Author: Ian Bothwell

There is a tiny (really tiny) ant on my white kitchen countertop. What should I do? Should I leave it alone?  If I don’t call it an it but instead call it a he or a she I am beginning to personalize her which colors what I will do.  Should I get her to walk onto a piece of paper and then carry her outside?  Should I give her a name?  Naming will begin to anthropomorphize her and I will begin a relationship with Sally.  Sally is very tiny.  She will not harm anything in my kitchen.  I don’t know of any diseases transferred to people from ants.  But the issue is Sally, if left alone, will not stay alone.  Soon there will be Albert and then Trina and Tommy.

My kitchen counter is a nice place for Sally.  There is an occasional bread crumb, piece of cereal, or drop of jam to provide a feast for a family of ants.  But I am god.  I can determine Sally’s fate.  I know she has some kind of thoughts because she shows fear.  She flees when I place my finger in her path.  How much does she think and feel? How precious is Sally’s life in the grand scheme of the universe?

How precious are our lives in the grand scheme of eternity?  We are not its.  We have names and there is a plan for us.  Or are we victims of my self aggrandizement?  Paul did write, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”   So we are more than ants!  We are His sons and daughters – princes and princesses of the universe.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 11, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

It’s been a bit dry in New England.  Our city has asked us to only water our lawns and gardens every other day.  But today one of our neighboring cities has banned any lawn and garden watering.  So the question is how do you know when someone is cheating?  Someone could go out at 1:00 AM and no one would catch them.  But it wouldn’t take long before everyone would know. By their green ye shall know them.  I am reminded of the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70.  If someone wasn’t losing weight like all their neighbors everyone knew where the missing neighbors had gone!  Children were advised to stay away from anyone who wasn’t gaunt and skinny.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”   But is that always true?  Do we sometimes prejudge people based on traditional stereotypes?  This afternoon on my way into our local mall I passed a guy well tatted with a heavy metal chain around his neck.  He had hardware hanging from his ears and was smoking a doobie. Did I make some quick assumptions?  Yeah, I did.  Could I have been wrong?  Absolutely yes.  While I doubt that he was a brain surgeon, he could have been a university professor!   Note I said, “could have been.”

Sunday afternoon we sat near a mom and dad with four well groomed, nicely dressed teens.  In the dictionary under the word “wholesome” they should have this family’s picture.  I assumed they just came from church.  Could dad have been a yegg?  Yeah, he could.  But I truly doubt it.  Jesus knew what He was saying.  We send all manner of messages to people without opening our mouths.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 12, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

I had lunch today with a friend who was enjoying a bottle of Nestles chocolate milk.  I was drinking vitamin water with zero calories.  When I mentioned his calorie intake he happily announced to me that he was following doctor’s orders.  As a matter of fact his doctor had prescribed chocolate malts to help him gain some weight.  You have to love a doctor like that.  I’m thinking about changing doctors because one has an obligation to follow doctor’s orders.

Often we call Jesus the Great Physician.   That He truly was.  At the end of the Gospel of John we are told Jesus helped so many people the world couldn’t hold the books that could be written.  He was a great diagnostician.  Just think about some of His prescriptions.   He told a woman to go and sin no more.  He told the rich young ruler to sell all his possessions and give away the proceeds.  He told a paralyzed man to take up his bed and walk.  He told wedding guests to fill some water jars to the brim.  He told a man to go and wash some mud off his eyes.  He told Mary and Martha to roll away a large stone from their brother’s tomb.  He told his disciples to pass out the loaves and fishes from a little boy’s lunch.

