Month: August 2023

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting by myself in a McDonald’s in Times Square, New York City when I was approached by a man in a NYC fireman’s uniform.  He said, “Will you watch my bag for me while I get my food.  It’s heavy.”  Fire alarms went off in my head as I thought, “He wants to leave a large heavy bag with me in a crowded eating place in the middle of New York City!!”   “Sure,” I said as I very carefully watched to make sure he got in line and ordered and then waited to get his burger and fries.  If he left the building I was ready to dial 911 and yell for everyone to RUN.  He came back.

As I walked outside into wall to wall people I thought how sad that we cannot freely help others without being careful.  But, it really has always been this way.  This isn’t new.  When we study history we see a continual stream of horror.  The world isn’t any worse than it has ever been.  History is a stream of genocides, wars, crimes and betrayals.  Often people will ask, “What is the world coming too?”   The answer is “It’s not coming to.  It is what it is and has been.”

What it has been is not all bad.  There has always been a stream of good, generous, unselfish, helpful people.  They are in every time, every place, every culture and every race.   Let’s live as joyously as we can and not dwell on the negative.  After all, we are children of the most High.  He wants us to live the abundant life.  Heaven starts now. See John 10:10.

Written by Roger Bothwell on Sept. 1, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

On my way home from class this evening I saw an amazing sight.  It was a full drama that happened in an instant.  Just before a moth smashed into my windshield, a bat, like lightning, shot straight at me, snagged the moth and swooped up with the air current over the top of the car.  Phew.  It was over before I realized what I had just seen.

For one thing that poor moth was doomed.  Either I was going to smash it or better yet for the environment the bat got a meal.  It’s a dangerous world out there.  I instantly remembered I Peter 5:8.  “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”   Without the full armor of God (see Ephesians 6) we are as vulnerable as that moth.  Satan will get us one way or another.

Secondly I remembered I Corinthians 15:52, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”  How very exciting to realize just how quickly it will happen.  That is because God is so anxious to have us safe and whole again.  Right now He is coping with salvation, right vs. wrong, free will vs. God’s control, philosophical and theological issues.  But we can be sure the instant everything is resolved and the entire universe is safe from ever again being deceived, that twinkling of an eye will happen.  Suffering pains Him so.  Like any loving parent He will do everything possible to bring comfort to His children.  He will not linger.  It will be faster than a bat eating a moth.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 30. 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, Ca 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

Someone keeps knocking on my door but when I answer there is no one there.  I’m sure it isn’t a neighborhood prankster.  My dog, who thinks it is her god-given task to protect the house, goes crazy rushing to the door to fend off an intruder.  But there is no one for her to intimidate.  And yet the knocking persists.  At times I feel like Samuel answering the call in the night by saying, “Yes, Lord.”  But like all good mysteries we solved it.  Our knocker is a hairy woodpecker.  Whenever I go to the door he disappears only to reappear when the door closes.

But let me come back to Samuel.  God can be very persistent.  Jesus told His disciples He was going to send them a Comforter.  That was the Holy Spirit.  However, it has been my experience that the Holy Spirit is not always a comforter but can be a royal pain in the head.  He keeps knocking.  He is more persistent than a hairy woodpecker.  And thankfully, unlike the woodpecker, He does not flee when I open the door.  He is more than anxious to come in.  Jesus said, “I stand at the door and knock.”  He does so via the Holy Spirit.

A hundred years ago Francis Thompson compared the Holy Spirit to a hound dog in his famous poem entitled, The Hound of Heaven.  Once a hound is on the scent of a rabbit it just keeps going and going like the energizer bunny.  God is like that.  He is on our trail.  He is knocking at our door.  He is a lover pursuing the love of His life.  He wants you and will never ever stop knocking.  He will never stop chasing you.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 1, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

It was Friday before Labor Day 1948.  We went to Kresge’s Five and Dime. Tuesday I was going to first grade and I needed a pencil box.  Every scholar needed a pencil box.  We found one with a wooden ruler, an eraser, a little square pencil sharpener and of course, two (not one, but two) pencils. I was so proud because we also got a Roy Roger’s lunch bucket with a picture of Trigger on one side.

