Author: rogerbothwell_kiywit

We have all heard the expression that a picture is worth a thousand words.  It is also true that a word is worth a thousand pictures.  Think the word flower and our brains can produce pictures of roses, glads, mums, daisies or whatever is our favorite.  Before there was television we sat around a radio big enough to be a piece of furniture.  In the evenings we heard words and our brains filled with magnificent pictures of Fibber McGee opening his closet and we saw tons of stuff cascading out into the room.   If someone says, “Hi ho, Silver” our minds see a beautiful white stallion rearing up on his back legs ridden by a man wearing a black mask.  (If you are old enough.)
 
Words are pictures of ideas.  If someone says the words that are our names, those who hear will each think of their unique idea of who we are.  Our children will think of mom or dad.  Our siblings will think of a brother or a sister.  Our friends will think of who knows what.  If I say the word, “Jesus” each of us instantly creates a picture filled with ideas we have formed regarding who and what Jesus is. 
 
What if when our name is mentioned others would think of Jesus?  Now that would be something special.  I once had a man tell me how disappointed he was to actually meet me.  He had listened to audio tapes of a series of sermons I had preached at a college.  He told me he had envisioned someone tall and handsome.  Well, sorry about that.  As Popeye once said, “I yam what I yam.”  But, maybe, just maybe, after people get to know us they will think of Jesus.  That would be grand.

 

 

I awoke this morning and moved to a rocking chair on a cabin porch in western Maine.  The rising sun must have been having a difficult time rousing because it was still wearing a blanket of mist rising off one of the world’s most beautiful lakes.   A loon was calling to the sun announcing it was time to shine. Ever so slowly the mist vanished as the sun lit up the rippled water with an exquisite spread of diamonds laid out at my feet.  Backlit pines laced the shore.  L. L. Bean should have been taking pictures for its next catalog.  Alas, though, it was missing a moose. It was quintessential Maine. 
 
Quintessential is a good word.  Every once in a while we need a five dollar word to replace a cheapie word like typical.  This wasn’t typical.  It was quintessential and if I had a better vocabulary I would use a ten dollar word to replace quintessential.  Maybe I should use the word archetypal.  That’s a seven dollar word.  But then again, I like the sound of quintessential.
 
I was thinking about how difficult it would be to be a quintessential Christian.  The word means the purest or most perfect example of something.  I have met some people along life’s journey who seemed to almost fit the description, but upon close observation, well, they just didn’t quite fit the bill.  That’s what is exciting about Jesus.  His life, His sacrifice and His love more than cover our feeble efforts.  “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”  Hebrews 4:15.  His perfection is our perfection.

This evening my wife and I were the only customers in a small sandwich shop when a mom, a little girl and her little brother came in to pick up a pizza.  The little guy said to his sister, “Let’s look for money.” They began to scour the place.  Well, when their backs were turned two single dollar bills floated to the floor.   Oh, such joy.  You would have thought it was Christmas. They weren’t the only ones happy.  My wife and I were feeling pretty good.
 
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  He went on to say, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” 
  
I grew up singing,
 
“There shall be showers of blessing:
This is the promise of love;
There shall be seasons refreshing,
Sent from the Savior above.”
 
I sometimes despair when I see our churches filled with little ones and very few teens.  I know that teens especially are seeking for happiness and success. So why do they stop looking in the very place where the treasure is?  Is it us big people who discourage them?   A life in Christ is a life filled with treasure.   I know that God is a great Father and is looking for opportunities to shower down blessings.  The problem isn’t with God.  The problem isn’t with the teens (though we sometimes here adults say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids.”).  Let’s pray for the gift of ears.  Let’s pray that our children will hear what they need to hear even if we aren’t smart enough to say what they need to hear.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting by myself in a McDonald’s in Times Square, New York City when I was approached by a man in a NYC fireman’s uniform.  He said, “Will you watch my bag for me while I get my food.  It’s heavy.”  Fire alarms went off in my head as I thought, “He wants to leave a large heavy bag with me in a crowded eating place in the middle of New York City!!”   “Sure,” I said as I very carefully watched to make sure he got in line and ordered and then waited to get his burger and fries.  If he left the building I was ready to dial 911 and yell for everyone to RUN.  He came back.  
 
