Mixed Race Kids and Jesus

4 December 2022 (Part 2)

    I was born to parents of two different religious backgrounds and grew up learning many different belief systems from both sides of the family. Consequently, you can imagine this often muddled up my life philosophies and personal beliefs quite a bit. To confuse my readers even more, I spent my teenage years being a member of the Boys' Brigade (Uniformed Group very much rooted in Christianity) for extra-curricular activities. From childhood to even the adult years before being saved, my spirit felt like it was being forcefully stretched out by horses tied to me by rope and running in different (religious) directions.

Our whole lives, children that come from inter-faith marriages and relationships face, in a sense, twice the risk of persecution by family members and friends. 

    Families who are strongly united in religion tend to also be united in their views, including their stance on other religions, but my mother and father came from two completely different worlds/cultures that tend to have very polarising and different views on one member's "apostasy", or deviating and renouncing their way of life as dictated by their god(s).

    Many families and even countries in this day and age would even try to misrepresent this exit from their religion as blasphemy. They consider it perhaps the greatest sin to commit, a crime punishable by death in some parts of the world. Your family may even go so far as to hate you. At best, they may attempt to send you to religious schools or to speak to spiritual leaders in order to correct and rehabilitate you. They may isolate you and your branch of the family; your parents, siblings and future children.

    At worst, they will even actively attempt to do harm to you, sometimes with devastating impact on your lives. Some families have a strong enough bond that they will unconditionally love you no matter what faith you live your life by, respecting your freedom of conscience and religion. 

    I had not realised it until this trip, but God had blessed me with a family that fits this description. We may have our petty squabbles, and fights between siblings may get bad, but at the very end of the day, we stand by each other. For that, I offer our Lord all my love and praise. If it is within His will, may these loved ones join us in His spiritual kingdom and channel the Holy Spirit in blessing all who are around them. The apostle Paul and Silas, when they were imprisoned by the Romans, said it best to their jailer:

Acts 16:31 NLT

"They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household."" 

Acts 16:32-34 NLT

"And they shared the word of the Lord with him and with all who lived in his household. Even at that hour of the night, the jailer cared for them and washed their wounds. Then he and everyone in his household were immediately baptized. He brought them into his house and set a meal before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced because they all believed in God."

Becoming a First-Generation Christian

4 December 2022 (Part 1)

1 Corinthians 8:5-6 ESV

"For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist."

Exodus 20:12 NLT

“Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God is giving you."

    For as long as I can remember, I've been closest to my mother and maternal relatives. They are devout Buddhists, with my mother often chanting in sutras for hours and praying with her opened hands joined together (a Buddhist mudra). So you can imagine my hesitance to tell my mother, aunt, uncle and uncles-in-law of my recent decision to accept Jesus and convert to Christianity, back in October 2022. I harbour no shame in my heart for the God I love, praise and worship, yet declaring my faith so boldly in their faces had the potential to jeopardize my relationships with my family, something that has been near and dear to my heart for my whole life. They always will be, even as these relationships may be of the world.

    Yet, two nights ago on this vacation, my relatives casually revealed to me that they had known for months how I had been attending service in a church and integrating with a Christian community (thanks to my mother sharing of my adventures and whereabouts on the weekends). All of those weeks stressing out and formulating plans on how to tell them, and they nonchalantly drop this bomb on me, that they had known all along. Not necessarily that I had become a Christian, but at the very least that I was drawing closer to our God and was well on the path to living like one. In a hotel room, of all places. There was a World Cup 2022 match being broadcast on the huge TV in the midst of our nighttime conversations.

    They teased that they no longer knew whether I was a Buddhist, a Christian, or something else, given the whirlwind of religions I grew up in as a mixed child. They were snickering beneath every other comment made, as if to say they did not believe I was convicted enough to stay on this path and devote my life to serving the church, bringing gladness to our Heavenly Father's heart. However, at the very least, I sensed no animosity towards me for keeping these secrets, no judgement for deviating from the path followed by all the generations of our family that came before me. And that was strangely liberating.

     Perhaps some would admonish me for not being firmer in my beliefs, for holding on to my fear and allowing it to keep me from publicly declaring myself as a follower of Jesus. All I will say is that these are struggles only people born and raised in a traditional family in a multi-ethnic society like Singapore would be able to fully relate to, and that the social or even legal consequences of leaving your family's religion assigned to you from your youth are very real, particularly when traveling to other countries with official state religions. In spite of all of this, however, I will continue to seek God and hope to one day learn how to surrender these earthly fears of mine and indeed, lift my entire family into His hands, praying that they may one day know Him for themselves.

    Rather than focus on their skepticism and reacting in anger, I saw their passive acceptance and relaxed approach to the subject as a sign from our Saviour that, through this tiny chip in the armour of their hearts, the Holy Spirit would guide me in my good works and sharing the gospel with them, gradually opening those hearts, that they might one day receive Jesus. Only then will we be a family in perfect unity and union with Christ.