Dear….
‘Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.’
1 Timothy 2:4
These few days, I have been bunking with my son in his room, not because the wife has sent me into exile, but rather a time of male bonding or more like an excuse for the wife and daughter to have their pajamas party. Sleep well, I always do, in fact, even more fitfully without the accompaniment of my wife’s favorite Korean serial. But last night, in the midst of my sleep, the Lord impressed upon me to write a letter to my son.
‘Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.For it is, do and do, do and do, rule and rule, rule and rule, a little here, a little there.'
Isaiah 28:9-10
Words at this juncture might not seem so comprehensible to young minds, but the Word of our Lord will, if He so wills. And may the depository of thoughts that the Lord has placed in my heart these past few years be truly more than a legacy, but the lamp upon which His light will shine upon hearts of my children, your children and their children, when God makes their heart ready.
‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.’
Amos 8:11
So without further ado, by the grace of God, may this letter I am about to pen as His Spirit leads, be used to bring forth the blossoming of faith and that desire in our sons and daughters to enter into a loving relationship with our Abba Father. My son might not read it now, but like the proverbial letter in the bottle, thrown into the sea, traversing miles of ocean it might, but at God’s timing, this letter will bob up to its intended recipient, for God is prescient.
Dear Andre
‘..Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. …..this do, and thou shalt live.’
Luke 10:26-28
Distractions there are aplenty. You just told me that mum and you have a deal, you will get your Apple Itouch in exchange for a mere few millimeter reduction in your heft.. Not a bad deal and I can see that glint in your eye to seek that less than holy grail from Apple Land. Is it not possible to have the same enthusiasm for our God in Heaven, whom a zillion Santa Claus in all probabilities are but a very, very pale shadow of His Sovereignty?
You made a rather profound statement(in good humor) just two nights back. You said you are not holy(though I still have that photo of you, at age 8, deep in prayers, that grace our church's monthly magazine), compared to your buddy who attends one of those mega prosperity type church. Is your seeming lack of fervency for God due to your seeing your dad’s less than active clamoring from God, for the material blessings of this present world, compared to what other fathers in and out of church are seeking? Would an Apple Ipad loaded with your favorite Archie comics do the trick compared to the daily ritual of making you spend that few minutes reading the Daily Bread and the Bible?
Come to think about it, maybe I should get an Ipad loaded with the Bible and all things Christian, might help improve the dowdy image of your dad, always with a Bible in hand, and we do have many Bibles interspersed all over the house, and mum will be pleased to have less clutter, not that she mind in the first place?
‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth…’
Ephesians 6:1-3
Not sure if dad and mum are always right, much as we always meant well for you, but Ephesians 1 can be pretty handy (though prayerfully not much abused by dad) in sorting out disputes with you, for God states quite categorically that you must obey your parent. But God never imposes, much as your imperfect dad is sometimes guilty of. God promises a blessed life of joy and peace for those who obey His command, dad more often than not promises a painful experience if you choose to continue to be stubborn and if there is acquiesce from you, satisfaction of your carnal desires. Do forgive your dad, try as I might, ,my carnal self often leads me to being a less than faithful steward of you for our Father in Heaven.
‘Give ye ear, and hear My voice, hearken, and hear My speech.’
Isaiah 28:23
'The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.'
Ephesians 1:18
Our faith is a relationship with a loving Father in Heaven. It is not about head knowledge. It is experiential which means it one must spend time with God directly and not from hearsay, no matter how eloquent the words or speech might be. We plant, but it is God Who will bring about the increase. And much as we cannot change the hearts of another, but we can allow God to transform us, and this is what dad has been desirous of faithfully doing, since the light of God’s Spirit fell upon my very being. In seeking to be like Christ, may your spirit see God in me, much as your natural might still be blinded till the veil is lifted by the grace of God.
‘O that my ways were steadfast in obeying Your decrees.’
Psalm 119:5
My son, you might have heard some brief snippets of your dad’s defining moment with God back in May 2001, that makes your dad tick the way he does today. A certain madness many might think, for dad is still very much in this world(and prayerfully still is when you finally read this letter), but no longer of or rather increasingly less of this world, despite all my imperfections. Psalm 119:5 was the verse that dad read in the stillness of my room in Bangkok at the Hyatt Erawan Hotel, a few moments after a truly exhilarating or more like edifying infilling of the Spirit of God upon my very being.
‘..no eye has seen, no ear had heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who loved Him but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit.’
1 Corinthians 2:9
Life has never been the same after that wonderful night in Bangkok.
‘That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness…’
Ephesians 4:22-24
In fact, with this move down the path that God has set for all who loved Him, a very different route from the sin strewn path that your believer but not follower ( of our Lord Jesus Christ )dad has been trudging along till then, it did get your dear mum quite worried when she realized that this was serious stuff, and not one of those moments of temporal passion.
‘As the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:
‘I didn’t come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. My message and my testimony were not with wise and persuasive, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. So that you faith might not rest on man’s wisdom. But on God’s power.’
Well, it has been nine wonderful years since our Heavenly Father in all His grace, took your earthy father in all in his imperfections into His presence. Dad is still learning, as God molds the wiling me. Dad will more than want to mold you the way that God wills, not the way that dad wants. But dad has come to realize that it is not just what I say, what I do or how I live that matters, but what matters more is that my life must not lead you away from wanting to come unto the presence of God.. And on that, my prayers are that by the time you read this Holy Spirit inspired letter with God given understanding, that truly, God is very much in your heart, for how wonderful it is, for God wants all of us, as a family in His kingdom.
'...our hands have handled,of the Word of life. For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us..'
1 John 1:1-2
And come to think about it, dad only wrote you this one letter, but God our Father in Heaven has written all of humanity a whole book of letters, the Bible His living word. But like the lonely bottle bobbing in the sea of distractions, most only take time to commune with God, to read "His letters" when they find their lives shipwrecked and their stranded soul thirsting in the lonely desert of their wretched lives.
‘Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.’
Philippians 1:6
God Blesses you my beloved son
Dad
(11th June 2010)
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