The Interrupted Life IV – A Costly Change by Eleanor Shepherd

         

He grew up in an orthodox Sikh home, where he was given some clear prescriptions for how life was to be lived. This was fine until he entered his teens and began to question a lot of things about his culture. Unfortunately, that culture did not welcome questions and he eventually became totally dissatisfied that he was not offered any apologetics for these prescriptions that he had been taught were essential.

            Tension arose within the family as he began to learn about other faiths believed and why they believed them as he was exposed to Islam and Buddhism. With a father who was a leader in the Sikh community, these outside ideas were not welcomed. 

            His friend group gradually expanded to include Christians also, and one day an Arab Palestinian gave him a copy of the New Testament to read, following a debate they had about their relative faiths. While reading this Christian document, he became fascinated by the accounts of Jesus Christ, but for him the stumbling block of this faith was the idea of His resurrection from the dead.

            His gradual rejection of his Sikh background was the consequence of being offered beliefs without any evidence to back up their validity. He did not feel that he could put his faith in a religion that he felt demanded intellectual suicide from him. 

            One of his friends who led a large Christian group connected with the high school told the kids in it that he was witnessing to someone from a Sikh background about his Christian faith. He discovered later on that several of these mission minded young people added his name to their prayer list. Some prayed for him daily, while others prayed at their weekly meeting for his salvation. 

            While dealing with his questions about the resurrection, our friend was exposed to the biblical evidence for its validity as presented by Josh McDowell in a moved called More than a Carpenter. The result was his decision to give his life to Christ. This brought about the greatest interruption in his life, up until that time. 

            His family knew nothing about the spiritual search that he had been pursuing. He had decided not to tell them because he was aware that there would be opposition from them to following this path. He wanted to wait until he was stronger in his faith, before he faced them with this change he had made in his life. 

            This was not to be. The lady from whom he was renting a room, while he was attending university in Hamilton, told his parents when they called that he was at church. She had no idea what turmoil this would unleash. The news caused both his parents to get on the telephone with him simultaneously, to try to take some sense into him. 

            Our friend knew that the time had come to take the bull by the horns and confess to them the story of his journey he had been taking and to tell that about the commitment that he had made to follow Jesus Christ. With the announcement of this conclusion, silence greeted him on the other end of the line. 

            Finally his father spoke and issued an ultimatum. “Either you stop going to church right now, or we are finished with you and will not support you to complete your university studies.” 

           

 Not willing to surrender to the pressure, our friend declared that he had made his decision and would not be walking away from it. Following his affirmation, they both hung up and our friend was subsequently excommunicated from his family.

            What was he to do? He was just beginning his second year of pre-medical studies at university and suddenly found himself cut off from his funding sources. He thought that somehow he would be able to manage. He was encouraged when he found a job in the lab of a professor and then another position as a security guard. 

            

           By the middle of the term, it was obvious that he was headed for disaster. It was too late to formally drop any of his courses and it was impossible to keep up with them all as well as work two jobs. The inevitable happened. He finished the semester with several failing grades and realized that he was going to have to withdraw from school for several months. 

            Eventually he successfully completed medical school and also did business studies that enabled him to do more than he ever imagined, but that all was part of the process unleashed by the interruption. You will learn more about it, in my book be called The Interrupted Life. Stay tuned.