Author: Ian Bothwell

There is in central Connecticut an absolutely lovely little town that takes one’s breath away because of its quaint beauty.  The houses date back to the 1700’s and the lawns are expansive.  Giant trees shade the streets and the town square is out of a picture book.  There is an ice cream shop on one corner with an antique store close by.  A used bookstore filled with musty tomes beckons one to enter in search of treasure.  The village square has a bronze monument with the names of townsmen who gave their lives in wars dating clear back to the revolution against Great Britain.  An old canon sits on a concrete pedestal and is worn from the trousers of thousands of children who have sat astride its massive girth.

Inside the antique store are some of the most amazing prices!  Simple small nightstands, chairs and desks with thousand-dollar price tags.  And according to the proprietor, none of these pieces of furniture had been previously owned by some famous American like George Washington or Alexander Hamilton.  You don’t suppose this proprietor simply drove to Vermont, bought the items for twenty-five dollars and then brought them back to his up-scale Connecticut store?

But then God put a horrendous price tag on us.  In the eyes of the angels we must look like we are worth twenty-five dollars, if that.   But obviously God thought differently.  For you and me He spent His only son.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 28, 2000

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Three days ago a snail crossed the driveway.  His slime trail is still there.  It is just like some people we know.  Everywhere they go they leave a trail.  They are the kind of people that impact your life.  Sometimes for good and unfortunately sometimes the opposite.  Sometimes they leave a happy pleasantness, and sometimes they leave slime.

Now of course we are the kind of people that always leave happy pleasantness.  It would be impossible for people as loveable and likeable as we to do anything else.  After all, don’t we always have other’s interests before our own?  Are we not always careful to guard our tongues so we only say things that elevate others?  Are we not generous with our assets so others who have little have more because they have met us?  Are we not careful never to pass on gossip?  Of course that’s the way we are.

We are not leavers of slime.  We are better than that; are we not?  Even as Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica he would write to us, “Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 25, 2000

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Three days ago a snail crossed the driveway.  His slime trail is still there.  It is just like some people we know.  Everywhere they go they leave a trail.  They are the kind of people that impact your life.  Sometimes for good and unfortunately sometimes the opposite.  Sometimes they leave a happy pleasantness, and sometimes they leave slime.

Now of course we are the kind of people that always leave happy pleasantness.  It would be impossible for people as loveable and likeable as we to do anything else.  After all, don’t we always have other’s interests before our own?  Are we not always careful to guard our tongues so we only say things that elevate others?  Are we not generous with our assets so others who have little have more because they have met us?  Are we not careful never to pass on gossip?  Of course that’s the way we are.

We are not leavers of slime.  We are better than that; are we not?  Even as Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica he would write to us, “Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 25, 2000

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Robert Burns said it best.  “The best laid plans of mice and men aft go awry.”  It was two weeks until Christmas.  She had carefully put the charge for her husband’s Christmas present on a credit card they seldom used.  She ordered the present delivered to the neighbor’s house instead of her own.  There was no way he was even going to see a box and guess the contents before Christmas.  Then it happened.  The husband received a telephone call.  The voice on the other end said he was calling from the credit card company to check on possible fraudulent use of the card.  Had they made a credit card purchase at Adventures Unlimited on a specific date?  He said, “No.”  The wife was listening from the other room.  She had to tell her husband the charge was legitimate and he filled in the missing details.  She was in tears.  Her surprise was blown.

Giving nice things and surprising loved ones is such an enjoyable thing.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him….”

There it is—the promise of wonders we cannot imagine.  I cannot imagine our Lord’s keen disappointment if we do not allow Him the joy of giving them to us.  The process begins by our accepting His forgiveness.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 11,2017

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A watch battery is such a tiny little thing.  Yet it will power a timepiece with precision for two or three years.  In a two-year period it will push the second hand around and around 1,051,200 times.  If it lasts three years it will push it around 1,576,800 times.  How does that tiny battery contain all that power?

When we hold our Bibles what enormous power is in our hands!  Real power!  We hold the power to change human lives.  Our Bibles contain the ideas of God.  Nothing is more powerful than an idea.  Nothing is more powerful than idea from God. Ideas change the world.  God’s ideas change the universe.  And when we hold our Bibles, we hold those ideas in our hands.

The ideas of God render the ideas of man to kindergarten.  The ideas of God are the wisdom of the ages.  The ideas of God answer the great philosophical questions of mankind.  The ideas of God—not Plato or Nietzche–tell us who we are, why we are here and where we are going.

God’s ideas are the power unto salvation.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 4, 2000

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A Beamiliar hymn begin, “For the beauty of the earth,….”  Those words create a mental slide show of snow-capped mountains, flower filled meadows, pastel sunsets, rainy mornings and snowy evenings.  The beauty of the earth is all of the above, but it is also the mathematical precision of an atom, the double helix of DNA, the infinity of numbers, the curve of a normal distribution and the tenacity of life. 

