Author: Ian Bothwell

This afternoon while standing in the produce section of our supermarket I watched an old man–old? late eighties, I think–shuffle in the front door, past me and on to the fish section.  He pulled a sheet of newspaper out of his pocket and wrapped it around a large fish he had taken from the bed of ice.  He promptly turned about, shuffled past me and went out the door.  I had just witnessed the perfect crime.  No one seemed to notice him and no one tried to stop him.  Surely he must be the store manager’s great grandfather or some such thing!

Ever since I have been wondering if he really did get away with this?  My answer is no.  Even though we are not apprehended we always pay a price for our wrong doing.  In some way or other we are harmed.  If we were not, it would not be wrong.  Things are wrong only when they harm us or another.  If there is no harm it is okay.  Immanuel Kant wrote, “I must do only that which would be permissible for all to do.”   The silver rule says, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.”  Jesus’ golden rule goes much further.  He said, “Do to others what you would they did to you.” This goes way beyond rules and regulations.  We are talking about behavior that is the fruit of thought and not mere obedience.  We could all imagine scenarios where blind obedience would produce harm.

God is not honored by thoughtless followers.  If that is what He desired, He could have created a race of robots.  Instead, He made us to think, to ponder, to act responsibly.  He made us to do the right thing.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 22, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

 

I have noticed an interesting pattern of human behavior that I have not yet totally comprehended.  If people are paying to attend a production like Lion King they will spend large sums of money to get front row seats, but when attending a local production like a high school play they will leave the front row empty and fill the room from the second row back.  It is the same in church.  Often the front row or rows are vacant while people jam into the back.  My sister tells me it so they can see who is there and what they are wearing.  If you sit in the front you miss most of the show which is behind you.  At a major production like on Broadway you don’t care who is behind you because you don’t know them. Last evening we went to a really marvelous production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.  It was a high school production and much better than one would have expected.  My wife and I were the only ones to sit on the front row and I was amazed that some people came and sat down right behind us.  So my question is, “Why do people do that?”

I wonder how often it is that we settle for second best when the best is available.  Jesus offers us the best.  He tells us how to treat each other. He shows us the path to eternity.  He offers us the abundant life.  He forgives us.  He assures us that we are loved.  He really offers quality. And yet so many people walk away preferring second best or most often third, fourth or fifth best.   Why is that?

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 27, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

This afternoon I sat in a circle with twenty-four nine-year-olds and listened to them read their freshly written accounts of one of their dreams. If they couldn’t remember one, they could make one up.  I think most were made up. I heard dreams about mountains of candy and cookies.  One little girl dreamed she was Miley Cyrus’s sister and the Jonas Brothers made up a song just for her.  Not bad for nine.  The favorite topic was flying. Over half of them flew everywhere from over their houses clear out to Saturn.  I was intrigued by this because I often hear many adults talk about flying when they get to fantasizing about heaven.

I must confess that I doubt we will fly if God’s desire is to restore us to the original creation of Adam and Eve.   But hey, what do I know?  Not much of anything. When I left the seminary I knew so very much more than I know now.  As the decades have rolled by my list of sureties continues to get shorter and shorter.  People that know a lot fascinate me.  I’m probably just jealous.   It’s just that I have learned how difficult it is to really know something for sure.   I am mostly living by faith.  According to Paul faith is the substance of things unseen.   It’s those unseen things about which I don’t know much.

So what do I really know?  I know Jesus is my savior and that works for me.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 13, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

We have a marvelous old mansion on our campus.  The music department claims it as its own.  I think they laid claim to it because it has some very nice rooms for recitals.   This morning we held our winter graduation in its nicest room.  When the service concluded I found myself trapped in one of the rooms by a hoard of graduates, well-wishers and families of the grads. You can imagine how pleased I was when I spotted another door.  “Aha,” I thought.  “I can sneak out the back way.”  Upon opening the lovely ornate door I was confronted with a wall.  The door didn’t go anywhere.

