Author: Ian Bothwell

It was a brand new toothbrush.  I unwrapped it and carried it into the shower.  After a good scrubbing I opened the shower door and tossed it in the sink.  Never in a thousand tries could I ever have duplicated what happened.  It hit the rounded sink, where I wanted it to go, but then launched out in perfect arch into the toilet bowl.  So much for a brand new toothbrush. Alas.  I believe it was Robert Burns who wrote something about “The best laid schemes of mice and men” going awry.  No matter how carefully we plan something and prepare things can go wrong.

There are some who maintain God’s plan of redemption could not go wrong.  Sending Jesus here to die for us was a plan that could not fail.  Should that have been true then it was all a sham.  The fascinating horror was that Jesus was, in the words of theologians, peccable. He could have failed. The writer of Hebrews 3 tells us, “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

This was no playacting.  Everything hung in the balance as He cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane. How marvelous it is that God’s plan did work and we are the benefactors.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 19, 2013

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There is a flower seller with a large sign that says “We want to be your florist.”  There is one small issue.  The flower beds in front of his establishment are overgrown with grass and weeds.  It reminds me of a church I visited that advertised, “Come here and you will be home.”  I went.  I was never greeted nor welcomed. The advertising did not measure up to reality.  Or perhaps it was representative of their homes.

Being is so much more important than speaking. What we are is so much more important than who we are.  The rich young ruler asked Jesus the wrong question. He asked, “What must I do to be saved?”  He should have asked, “What must I be to be saved?”   In Romans 1 Paul wrote, “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

History is filled with lives of God-like people who, while never knowing the Gospel, recognized God’s true nature and they allowed themselves to be drawn to it and to be molded by it.  Unknowingly they became individuals God could trust throughout eternity.  They are not saved by individual actions of good nor lost by individual acts of evil.  They are saved because their actions are but the fruit of a character that automatically spreads love, generosity and kindness.   They are people who not only meet others needs but anticipate the needs of others.   It sounds like a huge task but can come as easily as an apple tree producing apples.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 17, 2013

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On a corner property connected to our college is a hillside, once the home for settlers who braved moving westward from the safety of Boston.  They paid a harsh price for their adventure.  In 1675/6 a war party of natives came burning, killing, scalping and capturing.  Only ashes were left behind.  An engraved stone that memorializes that hillside.  The stone is small considering the magnitude of what happened to those people.

Memorials are interesting.  We try to build something that will keep us from forgetting. Yet, as hard as we try, our carved stones always seem inadequate, no matter how well designed.  Stones with names can never compensate for the loss of flesh and blood.  Memorials in time seem more meaningful than stones because time cycles round and round.  Each time the day returns we remember.  This is so much better than a stone that will fade away in the wind and rain.

God wanted us not to forget where we came from.  We are not the product of an impossible chain of favorable mutations.  We are the fruit of His loving design.  When Moses descended Mt. Sinai with the tablets of stone, there tucked in the middle was the fourth commandment.  It started with the word “Remember”.  God had established a memorial in time.  Every Sabbath day we are to stop our commerce and remember Eden.  It became even more meaningful at the Cross.  That wasn’t just a god from heaven who died for us.  It was THE GOD who made us and paid the price for our failures by becoming one of us.   John 1.

Memorials are, without a doubt, very important.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 30, 2011

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The  New England roadsides are lush with Daylilies and Black-eyed Susans.  Stonewalls that line fields and yards are accented with these yellow and orange exhibitionists showing off their splendor to all who pass by.  One would have to be visually or mentally challenged not to appreciate their glory.  If they could sing they would surely change the words to “You Are So Beautiful” to “I Am So Beautiful” and serenade us on our way.   Shamelessly they beg us to take their picture so we can enjoy them six months from now when the days are short and the stonewalls are smothered with snow.

If I had been Moses and quested to write an account of creation I would write something like this.  “The Lord God planted a garden in the east and called it New England; and there He put the man whom He had formed.  Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight.”

Living the abundant life is living with our minds wide open to ingest each day’s gifts.  Far too soon the greens of the oaks and maples will darken indicating the summer is waning and once again God will take out His palette and paint the hills and lanes with maple reds and birch yellows.  Those are good days.   But I am not yet hungry for them.  Today the table is set with the feast of summer.  It is more than enough to satisfy anyone’s taste.  Today is the day to sing Psalm 118:24, “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 12, 2011

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There is this great sound and light show each night outside of Cairo  There under the desert sky you sit for a warm grand evening of Egyptian history as lights play back and forth on the various pyramid and the sphinx.  Amid exotic music a voice booms out across the sands reliving the succession of Pharaohs and the glory that once was Egypt.

While sitting there one evening waiting for the show to begin my wife and I got to talking with some other tourists.  The conversation begain with the usual stuff you ask fellow travelers.  Where are you from? How long have you been here? Where to next? Bust very soon the conversation focused on a place we had in common and ended up with the startling fact that we were talking with my wife’s best friend’s music teacher.  And we were wowed with just how small our world is.

Have you ever wondered as you look at a crowd of strangers how many people in that group know someone you know?  I didn’t used to do that.  But I do now.

