Author: Ian Bothwell

Once a year the college sends someone to watch me teach.   They are assigned to evaluate me.  Usually it’s a colleague who is quite sympathetic and for the most part says nice things.  To make it appear they were attentive to their assigned task they put down something I need to improve upon.  I appreciate that they tell me when they are coming.  It gives me a chance to be at my best.  He is coming this Wednesday evening.  I will make sure I am wearing a necktie and will have shined my shoes.  I would say that I will do a super lecture, but that would leave a false impression.   I try to do a super lecture every class.  My students deserve the best I can be.  Yet I still know 50% of what I tell them is wrong. I just don’t know which 50%.

It reminds me of my walk with Jesus.  Fifty percent of my speech and behavior is not fit for His companionship.  Again my problem is I don’t know which 50%. I am so steeped in 21st century American culture my thoughts, my ideas, my values are just not worthy.   I am a child of now and I long to be a child of the future; His future in a perfect place.  I’m sure you are the same as I am.  We try.  I had a man tell me he had stopped sinning.  I almost laughed in his face.  How could he be so ignorant?  He didn’t know what he didn’t know.  Grace.   Grace is the name of the game.  Without it we don’t have a chance because not one of us knows what we don’t know.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 18, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

We spent the entire psych class this morning talking about friendship. There seemed to be a consensus that it would be difficult to maintain a friendship unless there was some mutual interest.  There needs to be some common ground for a lasting relationship. Someone laughingly said, “My boyfriend likes me and I like me so there is our mutual interest.  That’s our common ground.”   Despite the fact that she might have been telling the truth, there has to be give and take.  A real friendship cannot long endure if all the giving and all the getting is one way.

If this is true I found myself wondering about Jesus’ comments in John 15 where He calls us His friends.  It is very obvious what we have to get from Him. He is like a river of blessings flowing toward us.   I note the Mississippi flows only one direction.  What does He get from this relationship other than disappointmentsin our behavior and attitudes?

Surely we are more than trophies that He has won from Satan.  We are not in some cosmic game to see who ends up with the most souls.  The joy in heaven over just one being saved has to have a deeper reason than merely giving us eternal life.   Or does it?  Is God’s love so unselfish and so genuine that our joy is His joy?  I know I am extremely happy when I see my children doing well. Their success and their prosperity more than compensates for any rough spot we might have had when they were adolescents.  I must admit that I do in many ways live vicariously through my children.  Could it be that God lives vicariously through you and me?   Is this why Jesus told us to call Him Father?

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 12, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

This past week I heard at least four different parents say how much they miss their children but they are making the sacrifice of being away so they can earn enough to give the children the things they, the parents, never had.   Did any of them stop and listen to what they were saying?  The things their children need are not material items purchased with money earned by absentee parents.  The thing children need the most is to be with their parents.  They need love.  They need security.  They need parents reading to them at night.  They need parents attending little league games and they need parents’ hugs.  I could understand it if it were a very short term experience but in the case of the persons I heard, they were speaking of a long time absence.  I understand sometimes circumstances, like military service, take parents away.   What I am speaking of is being away by choice to chase a pot of gold.   We must never think things are more important than our presence.  No golden whatever can ever replace the warmth of sitting on mommy or daddy’s lap.

On the bright side we do live in a world filled with media devices that allow us to have daily contact with loved ones no matter where they are. Tiny cameras on or built into computers enable us to see and talk with loved ones.  The only thing missing are the hugs.  This evening my wife and I were talking to and looking at each other on our laptops.   The unusual thing was we were in the same room just a few feet apart.  However, the images on the computer screens had traveled literally tens of thousands of miles.  We are a long way from the old party line telephones.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 28, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

I continue to be fascinated by language.  We learn words when we are very small and use them all our lives, often never thinking of why we use a particular word in a particular situation.  This morning we were welcomed to our spring graduation service.  I do not know why but suddenly the word “welcome” bounced off my brain.  “Welcome.”  “Well.” “Come.”  I do not know the etymology of the word but it surely must mean “come here and be well.”   “I am happy to see you” and “I want you to share space and time with me and we will have a well time.”   I do remember once hearing someone say, “Welcome to my misery.” That must be an oxymoron.