As I walked outside into wall to wall people I thought how sad that we cannot freely help other without being careful.  But, it really has always been this way.  This isn’t new.  When we study history we see a continual stream of horror.  The world isn’t any worse than it has ever been.  History is a stream of genocides, wars, crimes and betrayals.  Often people will ask, “What is the world coming too?”   The answer is “It’s not coming to.  It is what it is and has been.”
 
What it has been is not all bad.  There has always been a stream of good, generous, unselfish, helpful people.  They are in every time, every place, every culture and every race.   Let’s live as joyously as we can and not dwell on the negative.  After all, we are children of the most High.  He wants us to live the abundant life.  Heaven starts now. See John 10:10.

On my way home from class this evening I saw an amazing sight.  It was a full drama that happened in an instant.  Just before a moth smashed into my windshield, a bat, like lightning, shot straight at me, snagged the moth and swooped up with the air current over the top of the car.  Phew.  It was over before I realized what I had just seen.
 
For one thing that poor moth was doomed.  Either I was going to smash it or better yet for the environment the bat got a meal.  It’s a dangerous world out there.  I instantly remembered I Peter 5:8.  “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”   Without the full armor of God (see Ephesians 6) we are as vulnerable as that moth.  Satan will get us one way or another.
 
Secondly I remembered I Corinthians 15:52, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”  How very exciting to realize just how quickly it will happen.  That is because God is so anxious to have us safe and whole again.  Right now He is coping with salvation, right vs. wrong, free will vs. God’s control, philosophical and theological issues.  But we can be sure the instant everything is resolved and the entire universe is safe from ever again being deceived, that twinkling of an eye will happen.  Suffering pains Him so.  Like any loving parent He will do everything possible to bring comfort to His children.  He will not linger.  It will be faster than a bat eating a moth.

I’m sure you have noticed by now that the common response to “Thank you” has become “No problem” instead of “You’re welcome.”  It’s an interesting morphing of language indicating that your request did not inconvenience me.  But sometimes it doesn’t work.  When I think about thanking God for my salvation I cannot imagine Him saying, “No problem.”  My sins are a problem.  Mankind’s sins have been, are, and will continue to be a HUGE problem.  It was so big the only solution was the death of the Creator Himself.  Death is the wage for sin.  But if we had had to pay the price for our sins and died then we would have ceased to be forever.  That was a huge problem for God because He loves us.  He made us to be His companions; if we paid for our sins God would eternally miss us.  The problem was immense.
 
The solution to God’s problem required a huge response.  Someone without sin had to pay the price so we could be resurrected. If the One dying thought He was paying the price of eternal death then justice would be accomplished.  Thus it was that Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”   There was a separation of contact.  The Father had to withdraw so Jesus could experience the price for sin – eternal death.  However, if He were sinless then death had no moral right to hold Him.
 
Talk about a problem.  This was huge. The Godhead figured out a solution for us and themselves and they did it.  “On a hill faraway stood an old rugged cross.”   So the next time you thank God for your salvation listen carefully and you will not hear “No problem” instead you will hear “You’re welcome.”

It was Friday before Labor Day 1948.  We went to Kresge’s Five and Dime. Tuesday I was going to first grade and I needed a pencil box.  Every scholar needed a pencil box.  We found one with a wooden ruler, an eraser, a little square pencil sharpener and of course, two (not one, but two) pencils. I was so proud because we also got a Roy Roger’s lunch bucket with a picture of Trigger on one side.
 
It was when we were headed for the cash register that I saw it.  I had never seen anything so wonderful.  At home I had a box of eight crayons but this beauty was beyond all dreams.  It had 48 crayons.  I could never have imagined there were so many different colors in all the world. This was the Holy Grail of coloring. If I could go to school with that box of crayons I would be the king of art.  (Today you can get a box with 150 colors.  What child could have known?)
 