It was when we were headed for the cash register that I saw it.  I had never seen anything so wonderful.  At home I had a box of eight crayons but this beauty was beyond all dreams.  It had 48 crayons.  I could never have imagined there were so many different colors in all the world. This was the Holy Grail of coloring. If I could go to school with that box of crayons I would be the king of art.  (Today you can get a box with 150 colors.  What child could have known?)

All the “pleases” in the world were not enough.  My mom told me my box of eight was more than sufficient.  She assured me I would never use the other 40.  She was right because in all my years in elementary school I never did get a picture on the wall.  It was always a picture by some girl who could stay inside the lines.

When I was a pastor I used to beg God for the power to heal people.  I used lots of “pleases” in my prayers.  God was like my mother.  I guess He knew I would never use it properly and safely.  I would never have stayed inside the lines of propriety and humility and unselfishness.  I would have wanted my picture on the cover of Time magazine.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 26, 2016

PO Box 124, St Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

There’s a big shoe ad on the back of a Popular Science magazine.  We are talking about really big shoes.  One can get size 20 EEE-EEEEEE.   That is really big.  I have never seen anyone with feet that big.  Do you remember the old adage about someone having big shoes to fill?

It made me think about the Gospel Commission found at the close of Matthew.  Jesus was tasking His disciples with the most important mission ever given.  This was bigger than Neil Armstrong’s NASA mission.  “One giant step for mankind.”  The mission the disciples had was so big it divided history into the before years and the after years.

At the beginning of the Gospel of John we find Jesus saying to Andrew and John, “Come and see.”  They had no idea what lay ahead.  Never could they have dreamed what they were about to see let alone then being challenged to walk in His shoes.

Here we are 2000 years later with communication tools they never dreamed possible.  When I am finished writing this devotional I will press the send key and people in Uganda and Australia will, in less than a second, be able to read this.  God is terrifically reasonable.  When He tasks us He also gives us the tools.  I grew up singing a great old hymn, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations that will turn their hearts to the right – a story of truth and sweetness – a story of peace and light. For the darkness will turn to the dawning and the dawning to noonday bright. And Christ’s great kingdom will come on earth a kingdom of love and light.”   I used to wonder how we could do that.  It was such big shoes.  Now I know.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 25, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

There is an amazing similarity between Whac-A-Mole and life in general.  Just when I think I have everything fixed in my house something breaks and needs attention.  Often my wife will point it out and I know I should fix it right away but subconsciously I put it off.  (This is not deliberate.  If it were it would be amazingly immature.)   The delay is so I am doing it because I want to do it and not because my wife told me to do it. I am told by psychologists this behavior is quite common.  It is a man-thing.   Then women think the man has forgotten and she asks again.  He thinks she is nagging and thus the job is pushed even further into the future.

Let’s go back to Whac-A-Mole.  I digressed into a bit of pop-psychology.  This thinking that all is well and then another mole pops us is like trying to get my character where it should be.  I am so glad that we are not alone with this issue.  Paul speaks of it in Romans 7.  Just when he thought he had things under control, BAM, he saw something new that wasn’t Christ-like. “I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”

It is not easy.  The world continually squeezes us into its patterns of thought and behavior.  Our challenge is to keep whacking the mole and knocking this stuff down where it belongs.  Be of good cheer.  Paul assures us in                            I Corinthians 15 that someday we will win.  “This corruption will put on incorruption.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 24, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

Facebook has 1.71 billion users and it is only 12 years old.  It seems like it has been with us forever.  Mark Zuckerberg’s goal is to friend all of humanity.  I almost want to start singing “What a friend with have in Mark.”  I wonder if when in the shower he sings the song from Toy Story “You have a friend ime.”