Jesus once said, “Take up your cross and follow me.”   That does not sound like a welcome.  However on another occasion He said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  If we have to bear a burden in life this certainly does sound like a welcome.   Then there is Matthew 25:34, “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  That is very much a welcome.

Saying welcome in our culture is like saying, “How are you?”    Most of the time we really don’t want to know.  It is merely a greeting and we aren’t overly happy when people actually tell us how they are.   From now on I shall think about saying the word “welcome” and really mean it.   I am sure someday each of us will hear Jesus say, “Welcome to heaven.”   He will mean it and it will be “come” and be “well”  forever.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 11, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

When I was a little guy my mom took me to see Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. For days prior I dreamed about seeing Trigger and Buttermilk.  I was sure that somehow I would get close enough to touch them. (Not Roy Rogers or Dale Evans.  I didn’t care about them.  It was all about the horses.)  Finally the day arrived.  It was the grandest morning of my life as we made the journey to the arena.  Have you ever been anticipating something for days, weeks or a life-time only to be seriously disappointed when the reality occurred?  For two hours those two people strummed guitars and sang.  Finally at the end Trigger came out on the stage for about thirty seconds.  That was IT!  Buttermilk never did show up!  I disliked Roy Rogers and Dale Evans for the rest of my life.  When my Dad wanted to take me to see a Roy Rogers western movie, I didn’t want to go.

For a lifetime I have been looking forward to meeting Jesus and I have to tell you if when I get to heaven I only see Him for a few moments from afar I am going to be horribly disappointed.  Now that I have said that I know I do not have to fear that will occur because I have memorized Revelation 3:21 which clearly promises the following, “To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”  Now I realize it might take a few thousand years for my turn but just knowing it will happen is enough.  I have learned to be patient.  It is one of my few virtues.

P.S. You too will have your turn. How grand.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 14, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

As much as people have tried, it remains very difficult to reconcile the picture of God in the Old Testament with the character of Jesus.  The problem becomes even more interesting when we read the close of Jesus’ prayer in John 17.   He prayed, “O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You.”

Jesus came to earth for three reasons.  Number one was to redeem us by His sacrifice on the cross.  Number two was to prove Satan was wrong when Satan claimed it was impossible to keep God’s law.  And number three was to show us what God is really like.  That is why Jesus responded to Philip in John 14, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”

Prior to Jesus the world had dimly seen images of God.  It was like looking at an image in a steamy mirror.  There is a form but it is blurred and has to be interpreted by what we think is there.  Jesus blew the steam away and the clarity of a kind loving Father appeared.  We must never forget the subject of the sentence in John 3:16 is the Father.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 30, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

 

For those of us who are directionally challenged a GPS is a gift from God. How can I calculate the number of gallons of gasoline I have wasted because I have turned the wrong way?  If I listen to the nice feminine voice that tells me which way to turn, I usually get where I am going without error. Note I did say “usually.” Sometimes she has to tell me to “Make a U-turn as soon as possible.”

Never would I have conceived of finding my way to an appointment because of a deep space object.  When I say “deep space” I really mean deep.  As all of us who have lived since Copernicus and Galileo know, our sun is not going around us.  We are rotating on an axis while orbiting our sun.  Our sun is in motion swirling around the center of our galaxy and our galaxy is moving somewhere.  We don’t know where.  All of that motion would make a GPS impossible to be accurate if it did not have an anchor point as a base for its mathematical calculations.   Therefore, scientists anchor our GPS to a quasar that is a billion light years away.  It is so far away it relatively does not move.  It is a fixed point.  Thus our GPS can tell us where we are and where to go.  A billion light years is very “deep” space.

