Author: Ian Bothwell

One of our friend’s first grader has proudly learned to spell the word “zebra.”  Pleased with her phenomenal new accomplishment, all by herself she sent her teacher an email exhibiting her new spelling skill.  The wonder of it all was the word “zebra” was the only word in the email that was correct!  It’s a masterpiece I hope her parents save forever.

Every once in awhile lightning strikes and we do something right.  Another friend (I really do have lots of friends.) asked me why we so often get things wrong. The answer is there is only one way to get something right but a hundred ways to get it wrong.

I know a guy (not my friend) who is nearing retirement and likes to brag about all the people he has baptized during his ministry.  If one believed all his stories one would think he was Billy Sunday, Billy Graham and John Wesley blended into one.  I don’t know, maybe he is telling the truth and I’m just jealous I can’t tell such wonders.  I just hope that somewhere in all the misspellings of my life I spelled something right at least once.  In God’s eyes I want to be that first grader.  I want to spell “zebra.”

But even if I didn’t it doesn’t matter.   Jesus is still my (our) Savior, because we aren’t saved by doing everything or just one thing right.  We are saved by grace.  Wait just a moment.  There is something we need to do right.  We need to accept His gift and tell Him “thank you.”  Yeah.  There is one thing we need to do right and letting Him save us is the rightest thing we could ever do.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 22, 2009.

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

When I was five I was very good at games.  I could always win at checkers, Chinese marbles and Old Maids.  It didn’t matter what game it was I always won.  My father tried hard to beat me.  He could stay right behind me but he never was able to catch me.  I was number one.   I’m not sure how old I was when I finally caught on.

Isn’t it strange how naïve and immature we can be?  One afternoon I was walking in the forest with a colleague and he asked me how many people I had won for Jesus.  I truly had no idea and when I told him I didn’t know he was shocked.  He had a record of his.  They were trophies to hang on his wall.  He told me he had fifteen hundred and was shooting for two thousand before he retired.  He told me he was anxious to go to heaven because there for eternity he would wear a crown with two thousand stars.  I found myself wondering how old he would have to be before he caught on.

While it is true Jesus calls us to be fishers of men, it is also true He is the one who fills the nets.  The disciples had fished all night and had caught nothing.  In the morning by the shore Jesus told them to put out the nets one more time. Instantly they filled with so many fish the boats were on the verge of sinking. Luke 5. Whenever we get to thinking we are really something stupendous,  it is good to remember being a child and always beating our fathers at marbles.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 16, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

In 2004 the State of Texas executed a man for setting a fire that killed his three small children.  The problem is he didn’t do it.  Very exacting scientific analysis has since shown that the small wood frame house did not burn from deliberate arson.   The accidental fire occurred early December 23, 1991 after the mother had gone to the Salvation Army to get Christmas presents for the children.  The father was so anguished he had to be handcuffed to keep him from rushing into the inferno to rescue his children as he screamed, “My babies are burning up.”

As I read the story I thought of another innocent man who was executed.  Our Jesus was cruelly and mercilessly mangled on a couple of wooden bars.  The only harm He had done was to threaten the privileges of the establishment. I want to say the wrong man was on that cross.  That was a cross for Barabbas.  He was the murdering criminal.   But it wasn’t the wrong man on the cross.  If Barabbas had been executed you and I would still be hopelessly lost.   We would most likely be trying to please God by our works, a hopeless task.

Because Jesus was sinless He was able to be our substitute.  Just as that particular cross was for Barabbas there should be one for you and me.  The Good News is because Jesus was there we don’t have to be there.  Because He was innocent, He was the right man.  Nothing else would have worked.

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  II Corinthians 5:21

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 2, 2009

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

roger.bothwell.org

 

Last night on the finale of “America’s Got Talent” an unemployed, singing, chicken catcher from Kentucky, who talks out of the side of his mouth and makes facial movements as if he had a chaw of tobacco, won the one million dollar prize.  His gift is not that he was the best singer; he wasn’t.  The lady who came in second is ready for the Met.  She is that good.  His gift was his ability to move us.  When he sings you just know it comes from the heart of his heart.  His ability to move people is one of the most valued gifts someone can possess.

