Author: Ian Bothwell

The first part of John 21 is a message for our time.  The economy not only of our nation but the world continues to spiral downwards with little hope for the rest of this calendar year.  Millions of people are unemployed and losing their homes.  It is a scary time that can easily fill us with fear for the future.   John 21 tells of Jesus’ disciples fishing for an entire night with nothing to show for their labor.   Then Jesus told them to cast out their nets one more time.   If they had not known Him they would have laughed at the absurdity.   They were almost to shore.  There would not be anything worthwhile this close to land.   However, they knew Jesus and obeyed.   Verse 6 reads, “And He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish.”   John goes on to tell us there were 153 big fish.   When Jesus tells us to do something He does not reward us with minnows.

Times are very bleak for so many people.  We must not fear.   God will take care of us.  If you have been financially hurt this past year or if you know someone who has been hurt this is the time to trust and to help.   Sometimes  in our abundance we do not have to exercise faith but when times are filled with financial storm clouds faith becomes a real necessity.  It is time to claim the promises.   It is time to know if we obey Jesus and trust Him as Lord, He will fill our nets with something big.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 2, 2009

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Today I gave a midterm in my Human Development class.  While I do not necessarily enjoy giving exams I do enjoy the hour and a half of sitting and looking at each of my students. That is difficult to do when I am lecturing so I treasure the exam time. Forty students, forty life stories, forty paths for a short time all gather in the same room.  One of them came bursting into the room to explain why he was absent on Tuesday.  His wife had a baby on Tuesday.  Another asked if she could have a little extra time because she only learned English in 2008.   It was an open book test and one student who ordered a book never got it.  He was struggling.  I was so pleased when the first person who finished the exam gave him her book before she left.

Another student who has difficulty staying in his seat came to me to point out another student who was silently crying.  I slipped in beside her to offer assistance but she waved me off and continued with the exam.  I hope she does well. Several are nursing students.  I wondered about the lives they will save.  Will my class help?  Some are married and really help me when we talk about babies.  One is from Africa.  What brought him to America and what was he running from?  One is an eager psyc student anxious to help people in crisis.  Another is a theology major and cannot wait to save the world.  I like being with them.  They feed me.

When God looks down upon us in His quiet moments, (Does God ever have a quiet moment?) does He wonder about us?  He knows our stories.  I wonder if He is ever puzzled by the foolish decisions we make.  I know He likes being with us.  We feed Him.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 6, 2009.

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

One of my favorite authors speaks of the purpose of education as preparation for service in this world and for wider service in the world to come.  Long have I considered the concept of service in the world to come.  To me an act of service is something we can do to supply a need for another.  I can understand that here.  There is so much need here.  But what need could exist in a universe without pain, heartache, starvation and sin?  There is so much yet I do not grasp.

What I do know is service is the key to growth and happiness.  When we live only to ourselves and see others only as a means to satisfy us, not only does our character shrivel but does also our joy in living.  The fullness of life comes from finding someone who needs us.   It is basic.  We need to be needed.  The one who needs us is providing service to us.

Recently I spoke with an older person who lost most of what he had labored for all his life.  When wondering how this could have any meaning at his stage of life we pondered together the concept that it was a preparation for his wider service yet to come. We must not limit our scope to now and here.  If we truly believe what Jesus promised in John 5 that when we accept His gift we step into eternity, then there is so much more for us, so many things to do, so many tasks to accomplish, so much service that needs us.  If we ever wanted to feel needed all we must do is to become a citizen of God’s Kingdom.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 7, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Communication is without a doubt one of the most challenging tasks of humanity.  Wars are started because of miscommunication.  Marriages are shattered because of miscommunication.  Parents and children stop talking because of miscommunication. Today in the twenty-first century we have so many tools for communicating.  We can talk face to face.  We can send snail-mail or email.  We can Twitter or just plain scream at each other.   This day at an institution that shall go unnamed there was a communication problem.  The voice mail went down.  Thus we were notified that it was not working.   We were notified by VOICE MAIL.

