My Dear Rajan,

Love and greetings from your Daddy!

Today your mother reminded me that very soon you will be completing sixteen years of your life. Also, very soon you will leave your school to enter college. This reminds me that I have many things to tell you.

Unlike many of your companions, you are an obedient boy and your parents, elders and teachers take pride in it. You faithfully remain inside the boundaries that we have set for you, but due to your inquisitive nature you often wonder why we have imposed such restrictions. In one phrase the answer is: “Because we love you”. But you will say this answer is incomplete because it does not explain how love can result in restrictions. I will surely answer this question, but before I can do that, I have to answer another of your questions.

You have many times asked me why I have kept emphasizing the practice of “honesty” in life. I started with very simple answers at first, but made them more advanced year after year. Now that you are quite mature for your age. I will give you a more complete answer.

Honesty in life means much more than only speaking what is truth. It involves an unbiased and objective look at all the problems of life and then to try to approach them in the proper way. This is a very difficult matter because our Old Sin Nature distorts the whole picture of life that is placed before us. This nature keeps pressing you to solve the problems in your own way. But if you are honest to yourself, you will realise that though such a distorted picture seems more attractive to your eyes, the ultimate result will be the destruction of your life.

You accepted the Lord Jesus as your Saviour when you were only six years old, and since then you have taken the Bible very seriously. Yet there have been moments in your life when you were so much involved with your friends and your extracurricular activities that you were left with no time at all for the Bible. Not that you disrespected the Bible, but that you had so many engagements during the whole day that you were left with no time or energy for your spiritual life. These activities gave you a lot of pleasure and satisfaction; your talent in singing also boosted your ego very much. But an honest evaluation of your life of those days will show you that though you were able to gain a lot of happiness and appreciation, it was at a tragic cost: you lost your spiritual enthusiasm and growth. Which of the above two is going to last forever: your friends’ appreciation or your spiritual happiness?

Our spiritual growth and our fruits of the spirit will last with us for an eternity, but it is not so with the cheers and recognition that you gained from your music club. You don’t have to cut yourself completely off from the world; rather, you should decide your priorities. The first priority should be given to your spiritual growth. It will be better to forgo many of your social engagements in favour of your quiet time, in comparison to giving only the leftovers of your time to the Lord.

In essence, you must be honest to yourself, to God, and to your family. This means that you should see the whole of your life in the proper perspective. You can attain such a balance only if you take in God’s word daily, so that you might develop proper standards to evaluate life. In the light of these values that you develop from the Bible, you must give priority to what are the important things of life, and leave the non-essentials to take care of themselves. In this way you will have a balanced Christian life.

Now let me come back to your original question: why we had put a number of restrictions on you. I had said that these were due to our love for you. Now let me explain that.

You surely know that we love you. But you cannot understand this love from a parent’s point of view. One day, when you will become a parent, you will understand that a parent’s love for his children knows no limits. You will love your child more than anything else in the world. Your constant desire would be to protect him from all evil.

We have precisely the same love for you. We wanted, and still want, to protect you from all types of evil, as much as we can. But on the other hand, you knew nothing about these evils of the world. These evils were all around you, constantly approaching you in forms which were very much appealing to your old Nature. But since at that age you did not have the maturity to understand the difference between the good and the bad, we had to protect you till you developed this capability to a good extent.

Developing an ability to distinguish between the good and the bad depends upon your spiritual growth. Once you start growing, you will not only distinguish between these things but you will also evaluate their consequences honestly. Once you are honest to yourself and to God, you will start escaping from the web of deception spread by the evil in the world.

Therefore, we placed these restrictions on you so that your life might be protected from evil till you yourself were mature enough to judge the matters with proper balance. This was an expression not only of our love, but also of our God-given duty towards you.

That much should be enough for this letter. Next time I will be more specific about the basis and reasons for some of the specific restrictions. Keep growing in your spiritual life. May God bless you.

Yours loving Daddy and Mummy

TOM AND ANN.

Dr. Johnson C. Philip had done his doctorate work both in Physics as well as in theology and lives with his wife Santha in Gwalior. They are missionary-Pastor with the Brethren Assembly. They have two kids Anand & Asha.

The new Series “Dear Rajan” will continue in the following issues of FF. You are asked to write your comments & questions to the Editor.