I remember very clearly the exact moment I revealed to my family that I had become a Christian and that I wanted to be a pastor.  It is burned into my memory.  It was a moment of deep and lasting humiliation.

I had hidden my faith committment from my family for 6 months.  That wasn’t hard due to the fact that I lived away from home in a boarding school in the country.

The occasion was a family Boxing Day dinner, at which my Scottish Aunt, Aunty Bell, was the honoured guest.  Aunty Bell had a paralysed arm, and her husband had lived with shrapnel in his leg since the War.

Aunty Bell knew I was approaching my last year of school and she enquired about which career I envisaged heading towards.  This was my moment.  I couldn’t lie, because I already felt a strong sense of call to serve God.  My parents had already locked in a career for me.  I was to be a forester.  In retrospect that would have been an absolute disaster, as I am a people person.  Just me and a couple of million pine trees would not have made a good mix.

The word sat on the end of my tongue, and the delay in saying it drew more attention to the answer than I wanted.  “Pastor”, I blurted.  Aunty Bell fixed a venomous stare at me, my step-father’s fork made a loud clink as it feel to the plate from his loosed by shock grasp.  My mother gasped.  and then came the pronouncement from Aunty Bell.  “I’ll gie yer six months in the arrrrmy boy, and y’ull be cussin’ ‘n cursin’ like a sailor!”, she spat in heavy Dunfermline drawl.

The inquisition began from my parents and suffice to say the dinner was ruined.

Since that time I have come to accept that my faith commitment is a cause of suspicion, avoidance and division in my family.  I contributed towards that in my early years with at times misguided zeal, but I have spent at least the last 20 years living out my faith towards my family with the greatest of sensitivity.

I am preparing to go back into the bosom of my family next week as I travel back to Africa.  It is something that I need to prepare myself for carefully.  I like to go into these situations with heightened degree of sensitivity and awareness to the perceptions and expectations of my family.  I swear they half expect me to Bible bash them each time, although they have no precedent for fearing that.

I have chosen over the past 20 years to ensure that any witnessing I do is not with my mouth, but rather through my life and that of our family.  It is a painstaking process, and you are never quite sure of whether or not you have contributed to a better disposition towards the things of God in your family, or further pushed them away.

Those who have families similarly disposed against their faith commitment will know what I’m talking about. The Scripture in Luke is stark:

Luke 12:51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

I’d be interested to know your experiences and how you handle yourself in the face of your families opposition to your faith.