All the “pleases” in the world were not enough.  My mom told me my box of eight was more than sufficient.  She assured me I would never use the other 40.  She was right because in all my years in elementary school I never did get a picture on the wall.  It was always a picture by some girl who could stay inside the lines.
 
When I was a pastor I used to beg God for the power to heal people.  I used lots of “pleases” in my prayers.  God was like my mother.  I guess He knew I would never use it properly and safely.  I would never have stayed inside the lines of propriety and humility and unselfishness.  I would have wanted my picture on the cover of Time magazine.

There’s a big shoe ad in the back of the current Popular Science magazine.  We are talking about really big shoes.  One can get size 20 EEE-EEEEEE.   That is really big.  I have never seen anyone with feet that big.  Do you remember the old adage about someone having big shoes to fill?

It made me think about the Gospel Commission found at the close of Matthew.  Jesus was tasking His disciples with the most important mission ever given.  This was bigger than Neil Armstrong’s NASA mission.  “One giant step for mankind.”  The mission the disciples had was so big it divided history into the before years and the after years.
 
At the beginning of the Gospel of John we find Jesus saying to Andrew and John, “Come and see.”  They had no idea what lay ahead.  Never could they have dreamed what they were about to see let alone then being challenged to walk in His shoes.
 
Here we are 2000 years later with communication tools they never dreamed possible.  When I am finished writing this devotional I will press the send key and people in Uganda and Australia will, in less than a second, be able to read this.  God is terrifically reasonable.  When He tasks us He also gives us the tools.  I grew up singing a great old hymn, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations that will turn their hearts to the right – a story of truth and sweetness – a story of peace and light. For the darkness will turn to the dawning and the dawning to noonday bright. And Christ’s great kingdom will come on earth a kingdom of love and light.”   I used to wonder how we could do that.  It was such big shoes.  Now I know. 

There is an amazing similarity between Whac-A-Mole and life in general.  Just when I think I have everything fixed in my house something breaks and needs attention.  Often my wife will point it out and I know I should fix it right away but subconsciously I put it off.  (This is not deliberate.  If it were it would be amazingly immature.)   The delay is so I am doing it because I want to do it and not because my wife told me to do it. I am told by psychologists this behavior is quite common.  It is a man-thing.   Then women think the man has forgotten and she asks again.  He thinks she is nagging and thus the job is pushed even further into the future. 
 
Let’s go back to Whac-A-Mole.  I digressed into a bit of pop-psychology.  This thinking that all is well and then another mole pops us is like trying to get my character where it should be.  I am so glad that we are not alone with this issue.  Paul speaks of it in Romans 7.  Just when he thought he had things under control, BAM, he saw something new that wasn’t Christ-like. “I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”
 
It is not easy.  The world continually squeezes us into its patterns of thought and behavior.  Our challenge is to keep whacking the mole and knocking this stuff down where it belongs.  Be of good cheer.  Paul assures us in I Corinthians 15 that someday we will win.  “This corruption will put on incorruption.”

Facebook has 1.71 billion users and it is only 12 years old.  It seems like it has been with us forever.  Mark Zuckerberg’s goal is to friend all of humanity.  I almost want to start singing “What a friend with have in Mark.”  I wonder if when in the shower he sings the song from Toy Story “You have a friend in me.” 
 
Friends are one of the most precious things on earth.  Your bank account can’t hug you when you are down.  Traditionally we close wedding ceremonies with the celebrant introducing the couple.  In recent years I have taken to adding after the “Mr. and Mrs.” introduction the following.  “And may they always be the best friends.” 
 
One of my favorite texts is when Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”  John 15:15.  Friends talk.  And yet real friends are comfortable not talking when silence feels good.  They know how the other is feeling without having to ask.  In a restaurant you can tell which couples are not married.  They are the ones talking.  The married ones are playing with their cell phones checking the weather or their email. (That’s not so good.)  But the point can be well made that just being together is wonderful because they are friends.
 
Even if Mr. Zuckerberg friends everyone in the world that will not make him the world’s best friend.  The best friend is and always shall be Jesus.  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  John 3:17