Author: Ian Bothwell

It’s apple picking time.  Branches are heavy with the makings of pies, cobbler, cider and sauce.  Roadside stands are decorated with baskets of Granny Smiths, Cortlands and Golden Delicious apples mixed with mums.  Big yellow school buses are unloading city children to roam orchards and perhaps to give them an opportunity to pick their very first apple.  Last week someone gave me an apple because I am a teacher.  It is sitting on my desk.  I probably should eat it but I like the idea of it being.

Twice in the Old Testament God’s people are referred to as being the “apple of His eye.”  (Deuteronomy 32:10 and Zechariah 2:8)  The Hebrew word translated “apple” really is the word for “pupil.”   Literally the Old Testament says we are the “pupil of His eye.”  The pupil lets light inside.  Maybe that’s why students are called pupils.  I like the idea that we are basically the light of God’s life.  Don’t you just love the expression on people’s faces when they are snuggling their child?  The light that goes in comes right back out as parents glow.  God must glow when He sees us do well just as parents almost burst when their child does well.

If you love God, and I’m sure you do, today try to do something that will make Him especially proud of you.  Give something to someone in need.  Help someone with a difficult project.  Make life easier for someone with heavy burdens to bear. Visit an old person.  No, don’t come to see me.  I’m not old yet.  I’ll let you know when I am ready for an old person visit.

In the meantime it really is grand to be the “apple” of God’s eye.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 21, 2015

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Our hummingbirds are gone.  We will leave the feeders out and filled for another week or so to accommodate transients moving south from Canada and Maine.  They will need to fill up for their long journeys.  The catbirds are gone.  Our days are still warm and the trees are still green (however, a different color green) but the birds know what is coming and have decided it’s time to go.  The lawn has pretty much stopped growing and shadows are lengthening. It must be the shadows that tell the birds it’s time to go.  It is only a week now until the sun moves into the southern hemisphere.

The thing I liked best about September when I was a boy was it was time for the new cars to come out.  It was a wonderful time because there were real differences between the model years.   A 57 Chevy was very different from a 58.  Cars had white wall tires and fins and came in two or three colors.  They hid them from us by transporting them at night covered with canvas.  They were put on back lots where you could not see them until the designated day.  There was great excitement in the air to watch TV and hear Dinah Shore sing “See the USA in your Chevrolet.”  Of course cars were considered high mileage if you put 60,000 miles on one.  Today that is just getting a car “broken in.”

I get excited when I read I Corinthians 15 that speaks of our corruptible bodies being replaced with incorruptible and immortal bodies.  What they will look like and how will it feel to be 100 percent whole and healthy?  Jesus offers us so much.  It’s a good time of the year.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 16, 2015

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While blowing the leaves out of my yard this afternoon I could not help but notice the leaves were falling from the trees behind me.  I was making progress but should I pause for a moment or so they would catch up to me making it look like I hadn’t done anything.  I wanted to impress my wife that I was still worth keeping but the fruit of my labor was most unimpressive.

Our sins are somewhat like my leaf blowing.  I ask for forgiveness and readily receive what Jesus is anxious to give, but the lawn of my character doesn’t stay clean but for a moment.  Often we err in thinking sins are merely acts of wrong but there is also a more important element that we are sinful beings.  It is centered in selfishness which might not show on the outside but I know it’s there.  Rarely do I hear of someone being shamed for breaking the 10th commandment.  “Thou shalt not covet.”  If we were to rank sins (and we don’t) I would say this was perhaps #1 on the list.  It is internal.  It is at the core of our being.  It is the seed that manifests itself in the other commandments. I wouldn’t steal something if I had not first coveted it.  I wouldn’t kill someone unless I first coveted something that motivated the murder.

