only got worse.  How could I stop and say, “Excuse me folks while I take off my shoe and scratch?”   I’m sure it was not my finest hour as I hid behind the pulpit and tried to pull my foot out of my shoe by holding the edge of the sole firmly to the floor with the other shoe.

One of the two times the word “itch” is in Scripture is referenced to “itching ears” – not quite the same context.  However, maybe there is a lesson here.  Often our itching ears delight us when they hear something very unkind and usually unchristian about someone we don’t agree with and so we pass it on.  My email box fills with some very unkind things about politicians passed on by people I know are good Christians.  I assume their itching ears have been scratched and they want to delight others. But they are things they would, I hope, never say to someone’s face.  Oh, it is difficult to be a really good person, especially when we itch.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 3, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

There was no joy in Mudville.  Or was that Boston?  The mighty Red Sox who on September 1, 2011 had a 99.6 percent chance of being in the playoffs had choked.  It was over – not even a wildcard.  Remind me now what does I Corinthians 10:12 say. Wasn’t it something about thinking he stands and then falling?

I was chastised once by one of the saints for expressing some knowledge of sports.  “Times,” according to my rebuker, “were too intense and too fraught with peril to be distracted from being ready for Jesus to come.”

Perhaps he had a point.  Except he made it sound like getting ready for Jesus to come was a full time task that should occupy our every waking moment.  I must confess I don’t quite understand that considering in John 5:24 Jesus promised us if we believe in Him we have already crossed over from death to life.   I thought how strange it would have been for one on Noah’s sons to be constantly worried about having a place in the ark.  Why should we worry about what we have?   Yet, the caution is I Corinthians 10:12.  Lest we think we stand.  Perhaps the answer is why we stand.  If we stand on our righteousness then we are fallen.  If we stand on Jesus’ righteousness it really is a sure thing.  Standing on, living on the promises is what brings lasting joy into our lives.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 30, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org