Our heliocentric solar system with its balance of gravity and distance that enables us to safely fall in yearly cycles dazzles the mind.  Einstein’s theory of relativity, Feynman’s quantum physics and Sagan’s cosmos are layers of beauty unfolding a depth of artistry far beyond the hand of Michelangelo.

In Ecclesiastes 3:11 Solomon wrote, “He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  All this beauty that surrounds us is the handiwork of the creative artistry of our heavenly Father.  And He has created us to see, taste, feel, hear, and fathom this beauty.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 31, 2000

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According to the dictionary the word “compassion” means having a deep understanding of another’s suffering coupled with a desire to alleviate the suffering.  On seven different occasions Matthew and Mark describe Jesus as having compassion.

In Matthew 9:35-36 we read, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

In other New Testament passages Jesus showed compassion to particular persons.  But in Matthew 9 His compassion was expressed in general terms.  It is fairly easy to have compassion for a specific person.  When we see someone face to face and are confronted with his or her need it is normal to want to help.  But it is not normal to have compassion for the faceless crowd.  If you were told there were ten thousand hungry children in Uganda you would most likely reply, “That’s too bad” yet do nothing.  But if you were introduced to a real, starving child you would reach deep into your pocket to help.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 7, 2001

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The fallen hawk lay on the forest floor.  He had not been dead long.  He was still beautiful and noble.  Soon he would return to the dust of the forest to become part of a flower, tree or vine.  How high had he flown?  What vistas had he seen? What conquests over mice and rabbits nourished him?  Why was his piercing scream now silent?  Was it old age?  Had he lived his three score and ten?  Or had a hunter used him for target practice?

There in death his remains would provide the essentials of life for a host of other creatures.  His death would provide life.  Thankfully God will take the memory of our personhood and on resurrection morning put it in a brand new immortal frame and body.

Jesus, who not only proclaimed Himself to be the resurrection and the life but also proved it, promises us so much more than decades of limited walk.  Centuries and millenniums await us.  We too shall soar like hawks and eagles with nothing to bring us down.  Surely one of the most marvelous verses of all scripture is Isaiah 40:31, “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 14, 2000

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On occasion I hear people talking about how very sinful and rotten the world is becoming.  Since I took a ton of history classes for my undergrad degree I’m afraid I have to disagree.  The world has always been a rotten place.   People didn’t live in walled cities just because they liked the architecture.  It is true the 20th century was the bloodiest on record but that is because the population of the world had grown so there were more people to kill.   The rate of killing was the same as before.

I point this out not to defend the state of the world.  It’s bad.  And I don’t point this out because I want to paint a dismal picture.   I’m talking about this because I want to herald the glory of Romans 5 where Paul says, “. . . where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”   It’s a wonderful promise about the wonder of wonder-filled grace.  In the paraphrase of the New Testament, The Message, grace in this passage is called “aggressive forgiveness.”

I love the imagery that floods my brain.  I see Jesus, via the Holy Spirit, wooing us, chasing us, and almost begging us to accept His grace.  Like a lover hunting down his passion Jesus is in hot pursuit of sinners.   According to Paul, the more we sin, the more opportunity for Jesus to extend grace.  In chapter 6 Paul than asks the hypothetical question, “Should we then sin more so God can have more joy in forgiving us.”   Paul points out how nonsensical that is because when forgiven we live in a new state of delight and we would never want to go back.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 25, 2017

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I stood at my window and nostalgically watche my maple leaves fall one by one to the earth.  Is it our egocentrism that interprets everything in relationship to ourselves?  Is it that personal pain of realizing as each leaf gently sways to settle to the earth we too are past our prime?  The freshness of May, the fullness of August, the richness of September is a memory now.  It is time to bring in the hose and the lawn furniture.  It is time to change the screen door to glass.  It is time to plan for Thanksgiving dinner and hope everyone can come one more time to fill the house with the sounds of children’s laughter.

The morning sun filters through the yellow birch leaves and red maples casting a crimson glow on a man walking his dog down the street.  He is bundled and scarfed to fight off the bite of the crisp morning air.  Does he know he is being watched?  I doubt he knows he is part of a Norman Rockwell painting.  He will most likely return home to get out the rake and harvest his leaves.  If this were 1940 he would put a match to them and fill the neighborhood with the perfume of fall.  It is not 1940 and we shall have to be content with the scratching sound of his rake sliding across his walkway.

It is the week for children to dress up as ballerina dancers, pirates, big league ball players  and come to my door for candy.  I shall open the door and see a host of little people who would not understand what I have just said to you.  But they shall.  They shall.  For that is the progression of the seasons.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 25, 2003

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