I know a preacher who isn’t the world’s best Biblical scholar nor is he good looking.  He isn’t eloquent. His Hebrew and Greek are barely existent.  His off-the rack suit really doesn’t fit. He can’t sing.  He would most likely get whipped in any Biblical debate.  But when he starts talking about Jesus we want that same love experience.  He never scolds from the pulpit nor tells us how bad we are.  He just tells us how wonderful Jesus is.  That’s his power.  He moves me.

Nothing is more powerful than genuineness.  “What you see is what you get” trumps mere eloquence any day.  Sometimes we can fake it.  But if we are around people for any amount of time it isn’t long before the real us starts to show.  How grand it would be if we could grow to the place where we could be the most honest, the most caring, the person most like Jesus, just by doing what comes naturally.   Paul said it so well when he wrote, “Let this mind be in you that was in Jesus.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 18, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

Surely God laughs at and with us.  He made us in His image and laughter is a big part of the joy of living.  We had supper tonight with friends, one of which is an authority on the value of antique cars.  He expressed the truth that things only have value in the minds of the seller and buyer.  Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it and the sum for which someone is willing to let it go.  I looked at him and said, “That is also true regarding your value to God.  He paid for you with Jesus.  You must be worth a lot.”   Quick as a flash my friend responded, “He got taken!” After I stopped laughing I knew God also laughed.  And when He finished He instantaneously thought, “That’s the kind of guy I want in heaven, a guy who understands the value of Jesus and who cannot imagine himself being so valued.”

When we stop to think about the cross and redemption it is outrageous.  Who would trade their son for one of us?  Paul said it so clearly in Romans 5:10, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.”   It is no wonder Paul speaks of the foolishness of preaching.  The story we have to tell the world is preposterous. Who in their right mind could possibly believe the creator God of the universe traded his life on a horrible instrument of torture so one of us can take His place at the center of the universe in deepest heaven?

So was God “taken”?  He didn’t think so.  Love sometimes makes us do crazy things and this is a love story.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 4, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

Do you ever feel like grousing?  Every once in a while it feels good to complain about something.  Pollyanna can stay in the next room while we just vent. We don’t want anyone saying, “Now, now.”  Well, I am in one of those moods.  I looked at my Comcast cable bill.  There are 11 different charges, fees and taxes.  The one that really gripes me is the twenty-five cent monthly charge for the remote control.  Really now!  Maybe I ought to send them a rent bill for the space their remote takes up in my house. There now I have vented.

Now I want to say something nice about an organization that is usually the target for venters.   I want to commend the United States Post Office for forwarding to me a letter addressed to where we used to live.  It has been fifteen years since we lived at that old address.  Hooray for the Post Office.

Probably every day brings us something to “Hooray” about.  It’s just easier and seems more natural to focus on what didn’t go well.  We notice the one or two cars that pull out in front of us and don’t think about the two or three hundred cars that did not.  We complain about the traffic delays around road repair crews, but we also complain about the potholes.  Really we can’t have it both ways.  Life pretty much is what we choose it to be.  I used to think God was unfair for making us all suffer because of Adam and Eve.  But Paul reminds us that God is fair.  He proclaims us righteous by the death and righteousness of Jesus.  You can’t complain about that.   See Romans 5.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 11, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

After years of doing Sudoku puzzles I have finally, finally advanced to the level past “hard” to “evil.”   Now I realize that most of you are thinking, “Duh, why did it take you so long?  I did it in a week or a month at the most.”  All I can say is I am a slow learner.  I get comfortable at certain levels of understanding and thus grow stagnant.  The word “stagnant” has connotations of looking gross and smelling horrible.  But for me “stagnant” means being comfortable and not having to push my brain.  Recently though, I have noted a slowing of cognition and decided it is time to start pushing it. I am fighting back the mental ravages of time.  If I have to spend my last years in a nursing home, I want to be surrounded by books, computers and Wii games.

Memorization is an excellent tool.  When we were little we learned memory verses.  Then for most of us as we entered our teens it wasn’t cool, hip or fashionable to memorize poems and verses.  That was a tragic shame.  When I drive around New England Robert Frost’s poems come to mind.  It is wonderful to think, “Hush October morning mild.  Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; . . . Begin the hours of this day slow.”   I want to thank my high school English teacher for making me learn those words. I wish I had stored so much more when my brain was more facile.