So what does Jesus prescribe for us?   He said to us, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” “Take up your cross and follow me.”  “Let your light shine before others.” “Do not swear.  Let your yeses be yes and your nos be no.”  “Forgive others as you would have God forgive you.”  These are prescriptions from the Master Physician.  These are much better than chocolate malts.  These are prescriptions for eternal happiness.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 2, 2016

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

Something caught my eye today while reading I Kings.  In chapter 7 we find the specs for the construction of Solomon’s magnificent temple.  When we get to verses 23 ff. we find the details for the giant laver in the courtyard.  Verse 23 reads as follows, “He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.”  Obviously the writer of Kings (We are not sure who that was.) wasn’t a mathematician or was into rounding off numbers.  I am not a mathematician so if I am wrong on this will a real mathematician please correct me.  If the laver was a perfect circle and I am sure it was, then the laver was either 31.4 cubits around and 10 cubits across or it was 30 cubits around and 9.55414  cubits across not 10.

Before someone gets sweaty about the Bible not being perfectly accurate please let me point out the function of Scripture.  It is not and was not intended to be a scientific or mathematical record of God’s dealings with His people.  The Books of I and II Kings and other books were historical records of God’s interactions with Israel.  In them we find stories of His guiding and often His frustration with humans.   In II Timothy 3 Paul said this about Scripture.  “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

The Bible is all about Jesus and grace and redemption and love and forgiveness and character building and nobility and hope and unselfishness.  It was never intended to be a math or science book.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 12, 2015

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

One of the great things about summer is melons.   It is true; melons are shipped to our grocery stores all winter.  However, those just don’t taste good probably because they are picked while they are green in order to ship them to market.  Homegrown melons just taste so much better.  Maybe it’s the time of the year.  Who wants to eat watermelon for Christmas?  But on a hot summer day it is marvelous.

Some people like to put salt on their melons.  Others like their cantaloupe with a scoop of ice cream filling the hole in the middle.  Do you remember when stores would plug a watermelon for you, and if you did not like the taste they just threw away that melon and let you plug another?  Wow, just try that today!  Others pick out cantaloupes by smelling the stem end.

According to the book of Numbers one of the foods the children of Israel missed after they left Egypt was melons.  The wilderness where they wandered about for forty years was a pretty hot place and melons would have been great.  However, they did get manna every morning.  But even the best food in the world gets a bit boring when you have it every single day.  God has been so good to us.  He has filled the earth with a huge variety of good things.  What a gracious wonderful God!

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 27, 2000

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

In the beginning of the twentieth century one in every four trees on the Appalachian Mountains was an American Chestnut tree.  Historical records in Leominster, Massachusetts record seeing the mountain range in Leominster being white in the springtime when the chestnut trees were in bloom.  Today there are only young chestnut trees which grow to about five feet and then they die from the blight that wiped out literally billions of trees in the first half of the twentieth century.  There is one mature left in New Hampshire and small groves in Michigan, Wisconsin and California.

This afternoon during a walk in the forest I stopped by one of the five footers, soon to die, and rued its coming death.  It will never reach its potential.  It is like us.  Man was created with endless potential and then the blight came.  Now we get only so smart and then we die.  In this life we never will reach what we could be.  God needs to use the old army recruiting slogan “Be all that you can be” as an appeal to accept the gift of Jesus’ grace.  It is only by living forever that we will be all that we can be. But wait, if we live forever and continue to develop forever then we will never be all that we can be, because tomorrow will bring new opportunities and new experiences.

Is there something you wish you could do?  Have you ever longed to play the piano, organ or some other instrument and never had the time to learn?   What about golf?  Sure you will slice and hook in heaven.  It isn’t a sin.

Accept the gift.  Be all you can be.

Written by Roger Bothwell ono August 10, 2015

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

I have a set of books called “Harvard Classics – The Five Foot Shelf of Books.”   It is a collection of the greatest literature of the world.  It comes with a daily reading guide that suggests reading selections for the day.   I have all 51 books but my volume #7 does not match the set.  My set is blue and my volume #7 is brown.   Am I being anal because this bothers me?  On Amazon.com I can get a matching #7 for a very reasonable price of less than ten dollars including shipping.  My problem is why?  I already have #7.  The only reason I would purchase this is because of some mental quirk.  When I look at the set it is not perfect. This is ridiculous.  I need to see a shrink.