Tomorrow is another day and I will once again have my sins forgiven just as I will blow the leaves again.  Someday I might be leafless.  But considering the reality of trees I somehow doubt that there will not but be a leaf or so tucked in a quiet corner.  Such is life.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 21, 2014

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It was late, dark and raining when I got home from school this night.  My old dog met me at the door with her usual leaning against me and rubbing her face against mine.  After an appropriate amount of loving she went out into the dark  and rain.  She doesn’t like the rain so I expected a quick return.  However,  she lingered.  After five minutes I grew uneasy and waited at the door.  She has difficulty climbing even the two stairs on the porch.  Suddenly I heard a muffled bark coming from a door on the back of the house.  Running through the house I found her.  We were both anxious for her to come inside.  It will be a bad day when there will be no more bark at the door.

As I opened the door I thought of a paraphrase adaption of Jesus comment about us as sinful beings and our heavenly father.  If we as sinful beings know how to rush to answer the door for a dog, how much more will our heavenly Father rush to open heaven’s door.  One of my favorite authors has written that there is one prayer God will always answer affirmatively.  It is, “Lord, save me.”  He stands at the door looking out into the dark waiting for us.

It is interesting to note the different ways Jesus uses the analogy of a door.   In John 10:9 He said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved.”  In Revelation 3 we become the door. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”   Let’s do it.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 29, 2009

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The sound of the wind in the trees has changed.  For the next six months the trees will display their bones against the ever-changing sky and the wind will have no leaves with which to play.  That is at least on the trees.  The fallen leaves on the road look like crabs running sideways on a moonlit beach.  But soon the wind will have to content itself by playing with frozen crystals and making mounds, again as if on a beach.  Today the wind played with me by trying to sneak in between the buttons on my shirt and down my collar.  The wind has its own sense of humor as it tries to decorate the bare trees with leftovers from the trash man’s pickups.

I love to hear the wind wrap itself around the corners of my house groaning a song saying, “Come on out and play.  Let me restyle your hair and color your cheeks.”   The wind is storing a cache of leaves in a corner by my office door.  Year’s ago there was a time when the air speed indicator on my plane told me I was going 140 mph but the cars and trucks on the road below were passing me.

The wind does some wondrously creative things.  It is no wonder Jesus uses the wind as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit.  It also moves unseen among us as it treats us with all manner of influence on our behavior and on others about us.   “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 19, 2008

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It’s time to start building up one’s supply of firewood for the coming winter.  When I take my axe in hand I feel like one of the ants and not the grasshopper who played his fiddle.  I have done my fiddling for the year. It is time to pay attention to the calendar.  It feels very manly to raise the axe overhead and bring it down on a nice round of maple.  It is a game to see if I can hit the mark for which I am aiming.  When I miss I hope no one was watching.  One would not want to hold the round of maple unless they have an excellent surgeon standing by.

It must hark back to Greek class in the seminary so long ago, but I can’t do this without thinking of “hamartia.”   “Hamartia” is one of the first Greek vocabulary words we learned.  It means to miss the mark.  Paul often uses it for the English word “sin.”  There is something almost comforting about “hamartia.”  It might indicate one was trying to do what was right and just missed the standard.  However, Paul does use the word in Hebrews 10:26, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, . . .”  In this verse it doesn’t sound like one is trying and therefore there is no forgiveness.  It is true we are saved by grace and all can be forgiven but we cannot spit on God’s grace by deliberately missing the mark.  Jesus offers to help us with our aim.

Just some thoughts while chopping wood.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 17, 2015

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It was a spectacular October day in New England.  The leaves are at their peak and the slanted rays of the autumn sun are amethyst as they penetrate the yellows and reds.  The temperature was perfect for working outside; so out came the chainsaw.  It’s time to get in the winter’s wood before all is covered with white.  It was a great cutting day because I put a newly sharpened chain on the old machine.  I have had this chainsaw for thirty years.  Sears should be proud.  With its new chain it just rips through oak and other hard woods.  The soft woods are like a hot knife in butter.

Earlier at the close of the summer I tried cutting but my chain was dull.  It was laborious and very unproductive.  What a difference it makes to have a sharp chain. I couldn’t help but think of how God wants us to be His tools.   The analogy speaks for itself.  If we are mentally dull, it is a challenge even for God, when He wants us to be productive.  If we take care of ourselves, He is able to fulfill His dream for and through us.