Friends are one of the most precious things on earth.  Your bank account can’t hug you when you are down.  Traditionally we close wedding ceremonies with the celebrant introducing the couple.  In recent years I have taken to adding after the “Mr. and Mrs.” introduction the following.  “And may they always be the best friends.”

One of my favorite texts is when Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”  John 15:15.  Friends talk.  And yet real friends are comfortable not talking when silence feels good.  They know how the other is feeling without having to ask.  In a restaurant you can tell which couples are not married.  They are the ones talking.  The married ones are playing with their cell phones checking the weather or their email. (That’s not so good.)  But the point can be well made that just being together is wonderful because they are friends.

Even if Mr. Zuckerberg friends everyone in the world that will not make him the world’s best friend.  The best friend is and always shall be Jesus.  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  John 3:17

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 23, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, Ca 94574

rogerbothwell.org

Did you watch the Olympics?  I watched them with mixed emotions.  I admire those finely honed athletes.  At the same time I am jealous, not merely for their skills, but jealous of the incredible self-discipline needed to be what they are.

I heard one of the divers say he started working on a new dive 18 months ago and that was a mistake because it wasn’t enough time to have it honed to perfection.  I found that overwhelming.

In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul speaks of the discipline needed both by athletes and Christians.  “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.  No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

This is a wonderful passage but has sometimes been misread and used to harass us into doubting our salvation because we are not trying hard enough.  Jesus is very clear in John 3 and 6 regarding our salvation.  When we accept it is a done deal.   Paul calls it a gift. What Paul is talking about here in I Corinthians is the development of a Christ-like character – that is the prize of which he speaks.  I strive as hard as I can – not to be saved – but because I am saved.  Once saved we go into serious training and the prize is incredible.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 22, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

Forty years ago we returned from teaching in Uganda and moved to a glorious piece of leftover Eden called Calhoun, Ga.  In the very first month of our ministry there I officiated at a funeral.  After the service on the way to the cemetery I was riding in the hearse with the local funeral director.  As we drove out onto the street on the way to the cemetery the oncoming traffic stopped. People got out of their cars and stood at attention as we passed by.  I was amazed and received a marvelous education in respect and dignity.  This was the south.  This was good people who knew the value of human decency.   To them this was basic human values.  This was treating others as we would be treated.

Romans 12 is one of the most powerful treatises on how we should treat both friends and enemies.  What follows is a sample of ideas copied from the paraphrase The Message by Eugene Petersen.  Jesus would be so proud if we could be like this.

1. “Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
2. “Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.”
3. “Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.”
4. “Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone.”
5. “Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.”

To be like this in every aspect of our lives is to be like Jesus.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 19, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

She is a Labrador Retriever.  She is a water dog.  So why does she hate rain? During our walk today we got caught in a serious downpour.  This was soak your socks rain.  This was drip off your nose and wish you had windshield wipers on your glasses rain.  So we stepped into a wooded area for some shelter.  While standing there in the shelter of the leaves we were still being drenched.  She proceeded to push between my legs and sit down.  I had become her umbrella.   Under his wings is nice but really now, I think I was being used.

Do we ever use God?  Or should I say try to use God.  Do we ask God to do things for us we can do ourselves?   “Lord, help me pass this exam.”   Well, maybe we wouldn’t need to ask that if we had studied.   “Lord, help me get this job.”  But, maybe we didn’t do our homework on the company and its needs.  “Lord, give us a safe journey today.”  And then drive 90 miles an hour!

God is eager to help us.  But He is a good parent who at some point says get off the couch and get humping.  Remember the paralytic wasn’t healed until he made the effort to stand up.  The blind man wasn’t healed until he went and washed the mud off his eyes.  We are not talking about salvation.  That is God’s job.  We are talking about the practicalities and successes of this life.  Those are our jobs.  We are given talents to use.  The man in the parable who buried his talent didn’t make his master very happy.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 17, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org