I have been thinking about that door to nowhere and remembered John 10. Jesus refers to Himself as “The Door.”  It’s a great metaphor.  Doors can open the way to fabulous opportunities and doors can close behind us to keep us safe.  Do you remember “Let’s Make a Deal” where contestants had to select Door Number One, Two or Three?   Sometimes one of them had a Zonk.  I promise you Jesus never opens a door with a Zonk.   The door He opens is the door to eternity with never ending growth.  When we step through we leave behind a world of frustration, failure and fatalities.

At first I wanted to say going through that door is like entering a room filled with people who shout “Surprise” because it is your birthday.  But that cannot be because eternal life is a gift given now.  Jesus promised.  Jesus keeps His promises and that is no surprise.

Written by Roger Bothwell on Janary 12, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

Occasionally when I walk into my classroom I discover little by little it has become a wastebasket.  When people rip paper out of a spiral notebook small remnants of paper float to the floor like dandruff on a blue suit. Some pigs leave leftover bags and cups from Dunkin Donuts.  It is amazing what grows overnight in a dark locked room.  However it is not as bad as it seems.  I pick up the real wastebasket and ask everyone to please clean around their desk.  It usually takes less than sixty seconds for the room to look as if it had been thoroughly vacuumed.

I can only think of one other cleaning that takes less time.  John wrote, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Unfortunately just like my classroom, we once again become littered with the remnants of our characters.  That used to worry me.  My walk with Jesus was a legal, record-keeping experience.   What if I was killed without having an opportunity to ask for forgiveness?  What if I was lost for something like a scrap of paper on the floor, something I had done and not noticed and yet it was wrong?  Honestly, it was not a life filled with joy.   I knew something was wrong.  Christianity was supposed to be a joyful experience.  Something was missing.

One of the finest days of my life was the day I discovered John 5:24.  Jesus said, “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”  That was the day I realized salvation is NOT the product of record keeping.  It is the fruit of a loving relationship with Jesus.  He will not fail to forgive me instantly each time I sin not because I mentally ask but because He knows I want to be like Him.  I discovered joy.  I had passed from death to life.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 6, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

While slowing inching along in a line of cars up to the drive thru window of a fast food restaurant, I amused myself by watching a seagull walking about with a florescent orange sticker adhering to his right wing.  In big black letters it read, “2 for $5.”   He was the avian equivalent to people walking about wearing a sandwich board.   I kept wondering just what two things I would get for my five dollars.  His sticker didn’t say.  Maybe for five dollars I would get two seagulls.

Truth in advertising has been a contentious issue ever since tobacco companies used to put actors on television pretending to be doctors and telling us cigarettes were good for us.  It reminds me of preachers on television telling us God will make us rich if we will send them one hundred dollars of “seed money.”  Since the beginning of history people have been swindling each other with deceptive offers.  The world has been, is and will be, filled with conmen. I think my seagull was a “congull.”  He wanted the five dollars for two of nothing.

Remember stories of people selling their soul to the devil in return for a short period of prosperity?  Eventually Satan arrives to collect and always the duped realize they have been had.   It wasn’t worth it.  Often we talk about salvation being the free gift of God’s grace.  While that is true it really doesn’t tell the entire story.  Jesus does desire something in return.  He wants us to understand if we obey His commands we will embark upon an eternal journey into fantastic undreamed of personal development.  What He offers really, really, really, really is worth it.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 14, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

The Chinese Placemat

While waiting for our food in a Chinese restaurant I read the paper placemat printed with a Chinese Zodiac.   I discovered I was born in the year of the horse and I am hardworking, resilient, wise and dependable.   “Absolutely right on,” I thought.  However then I read the descriptions of the people born in the year of the snake, goat and whatever.  I would have been thrilled with any of those descriptions.  Isn’t it interesting how we just love to believe it when we are told good things about ourselves?   Reality can be miles away but we eat up the flattery.

How about a legitimate dose of reality?  You probably are a better person than you think you are.  However, you are probably a worse person than you think you are.  Few of us know the truth about ourselves.  Because we have been sheltered or not exposed to various situations we don’t know how we would react if thrust into something bizarre.   We hope for the best.