In Ephesians 2:10 Paul tells us God has work for us.  Before we were born He knew us and had something very special for each of us to do.  But God’s plans are not predestination.  Our decisions can thwart His plan.  If we want to be all we can be, we need to be sharp.  We need to daily hone our minds with the Word.   We need to eat right, sleep enough and exercise because a healthy body nurtures a sharp brain.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 26, 2009

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I called the 800 number to order a new batch of checks.  The nice man on the phone told me he was going to give me a nice leather checkbook holder.  When he finally stopped adding on this charge and that charge I complained and told him I was going to shop around.  “Oh,” he said, “I can subtract $10 from your total.  But, I can’t send you the leather checkbook holder.”  “Wait just a moment,” I said.  “Then you really weren’t giving me the checkbook holder.  You were selling it to me for an additional $10.”  I really should have hung up at that moment but I didn’t.

Don’t you just hate it when it becomes apparent that you are being duped? And when we object the duper plays innocent.  Nobody enjoys being a dupee.  How often in life are we dupable?   We have dupability and I hate it.

Let me assure you that when Jesus promises us eternal life as a gift He means it.  There are no take backs.  No, not once saved always saved.  We can give it back and so often we are foolish and do so.  But I repeat.  He never takes it back.  If God is anything He is honest, forthright, and open.  When Jesus said, “Ask and you will receive” He is transparent and telling the truth.  Satan is the great duper.  He is the liar.  He is the one who lures us with things that look good but are filled with death.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 4, 2013

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I am enjoying listening to people recount their ice storm stories.  One person told me his family congregated at the home of the one relative who hadn’t lost electricity.  The house filled with cousins and in-laws.  The first six hours went well, but when those hours turned into two, three and four days….?  Well, it will be a while before those people are once again talking to each other.   However, all the stories weren’t like that.  When I asked people what they did after 5:00 p.m. when it got dark, most people told me they got out old board games.  Clue, Monopoly, Chinese Checkers and Scrabble were very popular.  With no electronics to isolate them, people sat down around tables and talked.  I could not help but see the smiles on faces as they talked about their experiences.

When I was a child I learned from Poor Richard, “Early to bed, early to rise makes one healthy, wealthy and wise.”  Ben Franklin wrote that about the time he touched the key on his kite.  Not only were those the days without Clue and Monopoly, they didn’t know how to harness electricity and Thomas Edison wasn’t yet born.  Going to bed early made good sense.  There wasn’t much else to do.

Lest you think I am going to spend the rest of my days talking about the ice storm I will cease with this devotional by making a very common analogy to our need for various kinds of power in all aspects of our lives.   Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:20, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, . . .”   Ah, a power more desirable than electricity.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 18, 2008

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Last Saturday evening after the ice storm I had a whole new appreciation for the parable of the ten virgins and had developed genuine empathy for the five foolish virgins.  See Matthew 25.  When the power went off Thursday evening I was sure we had ample lamp oil.  Generously we lit six kerosene lamps with wicks all trimmed.  It was a nice light.  Forty-eight hours later we were down to one lamp.   Like the five foolish we went off to purchase more oil.  We were way too late.  Home Depot, Agway, Lowes, Sears and Wal-Mart all gave us the same, “We’re sorry.  We were sold out by Friday noon.”  We were worse off than the five foolish.  At least, according to the parable, they found oil to buy. The story was the same for six volt batteries.  You know – those big square ones.

The stories Jesus told have timeless value and repeat themselves over throughout the centuries no matter how modern we think we are.  I could at this moment break into the story of the grasshopper and the ants but I can’t seem to find that in the Gospels.  However the lesson is the same.  Use your resources wisely, prepare when you can, don’t take things for granted, think ahead and don’t be caught off guard.

I am grateful for great neighbors who offered to share their resources.  A neighbor across the street with a generator offered to let us take showers. Other neighbors stopped by just to check on “the old people down the street.”  Hey that was us!  How interesting that emergencies bring out both the worse and the best in people.  My blessing was that I saw more of the best than the other.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 16, 2008

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