It all gives me pause to think about what it will be like to live forever.  We have been promised eternal life by Jesus.  And if we accept that gift we will have not only centuries but millenniums to  meet others who have also accepted that wondrous gift.  If in just a few decades of life we are able to meet enough people that we can make chance contacts in some foreign land just think how many people we will get to know and meet in the new earth promised to us at the end of the book of Revelation.

Written by Roger Bothwell

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The afternoon sun was low behind the grandpa and his grandson.  They were enjoying their long shadows on the sidewalk.  Both of them were very tall.  Jumping in front of grandpa, the little boy noted with great joy that he and grandpa had become one.  Thus they stayed as one as long as they were aligned.  Soon the six-year-old saw the fun of sticking out his arms and laughing as their shadow sprouted four arms.

Psalms 91:1 reads, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”

Just before His death Jesus prayed for us, “I pray for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”  John 17: 20-21.

The goal of every Christian is to truly be one with our Maker and Savior.  We long to rest in His forgiveness and experience the fullness of His mercy, an experience that can only occur if via the power of His Spirit we align ourselves with His will.  Our shadow merges with His and when others see us they see Him.  “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”  Matthew 5:16.

Written by Roger Bothwell on Sept. 15, 2020

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Do you know anyone who makes quilts?  Quilters are people who create masterpieces.  They pour enormous amounts of time into their art.  All those tiny stitches require great patience and the designs require an artistic eye and a very creative mind.

Just as a master quilter utilizes a vast array from shabby to elegant pieces of cloth so God takes the varied experiences of our lives and quilts each of us into an amazingly beautiful and unique person.  Some of us are extroverts and some introverts.  God is amazing.  While He quilts us into His image, He still allows each of us to choose what kind of person we want to be. Unlike human art, which is solely the fruit of the artist’s labors, God’s art has tremendous input into itself.

It would be boring if all quilts looked alike so God would surely be bored if we were all the same.  Since creation there have been approximately 80 billion people on this old planet.  That means there have been 80 billion different quilts.  God supplies the basics.  He gives us a body and a mind and then sets us free to create the final product.  What we do with those basics is up to us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on Sept. 8, 2002

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With this week’s passing of summer our local Dairy Queen’s scrolling sign informed us they were closing soon.  Not wanting to miss one last ’09 visit we stopped.  I asked the girl when they were closing.  “Any moment now,” she said, “when the mix runs out.”  We helped.

I now have a new answer for those who ask when I am going to retire, “When the mix runs out.”  I am counting on the mix not running out.  Jesus promised, “Lo, I am with you always.” If that’s the case, how can the mix run out?”   Paul closes Ephesians 3 with a wonderful prayer.  He prayed, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Isn’t that grand?  We can be and will be filled with all of God’s fullness.

We are granted the riches of glory.  We are strengthened with might.  We are grounded in love and know that love passes all knowledge.  I cannot even begin to imagine running out.  The supply is steady.  There is no shortage as long as we long for and make ourselves available to our Father God.

Written by Roger Bothwell on Sept 21, 2009

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Freedom to vote for our leader is by far one of the greatest rights of mankind.  While not all of us will be pleased because the one we voted for did not win, the fact is we had the freedom to speak our will.  Hopefully we can rally around our new leader and forget all the ridiculous half lies that were told by BOTH sides.  What a privilege it is to live in a land where everything is right to do unless our collective wisdom passes a law against it.  That is just the opposite of the way it is in most of the countries of the world.  In most places you are not allowed to do something unless there is a law that says you can.  That is an enormous difference and is a wonder of our constitution.

God’s government is also based on total freedom.  God grants us the rights to do anything we want that does not harm another or ourselves.  If it is good for us God wants us to have the freedom to do or not to do.  All He asks is that we have the common sense to do good things in balance. Sleeping is good but you can over do it.  Exercise is good but you can over do it.  Breathing is good but you can over do it.  You can even go to church too much.  God’s government is based on love.  When we truly understand love we will only want to do what is beneficial for others and ourselves.  It really is that simple.

In Galatians Paul speaks of the law being written on the heart.  That means I no longer need a law telling me not to steal.  I don’t want to steal from those I love and as I become more like Jesus I will grow to love everyone. It works the same for all the commandments.   The person who loves is free to do what he or she wants to do.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 4, 2008

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I am sitting here watching a baseball game.  A runner just tried to score from second on a base hit.  He didn’t make it.  The catcher held his ground and the runner was out.  Now came the interesting part.  The Home Plate umpire vigorously with the usual exaggerated arm thrust loudly yelled, “You’re out!”

For just a moment I saw Lucifer walking up to us with a record of our sins, thrusting his arm and yelling, “You’re out. With a list like this I can convict anyone.”  And the truth is we have nothing to say. We cannot deny his list.  He does not have to lie about us, even though he would.  All he needs to do is tell the unvarnished truth.

Ah do not despair.  Here is the really interesting part.  All we need do is claim 1 John 1:9 and his list becomes inconsequential.  “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.”  As far as Jesus is concerned Satan’s list is fiction because there is a new truth.  The new truth is found in the Lamb’s Book of Life where all our sins have been blotted out.

So let Lucifer shout “you’re out” until he is blue in the face.  The truth is we are safe, safe forever more in the hands of our Jesus who will never let us go.

“And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.”  John 10:28-9

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 24, 2008

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