Surely God must be frustrated on so many occasions while trying to send us a message.  While it is true He could send an angel that’s pretty scary.   I’m sure you have noticed in the Bible stories when an angel appears he (she) usually begins with “Fear not.”   Hebrews one begins with “in past times God spoke to us via various prophets but in these last days He has spoken to us through His Son.”  Nothing ever has surpassed the life and ministry of Jesus for revealing to us the true nature of the Father.

Recently, someone expressed to me that Jesus and another prophet of a very large religion were really the same. Apparently they never noticed that one began his movement with acts of extreme violence while the only time Jesus ever became the least bit violent was when He drove the money changers from the temple because they were abusing the poor.

If we want to hear from God, if we want to hear what He has to say to us, if we want to know how to live our lives, we need to look to Jesus.   He is the ultimate communicator of what God wants us to know

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 4, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

I was observing one of our student teachers practice teaching in a local 3rd grade.  I was sitting in the back of the room and noticed one little guy giving me the eye.

Finally he got up from his desk, came back and asked, “Who are you?”

Giving him a big smile I said, “I’m your teacher’s teacher.”  Nodding at me he went back to his work. Maybe five minutes had past and he was back again.

This time he said, “If my teacher has a teacher, do you have a teacher?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I do.” I was wondering if he would be back later to ask, “Does your teacher have a teacher?”   But he never did.

Yes, I do have a teacher, lots of them.  My wife teaches me lots of things.   My students teach me patience and long-suffering.   However, my best teacher is Paul.     In his writing there is a treasure trove of ideas about Jesus.   I continue to marvel at the close of Ephesians 1 where Paul extols the glory of Jesus and how exalted Jesus is.

Then comes the following in chapter 2, “God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the 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 in Christ Jesus.”

If that doesn’t light your fire I am sorry to tell you the bad news. You are mentally dead!

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 5, 2010

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Ecclesiastes 1:18 says, “In much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”   This is part of Solomon’s dissertation on the futility of life.  The more we know about the world the more we learn of man’s inhumanity to man.  The more we know about ourselves the more knowledgeable we become of our defects and natural depravity.  If one is speaking of the end result of much education and study then Solomon is absolutely right.   With knowledge comes despair because injustice and pain just keep on going.

However, it is imperative to say Solomon is not completely right and had he known Jesus he surely would have added an exception.  To know Jesus is to know what God is really like.  To know Jesus is to know there is hope for a better tomorrow.  Not all tomorrows will be like all our yesterdays. The sun will not always come up and go down with the same wearisome effects. To know Jesus is to know that character growth and godliness contribute to a better eternity with God and it is not merely something that will decay in the ground with those who never bothered to better themselves.

Had Solomon known Jesus he most likely would have amended Ecclesiastes 1:18 to read something like this.  “In most wisdom there is much grief, and he who increases worldly knowledge will increase sorrow.  But he who learns much about Jesus will grow in wisdom and joy.”

Jesus was a game changer. He took the human experience and turned it from futility to purpose.  Jesus showed us that life is full of pain but only for now because a richer, better, fuller future awaits those who grow in Him.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 4, 2010

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

The Chilean earthquake, the seventh largest on record at 8.8, has shifted the axis of the earth.  It is estimated by geologists that our days may now be 1.26 microseconds shorter.  This is much like a figure skater tightly hugging herself and thus spinning faster, so it is with our earth.  If this were maintained for almost a million days we will have lost a second, which means we would live longer.

Considering the loss of life and the tininess of the time loss, it is a tragic way to calculate time.  Actually, biologically we will not live longer, it is merely a time calculation, like losing an hour when we change to daylight saving time.    There are some real ways to live longer, such as eating right, exercising, resting, etc.  We can add ten years or so to our lives by following the rules of good health.   Then again there is the biggie.  We can add decades, centuries, and millenniums to our lives.  We can live forever.  How’s that for living longer?

