Month: December 2024

Robert Burns said it best.  “The best laid plans of mice and men aft go awry.”  It was two weeks until Christmas.  She had carefully put the charge for her husband’s Christmas present on a credit card they seldom used.  She ordered the present delivered to the neighbor’s house instead of her own.  There was no way he was even going to see a box and guess the contents before Christmas.  Then it happened.  The husband received a telephone call.  The voice on the other end said he was calling from the credit card company to check on possible fraudulent use of the card.  Had they made a credit card purchase at Adventures Unlimited on a specific date?  He said, “No.”  The wife was listening from the other room.  She had to tell her husband the charge was legitimate and he filled in the missing details.  She was in tears.  Her surprise was blown.

Giving nice things and surprising loved ones is such an enjoyable thing.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him….”

There it is—the promise of wonders we cannot imagine.  I cannot imagine our Lord’s keen disappointment if we do not allow Him the joy of giving them to us.  The process begins by our accepting His forgiveness.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 11,2017

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A watch battery is such a tiny little thing.  Yet it will power a timepiece with precision for two or three years.  In a two-year period it will push the second hand around and around 1,051,200 times.  If it lasts three years it will push it around 1,576,800 times.  How does that tiny battery contain all that power?

When we hold our Bibles what enormous power is in our hands!  Real power!  We hold the power to change human lives.  Our Bibles contain the ideas of God.  Nothing is more powerful than an idea.  Nothing is more powerful than idea from God. Ideas change the world.  God’s ideas change the universe.  And when we hold our Bibles, we hold those ideas in our hands.

The ideas of God render the ideas of man to kindergarten.  The ideas of God are the wisdom of the ages.  The ideas of God answer the great philosophical questions of mankind.  The ideas of God—not Plato or Nietzche–tell us who we are, why we are here and where we are going.

God’s ideas are the power unto salvation.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 4, 2000

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A Beamiliar hymn begin, “For the beauty of the earth,….”  Those words create a mental slide show of snow-capped mountains, flower filled meadows, pastel sunsets, rainy mornings and snowy evenings.  The beauty of the earth is all of the above, but it is also the mathematical precision of an atom, the double helix of DNA, the infinity of numbers, the curve of a normal distribution and the tenacity of life. 

Our heliocentric solar system with its balance of gravity and distance that enables us to safely fall in yearly cycles dazzles the mind.  Einstein’s theory of relativity, Feynman’s quantum physics and Sagan’s cosmos are layers of beauty unfolding a depth of artistry far beyond the hand of Michelangelo.

In Ecclesiastes 3:11 Solomon wrote, “He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  All this beauty that surrounds us is the handiwork of the creative artistry of our heavenly Father.  And He has created us to see, taste, feel, hear, and fathom this beauty.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 31, 2000

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