We live in a post modern world that tries to tell us the only meaning we can have in life is what we invent for ourselves.  There is no anchor.  Thus we are philosophically lost beings.  Ah, the joy of being a Christian.  We have an anchor who gives us meaning.  He tells us who we are.  We are His.  He tells us where we are going.  We are going to be with Him.  Jesus is our anchor and He doesn’t even have to be in deep space.  He is close by.  He is with us; always.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 4, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

A tiny piece of plastic, about a third the size of a kernel of corn, snapped off a clamp holding the CPU of my sister’s computer.  It was designed to keep the CPU pressed tightly to a heat sink.  Without it the CPU retained its self-generated heat and triggered an almost instant shutdown when started.  Being tightly connected to that heat sink was essential.

Being tightly connected to Jesus is essential.  Without it our sin generated guilt will shut us down.  If we expect to fully function we must transfer the fruit of our ignorance and stupidity to another.  That’s why we scapegoat others.  When a nation is failing it looks for a group, a political party, a neighbor nation.  Somebody has to be blamed.  It can never be our fault.  It started in Eden.  “Lord, the woman you gave me made me do it.”   We as individuals and as groups have been doing it ever since.  The problem is the blame game ends up destroying others and ourselves.  It is a no-win scenario.

But Jesus is perfect.  He says I’ll take care of it for you.  While He cannot accept the blame, our sins are not His fault, He can do something better.  Because of His sacrifice for all the sins of the world, He can blot out our sins and restore us.   Unlike us, who forgive but remember, He forgives and forever treats us not as forgiven but as if we had never sinned at all.  We do not have to grovel.   We can come boldly to the throne of grace and receive the privileges of being God’s daughters and sons.  Our sins and our guilt are removed.  We have a sin sink.

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  Hebrews 4:16

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 13, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

I paid my city seven dollars this morning.  In return I got a metal tag to put on my friend’s collar.  She is number 485.  To the city she is a number. To me she is my friend. To the city she is an animal. To me she is my friend. As I put the tag on her collar this morning my mind flashed to another friend I had in Iowa.  She had a number tattooed on her arm.  To her Nazi capturers she was a number. To someone else she had been a wife and to her children a loving mother.  Numbers are cold. Numbers identify without identifying. Sometimes I grow cold when I need to put my social security number on a form. I am reduced to a set of digits – a cipher. I like my name. My name is me. I am not a number. My dog is not a number. My Jewish friend was not a number.

I am so glad God does not keep track of us by number. The only numbers He keeps track of are the hairs on our heads. But we are names. How interesting to read in Revelation that He will someday give each of us a new name.  It will be a name that truly fits who we are. But that does not mean we will discard our now names. When I meet you in heaven I will call you by the name that you are – the name you have now.

My sons are not number one and number two. They are Eric and Michael. Sometimes I call them by names we invented for them as children but one thing is for sure – they are not numbers!

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 18, 2009

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94578

rogerbothwell.org

 

Every once in a while I get the feeling I am being watched.  I try not to be paranoid or have an overly developed sense of being important but I have discovered we are being watched.  There is this very cheeky chipmunk who sits on the stump of a tree outside our breakfast room window and he (or she- I don’t know which) seems to enjoy watching us eat.  Finally my wife got out her camera to document this and he never flinched.   I am used to my dog watching me eat, but really now – a chipmunk!

When I was little one of my memory verses was Ecclesiastes 12:14.  “For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.”  I must admit to having an unhappy adolescence because of this verse.  What was the point of trying to be good?  Solomon definitely did not know Jesus.   Fortunately we do know Jesus.   Jesus came with a revolutionary message filled with good news.  It is true that God does see everything.   But the reason He is watching is so He can catch us doing something good.   It makes Him happy.   He doesn’t need to make a record of our bad deeds because one is enough.  Perfect is required for eternal life.  Now comes the great news.  The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life.  Once we accept the gift we skip judgment.  See John 5:24.  There is no need to go to judgment when we have already crossed over from death to life.  Once again see John 5:24.

Rejoice and be very glad.  You are being watched.  You are watched by someone who loves you so much He died for you.   As Paul says in Romans, “If this God is for us, who can be against us?”

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 29, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org