Psalms 119:11 says, “Thy word have I hid in my heart.”  In a way the proliferation of books has made us lazy.  Why memorize when I can read it? Google is making my students mentally lazy.  Why learn it when I can “Google” it?  The answer is plain and simple.  Learning it makes us smarter!

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 19, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

One of life’s joys is eating with good friends.   This evening we experienced such a joy.  It was at an Italian restaurant and I was puzzled that I could not see any lasagna listed on the menu.  Carefully I read the menu three times and finally gave up and asked the girl who waited upon us.  You can imagine my chagrin when she said, “It’s under your thumb.”  Duh!!

Sometimes I hear new college students tell me the thing they like best about college is they are out from under their parent’s thumb.  They feel like they are adults and free to control their own lives.  I know I can remember the euphoria of those first few weeks at college.  It was great.  But of course I soon learned I was still under the thumb of my professors and the dorm dean.  After I bought my first home I realized I was under the thumb of the mortgage, the insurance, the lawn, the electric company and the fuel oil guys.  Is it possible to have any existence without being responsible to someone?  Probably not.

I am even under God’s thumb.  I know some people find that oppressive.  But that is only because they don’t understand God’s true nature.  I like being under His thumb. He provides us counsel and ways to avoid a host of oppressive problems.  If I take His counsel not to tell bad stories about others the fruit of gossiping does not come back to haunt me.  If I don’t murder others I most likely will not spend my final days on death row in a state institution.  Wow.  Talk about being under someone’s thumb!   I think the issue here is since we have to be under someone’s thumb, God’s thumb is the best.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 18, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

One of the side effects of scientific discovery is God’s reputation continues to improve.  Throughout the ages, much to Lucifer’s delight, God got blamed for every bad thing that happened.  He was blamed for plagues.  He was blamed for earthquakes and tornadoes.  These days we know that plagues and flu epidemics are caused by germs.  We can even trace them back to a pig sty in China.  Satellites now show us weather fronts colliding over the Midwest causing tornadoes as cold air collides with warm air.

Now if we can just stop blaming Him for personal tragedies.   We develop cancer for a multitude of reasons, many of which researchers are just now discovering.   Accidents happen because people drink and drive or text and drive.   Accidents occur because birds are sucked into airplane engines. Reputations are ruined either by stupidity or maliciousness.  The sum of all this is God is not at fault.

Ancient peoples used to commit atrocities on other nations and justify it by saying God was on their side or worse God told them to do it.  One of the reasons Jesus came to earth was to reveal to us the true character of His Father.  He said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”   If you can imagine Jesus ordering a tornado to destroy homes and families then you really need to read or reread the Gospel of John.    Jesus is a physical manifestation of God’s reality.  He is Emmanuel.  He is God with us.  He and the Father are one.  There is no dichotomy of personality or purpose. Each wants the same for you and me.  How grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 29, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

Last week after breaking my camera I replaced it with a good brand name camera.  I wanted to take great pictures on my fishing expedition.  Alas, good names can be deceiving.  The pictures were not as good as those my old camera took.  So today I returned it.  The return lady asked if it was broken.  “No,” I said, “I was disappointed with the quality.”  She nodded and returned my money.

As I walked away I wondered if God was disappointed with the quality of Adam and Eve.  Most likely not at first. They were perfect, but after the fall I wonder if He wanted to return them.  But to whom would He return them?  He was the manufacturer.  He couldn’t return them to Himself.  He already had them.  He could have given them away.  He could have said to Lucifer, “Well, now they are yours.”  But love would not allow that.  Immediately He put in motion a plan to improve them.  He would restore them to prime condition.  It was called the plan of salvation.  It was a very expensive fix.  It required from Him the ultimate price.

As I think about this you are very fortunate I was not God.  I would have trashed them and started over.  Then again love makes us do extreme things. God’s plan was so extreme surely Lucifer laughed and was sure it would never work.  That is why the Garden of Gethsemane and Calvary were so horrendous. Lucifer was sure if he only made it bad enough Jesus would give up on us. How wrong he was.  Love makes us do extreme things.  The cross is as extreme as any plan could get.   There was, is and never will be anything more horrific.

God has a no-return policy!

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 12, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org