The difficulty of witnessing to family

I honestly think that sometimes witnessing to family is more difficult than witnessing to any other person on the planet. The familiarity we have with family often leads us to make assumptions that may or may not be true. Sometimes they have made it clear that they don't want to hear our preaching and teaching, others they just live so crudely that you feel any witnessing to them would be fruitless and useless. But we should realize that our family should be the one group that we want to witness to the most.

Today I spoke with my father about my ministry. Broaching the subject was very difficult, because it seemed that everytime I wanted to discuss it he would begin to curse or talk about something totally inappropriate. I felt as if with his behavior that if I brought up my ministry it would just bring on a tirade of insults or belittleling. I finally brought up the subject and he was totally cool about it. I learned that no matter what the situation we have to have the courage to trust God to take care of the testimony.

As I reflect on this occurrence and think about what this day means it made me realize something. Christ could have assumed that we wouldn't have accepted him. He could have said it wasn't worth his time. But instead he came and he shared in love. I think that is what we have to do. Simply come and share in love. People can be a lot more receptive than we think, and our assumptions can severly lead us astray. The world is searching for something and we should share with them the only thing that can satisfy them.

The resurrection showed us that Jesus is all powerful and trustworthy, so we need to rely on him and allow him to work through us. When we speak to our family we need to think about how these are the most important people in our lives. If we truly love them then we should want them to have an eternity filled with light, love, and Christ. When we allow our preconceived notions to deter us from sharing than we are helping to condemn them to hell and suffering. I can't stand the thought of allowing my family to suffer knowing I didn't even give them the opportunity to hear about Jesus. Today I learned to have faith and courage, and God will guide our words and their actions.