However, there is much to be said in favor of perfection.  In Hebrews 2 Paul tells us that because Jesus was perfect He is now able to be our high priest and save us by His grace. “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

I have known sincere, serious Christians who have been miserable because they were trying so hard to be perfect because they believed it was the only way to be saved.  However, the Gospel is very clear about our salvation.  It is a gift.  Accept it and live and then together with the Holy Spirit’s help, out of gratitude, strive to be like Jesus.  Enjoy the teamwork.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 6, 2015

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

I am a believer in secondhand cars and houses.  Let someone else take the depreciation on the car and let someone else plant the grass and the shrubbery.  I am even wearing a secondhand shirt.  I have even performed marriages for couples who are getting a secondhand wife and a secondhand husband.  There is much to be said for experience and learning not to repeat certain mistakes.

There is one thing I am not high on.  That is secondhand spiritual experiences.  It doesn’t work to be a fan or devotee to another person’s experience.  I have heard people say, “If Pastor Soandso says it.  It has to be true.”   I’m sure Pastor Soandso is a good woman or man and what she or he said works for them.  But what is important is for each of us to build our own relationship with God and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into understanding.  First and foremost, we should be followers of Jesus and not another human.  The only way this can happen is spending the time necessary to build that relationship with God.

Reading the Bible for oneself, praying over a passage, opening up one’s thought processes to new ideas is the way to make this occur.  Find what works for you.  It could be reading an entire book of the Bible through at one sitting.  It could be reading each day until a verse speaks to you.  That might result in reading chapters or maybe reading just one verse.  When you find that verse stop reading.  Make it your marching orders for the day.  Write it on a card and come back to it several times.  The result is you and God will develop a fresh one-on-one experience.  It is yours.  It is not secondhand.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 5, 3015

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

This past weekend I was searching for a particular book.  I was very sure it was on my desk.  I looked and looked to no avail.  Finally I gave up and found another copy in the basement.  What is disturbing about this is I just now looked up at the shelf above my computer screen and there’s the book!  My wife did not take it and put it back.  No one else has been here.  This is pathetic.  I used to think old people’s senses eroded very slowly.  So why are mine slaloming?

Here are some other things that are leaving me.  People’s names – I am not talking about someone I met ten years ago and haven’t seen since.  I’m thinking about, what’s his name, with whom I graduated from high school.  Directions – I come to an intersection and don’t have a clue if Dunkin Donuts is to my right or left.  (Actually this is New England.  There is most likely one both to the right and one to the left.) Birthdays – well to be honest I never learned them in the first place.  Parking – I am so thankful for the panic button on the key.  It works.  The Minor Prophets in the Old Testament – I have to sing the song I learned in kindergarten to know where Obadiah is.

I know that God will restore me someday.  But in the meantime I seriously wonder about His sense of humor.  Does He chuckle just a bit at us once upon a time never-forgetters?   If He does it is in total love as He thinks of the brains He will someday give us.

We are going to a retirement party this evening for – I can’t remember who – just so the food is good.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 11, 2013

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

I got really irritated with my credit union.  They started to nickel and dime me.   I have been with them for over twenty years and have never had an overdraft.  I didn’t this time.  It was just some silly fee they charged me.  It was nothing much but it was the idea of the thing.  So I went all ready to vent.  However, when I arrived there were a couple of what looked like teenagers as tellers and someone behind a desk who looked fairly unimportant from the way he was dressed.  I realized venting to any of these people would have been quite useless.  They didn’t do the crime and they had no authority.  So I held my tongue and very nicely and politely closed the account.  As I left I wondered how often we say things to make ourselves feel better and then regret the nastiness after we leave.  So I left not feeling bad.  I never said anything nasty.

James, Jesus’ brother, wrote in chapter 3 of his small epistle, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.  Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.”   It is such good counsel.  I will sleep well tonight with no regrets.  Truthfully I have never been let down if I follow God’s counsel.  The only times life gets confused is when I forget to do or say what I know is God’s will.

So here comes the moral of the story, which you are bright enough to have already figured out; so I will not insult you by now detailing it.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 18, 2013

PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org