Author: rogerbothwell_kiywit

About a month ago someone told me they heard me say “…” about a year ago. I told them I had not said that.  This past week someone asked me what I preached about two weeks ago.  I could not remember.  If that is the case, and it is, then how would I know I had not said something a year ago?  The answer is what they said I said I do not believe and never have.  Therefore I know I didn’t say it.   This makes life amazingly simple. I’m sure you remember the adage, “If we practice to deceive, what a tangled web we weave.”  When you make up stuff you have to labor to remember what you said as to not contradict yourself and eventually get caught in the web of your own prevarications.  No such problem exists if you always say what you believe because while you will not remember what you said you will remember what you believe.
 
Now let me add this does not mean you should always say everything you believe.  Being kind and courteous means that you must in certain circumstances hold your tongue.  Only a fool says everything they believe.  Most often when we say someone “tells it like it is” means that person was rude, unkind.  When I read a letter of recommendation for someone I am careful to look for what was not said, which can be much more important than what was said.
 
It is fascinating that the ninth commandment says, “Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”  It does not say, “Thou shall not bear false witness for thy neighbor.”  Hence the Christians heroes who did not always tell the truth that they might save the lives of their Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust.

While listening to some old codgers sharing “Fish” stories, I was impressed by the number of times they used the word “was.”  I was a teacher.  I was a contractor.  I was a carpenter.  On and on they used the “was” word.  I didn’t hear many “will be”s.   Apparently their ambitions for things yet to come were quite limited.  I suddenly wanted to know about conversations in heaven.  Surely after we are a few thousand years old we will have a host of “was” stories.   We can lead off with “I was a sinner and Jesus saved me.”  That’s an amazing “was.”  We can follow up with a list of places we had visited. “I was on Planet Fantastic in the Gamma Group of galaxies.”   We will have lots of “I am”s.  I am an organist.  I am a chess champion.  Those can go on and on.  No need to use “was” since our brains will be excellent retainers of skills and information.  What is truly grand about this is all the “I will”s.  With an infinite amount of time always in front of us we can create a very ambitious list of “I will”s.  
 
One of the first “I will”s I have on my list is to attend the wedding feast of the Lamb mentioned in Revelation 19.  I’ve been to many weddings and have been to a lot of receptions but nothing I have ever seen will come close to, “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!  For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.  Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” Then the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’”
 
That is a great “I will.”

We don’t have a burning bush in our neighborhood but we do have a singing bush.  We have a large very thickly branched bush that even without foliage can provide shelter for birds.  A large family of sparrows has decided to winter inside its mass of large twigs.  One can walk past it and not see the birds inside, but they chatter up a cacophonous chorus.  I love it but I must admit sometimes I wish it were a burning bush. 
 
When Moses was eighty years old, when most people aren’t thinking so much about the future as remembering the past, suddenly while watching a bush burn he got a whole new set of marching orders.   His best and most incredible years were yet to come. 
 
Some people are fortunate in life and know right from the beginning what they are here for.  Others find their purpose later on and some very unfortunate souls never find it.  However, find it or not, every person has a heaven ordained plan for their part in God’s Kingdom.  In Ephesians 2 Paul speaks of God having something special for each of us.  Since we do not have burning bushes to tell us where to go and what to do when we get there, the secret of success is to surrender each morning with the prayer. “Today Lord, I am yours. Open your doors and shove me through and I will do my best for you.”  He will be so happy to guide and shove. The real joy is, although we might never realize what we were to do, one day He personally will tell us what it was and what we did and He will say those marvelous words, “Well done thou good and faithful servant.”

The weather app on my phone said it was 17 degrees with strong gusty winds from the northwest.  I must have been crazy thinking myself rugged and hardy.  So out the door we went, my dog and I.  The first half mile wasn’t bad at all.  The wind was at my back and my scarf had my neck and ears well protected.  Then I rounded two corners to head home.  Now the wind was fiercely in my face.  Oh what a difference one’s direction makes.  I should have known better.  A few years ago I was flying over the Tehachapi Mountains going north out of the Mohave Desert, when I looked down and I saw cars and semis were passing me.  Even though my airspeed indicator read 135mph I wasn’t going anywhere.  One’s direction is everything.
 