Here is some more reality.  You are a sinner and have no rightful claim to citizenship in God’s Kingdom.  You disqualified yourself most likely prior to your adolescent years.  That is the bad reality.  Now, here comes the good reality.  We have a Savior.  His name is Jesus.  He and He alone has the power, the prerogative and the intent to make sure you become and stay a citizen.  He does it out of unexplainable  love for you.  Now here comes the great reality.  Once in the Kingdom remarkable transformations begin. They are slow and subtle.  Honesty replaces dishonesty.  Love for others replaces conceit.  As eternity passes you grow into something far more wonderful than any description on a Chinese placemat.

Written on January 19, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

When people lose a sense of the divine they also lose respect for humanity. Instead of our being the product of love forged from the earth into the image of our maker, humans become an end-product of an evolutionary process on its way to who knows what.  We cease to be special.  We are merely a step on a lonely road with no purpose other than to reproduce.   All the achievements of mankind are nothing but a byproduct to fill up our time after we have bred and are waiting to die.  What is so sad is some proponents of evolution are now claiming they have proved it and the rest of us who do not agree with them are less bright.   Some of them actually call themselves “the brights.” How utterly contemptuous.  They need such pride and self-grandeur because that is all they are ever going to have. Self-love is such an empty trap.

Now I have fallen into the same contemptuousness. Instead I need to care. For the God they deny loves them dearly.  Jesus’ words in John 5:24 are so wonderful.  The moment we make Him the Lord of our lives we have entered eternity.  We are already living forever on our way into a kingdom of unfolding promises.  A year ago I got a new knee.  In pre-op the doctor was leaning over me.  An instant later he said, “It’s finished.  It went well.”  I was in post-op.  In John 11 Jesus said His friend Lazarus was sleeping.  He woke him.

Paul writes in I Thessalonians 4 the following, “The Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: . .”

What a stark contrast.  Just who are “the brights?”

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 29, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

We inadvertently ended up at a bonsai demonstration.  For over an hour we watched a real artist take a four foot tall tree and ever so cleverly cut and trim so as to prepare to turn it into a bonsai beauty.  I winced as I watched him trim off branches that I thought should stay.  He explained that when given a choice of two always cut off the thickest one.  The thinner one will be more pliable.  After he had the branches he wanted to keep he took heavy gauge wire and first wrapped it around the trunk and then around the remaining branches.  He could then bend the wire now holding a branch and form it to grow in any direction or shape he wanted.

I could not but think of John 15 where Jesus said, “I am the vine.”  Jesus talks about pruning.  “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.” After the man was finished he said, “Now come back in forty years and see how beautiful it will have become.”  I sat and thought of the things I have lost through the years.  Some of them I desperately wanted to keep.  But once gone, really gone,  now decades later I think I understand a little bit more.  Maybe I need to wait another forty years to really understand.

When you pray for something you really want and it doesn’t come to you, please be patient.  The Master Bonsai Artist is at work pruning and bending.  One of my favorite authors wrote, “If we could see the end from the beginning we would never question the way our Father has led us.”  Happiness in life so often is the fruit of trusting the Artist.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 24, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

“To be or not to be” is, apart from Scripture, one of the most known literary quotes of all time.  While Ophelia watches Hamlet ponders existence.  Surely all of us have considered “being.”  We don’t remember being born because we were not there.   Very rapidly as the months elapsed that baby assimilated quadrillions of stimuli, merged them with inherited endowments and a self emerged.  We call that self “me” or “I.”  Being has begun with all its positive and negative characteristics.  The challenge that follows is to make the best “me” possible.  We begin to practice the “fine art of being.”  It is an art to be a quality person.

Quality does not happen by accident.  Quality is honed and perfected. Quality is the state of eliminating as much of the negative as possible.  The fine art of being is an awareness of our inner motives. It is the honesty to recognize I do not like someone because they are more talented than I, they are better looking than I, they are more charismatic than I, they are more popular than I.  It is a thankfulness for the gifts of another without wanting to usurp them.  It ultimately is the ability to stand before God recognizing that any hope I might have for eternity is to know eternity is a gift and nothing I have earned.  This places me on even ground with all around me and there is a knowledge that I am no better than another, regardless of my education, my wealth, my religion, my race or my anything.

The fine art of being is the ability to enhance the being of others about us. We are here to serve.  We are here to make each other better beings.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 29, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org