Christmas letter 2009 (just a bit late)

“Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness” (Psalm 29:2).

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Merry (belated) Christmas, Dear Friends & Family!

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How are you? As we’ve just begun the new year, I have already heard heart-breaking news from some of you of tragic turns of health & broken relationships. Some of you have shared news of over-brimming joy: the wonder of new life brought into the world & the regeneration of selfish dead souls into hearts of service.

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2009 was a year of both ups & downs for me. On my 35th birthday, I ran my 3rd marathon in record time (for me anyway), & then a few months later I raced in my first Olympic triathlon, both completed faster than my goal-times. My medical practice with LLU in my hometown of Highland, California thrives in service to young & old. Jadon, now 3 ½ years old, has grown immensely in his physical abilities & happy inquisitiveness, & is a little comedian in his own right.

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All of these things have been gracious gifts to me, impossible without God’s mercy & kindness in giving me health & the encouraging support of loved ones such as yourselves. (Thank you!)

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Last year had its challenges as well. While thankfully my job is secure, finances were tight at times, part of the ripple-effect of overspending for a house a few years earlier. Even more difficult were 2009’s painful upheavals in various relationships that at times left me feeling thoroughly disoriented, upheavals that were in part due to my own selfishness & shortsightedness. (For those to whom I’ve apologized, thank you for your patience with me.)

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As I look upon these hard issues, especially in the context of all the events of the year, I am compelled to note that the threads running through these “downs” are the same threads of God’s kindness & mercy which ran through the “ups” of the year: while I’ve had to scale back on personal expenses, I’ve yet had the mercy of being able to pay for the comfortable house which has also been a blessing to others who have come to visit & stay, & also support people & ministries in need. It is God’s kindness & mercy which have sustained me through lonely times – even when I least felt I wanted His kindness, & it is His kindness & mercy which have also opened my eyes to see where I have mistakenly trusted in myself or the ability of certain relationships to bring comfort or meaning to my life. To be frank, these issues continue to be a challenge for me.

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One of the ways God has kindly & mercifully opened my eyes to where my life has gone astray is one I hadn’t expected: Jadon. In spite of his sneaky disobedience & tightfisted tantrums at times in the past year, God has used him to teach me an important lesson. Ever since he learned to talk Jadon has expressed his inquisitiveness in his constantly asking “Why?,” & it is an eager curiosity I have encouraged. “Why does the balloon go up?” “Why can’t I have candy right now?” “Why did the field catch fire?” “Why did you burp Daddy?” He would ask so many questions every day that it made me wonder why the inquisitiveness characteristic of children his age ever ends. (Is it parental impatience telling them to “be quiet”? Is it unsatisfying answers like “Because I said so” or “Because that’s just the way it is”? Is it boredom… or laziness?) I began to ask myself: why is it that most of us – outside of theologians & scientists – stop asking these questions aloud with the sincere resolve of a toddler?

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As I would answer Jadon’s questions (& most often evoke more), I found myself going to God with the same questions so as to give Jadon the best answers I could find from God’s revelation in science & His word. As long as Jadon’s pursuit of “why” persisted & even if I didn’t have the most precise answers at hand, the string of questions would invariably conclude with the answers “for God’s glory… so everyone will know how GREAT He is… because He really is that GREAT!” Below is an example of one such conversation I recorded from before Jadon turned 3:

Jadon (as I was hanging up the phone): Daddy, who were you talking to?
Daddy: I was talking to the [hospital] operator.
Jadon: Why?
D: Daddy's on call, & I wanted to see if anyone tried to call me.
J: Why?
D: Daddy's pager's not working right.
J: Why?
D: The battery's running out.
J: Why?
D: There are no more electrons to travel to the other side.
J: Why?
D: That's all the charge the battery had.
J: Why?
D: There's only so much charge each battery can hold.
J: Why?
D: That's the way they designed it.
J: Why?
D: The engineers are smart.
J: Why?
D: God helped them to be smart.
J: Why?
D: For His glory… (Jadon chimes in here.) So everyone will know how GREAT He is!

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Now I don’t pretend to know everything (Jadon does see Daddy has to think & look things up), & I realize that in time God reveals more details of His wondrously intricate creation through continued scientific research (such as why electrons have a certain amount of charge or even why certain people like engineers are so intelligent), but even those new explanations just uncover how much more we yet don’t know, & how much the entire universe depends on God for its order & existence. As God’s child, I shouldn’t be surprised by this of course, for His word tells me “by [Jesus Christ, who is God,] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17; cf. Romans 1:35-36 & Hebrews 1:2-3).

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At times I too have had my own “why” questions, often asked with selfish apathy when I face hard things: “Why is this happening to me?” Too often I have stopped there without lifting my questions to the next level. But God’s kindness & mercy eventually prevail, & I’m reminded of my own heart’s desire for Jadon – for him to know he is deeply loved, & part of a kingdom which revolves around Someone far greater than he. God moves my heart also to ask the deeper “why” questions, & thus look up to the causes greater than myself: encouraging others in the truth, learning patience & love for others when life is hard, understanding the real destructiveness of sin, & becoming more like Christ in a very broken world… all to His eternal praise. God’s Spirit gently reminds me that hardships shouldn’t surprise me as a Christ follower (1 Peter 4:12-13), especially when the greatest good ever (the bringing in of God’s glorious kingdom) has been & is being accomplished through the worst hardship of all time (Christ’s bearing the full weight of our sin at the cross).

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Dear friends & family, I do hope you are well in all regards. I am so happy for your joys, & also grieve for your sorrows. But whatever ups or downs you face, my prayer for you in this new year is that you would join me in learning this lesson from Jadon & other kids his age: to keep asking the hard questions of life, to look to God for the answers, & to gratefully trust Him in His powerful, wise, & loving ways.

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To God’s Glory (Jadon says it “Glowy”),
Sid

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“And [Jesus] said: ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’” (Matthew 18:3).

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Looking for a good book? Not done with these yet but they've been good so far: Total Church by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis, War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles by Paul Tripp.