I have a friend who lives on an island west of Alaska where it snows sideways.  He, upon reading this, will think I am a wuss for even talking about what would be a pleasant afternoon stroll for him, but for me it was brutal getting home.  Even my dog picked up her pace. 
 
But one’s direction IS everything.  Sometimes our walk in life is a breeze with the wind at our back.  But other times life hits us fiercely in the face and honestly it threatens to be defeating.  It is then that the promise of Jesus means everything.  He said, “Lo, I am with you always even unto the end.”  We never have to make it on our own.  He will get us safely home.  He never said it wouldn’t be difficult.  He did say take up our cross and follow Him.  But as tough as it can get He is tougher.  Home is a promise.

I mentioned last week that we stopped at a Dollar Store and I bought a box of peanut brittle.  If it had cost more than a dollar I most likely would not have purchased it.  I hadn’t eaten peanut brittle in decades.  Since then I have been back to the Dollar Store three more times and have emptied their supply of that “I can’t stop eating this stuff.”  The mistake I make is eating the first tiny piece.  It throws a switch in my brain and I am drawn back like a moth to a candle.  I refuse to stop at the Dollar Store lest they get some more because I don’t want any more.
 
I grew up singing a marvelous hymn entitled, “Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah.”  It contains the words, “Bread of heaven feed me till I want no more.”  Is that even possible?”  There was a day mentioned in all four of the Gospels when the masses just would not go home.  They were listening to Jesus and they forgot to eat they were so enthralled.  Finally He fed bread and fish.  I’m sure it was the best they had ever had but it was nothing compared to the bread of heaven He had been feeding them all day long. 
 
I want some of that bread.  Can you imagine hearing words from the Creator Himself?  I know we have the Gospels.  But those are Matthew’s, Mark’s, Luke’s and John’s words.  And not even that.  Most of us read them translated.   Can you imagine the first Sabbath morning sermon in heaven?  Surely the Pastor will be Jesus.  He will not have to stop at noon or one or two or at all.  Bread of Heaven feed me till I want no more.  That will most likely be never!

It was a beautiful and disturbing sight.  There was a layer of snow decorating our patio and rhododendrons. Giant soft fluffy flakes were gently falling.  A gorgeous male cardinal was accenting the scene. One would have to be blind not to be stunned by him.  Then out of seeming nowhere a sharp shinned hawk swept across the patio about a foot off the ground.  It was an “aha moment” for me. I realized a great flaw in Darwin’s theory.   If there had been a snow bunting or some other less conspicuous bird it most likely would not have been dinner for the hawk unlike the bright red cardinal.
 
If the theory of adaptation for safety and survival was true cardinals would not be sitting in a blaze of glory in snow.   Like gold finches which change colors with the seasons most birds should be green in the summer and white and brown in the winter.  Evolutions say the red color scares off the predators.  This might be true if there were poisonous red birds but there are not. 
 
I am not denying micro adaptation.  The finches in the Galapagos are a prime example of limited adaptation.  But they are all finches and did not adapt into eagles.  Birds are an amazing gift to us from a loving Creator.  Not the end of a line from dinosaurs.  I realize some will think me ignorant for this.  However, I am open for a logical explanation as to why after thousands of years cardinals have not adapted by toning down. 
 
“In six days the Lord created heaven and earth and all that is in them.”  It is a bold declaration in the heart of the Ten Commandments given to Moses by the Creator Himself.

Well, it’s over.  The 1.6 billion dollar lottery has three winners. Millions of people, who bought a ticket, can now stop dreaming. (For now.)  For two dollars, less than the cost of a small (excuse me – Venti) Starbucks coffee, people had dreams and hopes.  It was less than renting a movie from your cable company, which only lasts two hours. Before you write to me explaining the evils of gambling, let me just say this.  For many millions it wasn’t gambling as much as it was the price of a few days of extravagant, over-the-top dreaming.  People thought about friends and relatives whose lives they would change.  They thought of helping the church or school down the street.  Oh, yes, I am romanticizing because there also were many greedy people thinking about themselves.  But I think the greedy were outweighed by those who really did think about the good things they would do.  (I like the Pollyanna view of life.)  It was a two dollar dream.  It wasn’t so much gambling as it was an investment in supposed happiness.  I said supposed because winning has the potential to be a disaster, as it has for other lottery winners.
 