Of course I am referring to allowing Jesus to be the Lord of our lives. Plus, it is not merely the addition of breathing time.  We are speaking of maximum quality.  The gift of quantity without quality would actually be hell instead of heaven.  Fortunately, He loves us and He wouldn’t think of giving us the quantity without the quality.  I have known many people who wanted the quantity of life here to be shortened.  Circumstances can compound into such a low quality of existence it is horrible to go on.  That is exactly what Jesus wants to save us from.   When Jesus talks about life He is talking about the abundant life.   See John 10:10.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 3, 2010

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

Rogerbothwell.org

While literally sandbagging the basement door of my home last week to stop a minor flood I got to wondering about the meaning of the expression “to sandbag someone.”   I discovered the following, “To downplay or misrepresent one’s ability in order to deceive someone.”   I rarely talk about Satan because I don’t want to give him any publicity but this is exactly what he does to us.  He downplays his abilities or even that he exists so he can deceive us more easily.   I have friends who don’t even believe he is real. They think he is just a personification of human depravity.  He sandbags us.

The Bible is very clear that he is very real and he hates us because we have the opportunity to receive what he had and stupidly threw away.  Since he has been around for a long time he has had almost endless opportunities to study human nature. While he cannot read our minds he knows people so well he can with great precision guess what we are thinking and what it will take to get us to fall into sin.  We are no match.

Now comes the good part.  He is a defeated foe.  Jesus came, took him on, and beat him.   The first part of Hebrews assures us Jesus was without sin. Jesus promises to be with us always.  See the end of Matthew.  Peter assures us we do not have to depend on ourselves we can tap into divine power.  See II Peter 1.   Paul says it so well in Romans 8, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers . . . shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 2, 2010

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Situations are created by a multitude of little things.  Often it is difficult to explain why something happened without a long dissertation of things that are almost inconsequential but are indeed not inconsequential.

It snowed.  Okay.  No big deal.  It snows in New England.  We expect it and want it.  It got warm.  We like that.  Some of the snow melted.  It got cold.  It always gets cold here in February.  The melted snow turned to ice. It snowed on top of the ice.  It got a bit warm and a huge storm came through that rained instead of snowed.  See.  This is tedious. But it set up a minor disaster.  The ice with the snow on top created a dam that would not let the water run off the patio and thus created a lake that could only run into the basement under the door.  Horrors.  Time for sandbags – free from city emergency services.   I realize this was a boring paragraph.  But that’s my point.  Small things create situations.

It’s like that with lies.  A tiny exaggeration here and there is no big deal.  Or is it?  Once a foundation is laid for a scenario it often becomes necessary to continue to embellish so the original story continues to make sense.  Neighbors fight with neighbors often over something very small that compounded into someone shooting someone.

One of life’s great lessons is watch the little stuff because little stuff has a tendency to become big stuff.  Tell the truth.  Say I’m sorry. Be quick to give more than you think is fair because what you think is fair usually is smaller than what others think is fair.

Basically do what Jesus told us to do.  Go the second mile. (It’s the second mile in our heads.  It’s the first foot for the person we offended.)  See Matthew 5:41

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 1, 2010

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

Rogerbothwell.org

In 1945 the Japanese had been fighting American soldiers for over three years.  They were convinced that they could not lose the war because their gods had made them superior.  They were a chosen people.  Americans were a mongrel people who were not racially pure.  It was unbelievable that their warriors were losing island after island.  When Americans reached Okinawa it became evident that heaven had deserted them.  In despair thirty thousand military and civilian personal hurled themselves to their deaths from the top of an Okinawaian cliff.  They could not endure the shame.

There is something deep inside the human psyche that makes us want to believe we are God’s favorites.  Young people knock on my door and tell me they are God’s elect and my baptism is of no value unless I am rebaptised by one of them.  Group after group, denomination after denomination, nation after nation believe they are the chosen ones. It is not an idea foreign to my childhood.  I even learned memory verses from Scripture to support this deep basic human hunger.

Could it be that God is not and has never been impressed by groups and organizations?  Could it be that God is instead searching for humble individuals who deem themselves unworthy and come to Him as one willing to be used in any way God needs to further His kingdom?   There is a very interesting verse in Revelation 7.  John wrote, “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, . . .”  It seems to be about people and not about groups.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 15, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org