She Dared to Take Him at His WORD

For years, I have heard stories of new Christian converts in Muslim communities being ostracized, persecuted, or harmed by their angry, "dishonored" family members. Right down the road from where I work, a young Muslim woman came to Christ, and is trying to keep it quiet from her family long enough to attend her brothers wedding. I can't imagine facing the hostile eyes of my father or the scorn of my mother - it would be awful. Bilquis Sheikh, a Pakistani woman, relates how she struggled with fear of her family as she wrestled with the decision to be baptized.

"Most of all I worried about my little grandson, Mahmud; what would happen to him! My heart caught at the thought of Mahmud's father. He was a very volatile man, who might easily try to take the boy from me if I became a Christian, therefore clearly demonstrating that I was unstable. [These] thoughts seared my heart. Suddenly, the realization of the pain I might inflict on others became too much for me and I stood up, crying. I threw a wrap around me and walked into the cold, winter garden, my refuge where, it seemed, I could think best.

"Oh Lord," I cried, as I paced the graveled path, "could You really want me to leave my family? Can a God of love want me to inflict pain on others?" And in the darkness of my despair, all I could hear were His words, the words which I had just read in Matthew:

Anyone who puts his love for father or mother above his love for me does not deserve to be mine, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me... (Matthew 10:37-38)

This Jesus did not compromise. He did not want any competition. His were hard, uncomfortable words, words I did not want to hear." - from I Dared to Call Him Father, by Bilquis Sheikh

In an era of missions and theology that too often bends and interprets the words of Christ in order to merely draw people into "dialogue" about love and peace divorced from a solid Biblical foundation, I found Bilquis' honesty about her fear and her honest confrontation with the words of Christ very encouraging. The mystery is that fellowship with Jesus and His Father is a priceless treasure; it is the essential component necessary in order to truly love your family. If they experience pain when you depart from old customs and practices, it is because they do not understand the magnitude of God's love in Christ Jesus, or the desperate severity of their sin.  Although they suffer, and you suffer, you must cling to Christ. He is compassionate, and He does not desire any to be apart from Him. And He listens when you intercede for them.