When I tell people about Jesus many of them accept Him for some of the same reasons people buy a lottery ticket.  Jesus is the source of over-the-top dreaming.  To give Jesus my expiring life for a chance of receiving a life that will never run out is a better deal than two dollars for 1.6 billion.  “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” (Jim Elliot)   Usually it takes some time being with Jesus for people to realize they aren’t taking a chance.  With Jesus it is a sure thing.

It was so cute it was amazing.  She was a tiny Chinese Vanna White or better yet like the models on the Price Is Right.   We were at the grocery store and kept meeting this petite little girl and her mother because we were going in opposite directions from aisle to aisle – twelve aisles equaled twelve meetings.  Upon one of our meetings I stopped to watch her pick up a packet of Double Stuff Oreos. Holding it in one hand she gave the package the hand/wrist model wave over the package while explaining to her mother the wonders of Oreos.  How could her mother not buy it?  Nabisco should have had their cameras rolling.  We would see her night after night on our television screens.  She could sell millions of Oreos.
 
It would be awesome if all of us could sell Jesus to the world.  Instead of doing the model hand wave we could show off the great aspects of Jesus by the way we live and the way we treat others.  Nothing sells a product better than happy satisfied customers. I have never met anyone who wanted to live a crummy life.  However, people mess up because they don’t know any better or do know and yet they still make bad choices.  Either way the result is a subpar life.  Jesus wants all of us to live the abundant life.  Barring the random bad things that do happen to good people the quality of our lives can be vastly improved by living a Christ-like life with the help of the Holy Spirit. 
 
All of us who call ourselves Christians are salespersons (witnesses) for Jesus.  How I wish we were all super salespersons. Our product is so much better than Double Stuff Oreos and that is saying something.

We do not hear with our ears anymore than we see with our eyes.  Our ears and eyes are receptors that transmit received signals to our brains.  Our brains then interpret and configure those signals into sounds or pictures.  Now comes the scary part.  Each of us has a unique brain.  The result is none of us see and hear what another sees and hears. The stimuli received are filtered through past experiences, education, repeated exposure and associate with others who influence us. This could be one of the reasons some things are beautiful to one person and not to another.  Most people think their mother is beautiful.  It has little or nothing to do with her cheekbones and smile.  Mom is filtered through love for all the care received when we were young and helpless.
 
I really enjoy Chopin piano concertos.  In reality they are rather bangy.  However when I was little my father, who for a time was an elementary school principal, would bring home a projector and we would watch movies of someone playing Chopin concertos on our living room wall.  It is also why I enjoy the smell of cigars. Both Chopin and the aroma of a Philly El Producto are all about memories of my father.
 
In Revelation 19 we find what can be some very scary descriptions of Jesus.  One of them is, “He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.  Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations.”  For millions that will be horrible.  But for those of us who love Him it will be beautiful.

So I made the offhand comment that Eve picked and ate a mango and sin began.   I immediately came under siege. A woman pounced on me with all the weight of tradition.  Didn’t I know it was an apple?  I couldn’t resist.  I asked her if it was a Golden Delicious or a Yellow Granny.  I backed off as I saw the ire rise in her eyes.
 
It is fascinating how strongly we will defend what we really don’t know but believe we know.  Traditions are the fabric of our lives.  They form the basis for our personal identity and a foundation for our faith. As Tevye, the protagonist in Fiddler on the Roof, sang, “Because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do.”  When we jar someone’s traditional beliefs we jar the core of their identity.  Didn’t I know it was an apple?  She was not concerned about the apple vs. mango vs. avocado.  She was concerned about who she was?   If the apple wasn’t correct then the story of Adam and Eve wasn’t correct and if it wasn’t correct than the Bible wasn’t correct and if the Bible wasn’t correct than she wasn’t going to live forever.  No sir. It was an apple!
 
But, I understood that and should not have continued the taunt with the Yellow Granny remark.  Jesus would not have done that.  Controlling one’s tongue and the fun of twisting something in just a little bit deeper is so difficult to resist.  James, Jesus’ brother, said it so well.  “But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”  Alas.  How thankful we are that forgiveness is a request away.