HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 10, 2026 – In the worldly church, much is made of the ideal “holy family” of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. But the truth is that during his ministry years, Jesus didn’t get along very well with his family. They were estranged and at odds with him, refusing to believe that he was the Messiah. They even at one point tried to stop his ministry, prompting Jesus to declare publicly that his real family was “those who do the will of [his] Father in Heaven”.

Scripture says that God will take us “one of a city” and “two of a family” – not whole cities and not whole families, but only a select few (or less) from each. This, too, is at odds with worldly church propaganda, which falsely promotes the assured heavenly destination of even the shakiest of believers. What we can see from the Gospel narrative is that the holy family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph existed for brief moments in time, not constantly throughout their years as a family unit. Mary and some of Jesus’ other blood relatives didn’t even accept Jesus was the Messiah until after his crucifixion.

I mention all this because we too, as born-again believers, likely have unbelieving families. It’s baked into scripture and therefore into our lived reality. If Jesus went through the experience of being the sole believer in his family, so will we. It’s nothing to fight and nothing to lament.

Still, living among and socializing with spiritually hostile blood relatives can be a trial in the truest sense of the word. It’s meant to be a trial and we’re expected to handle it properly. By “properly”, I mean like Jesus handled it. And how did he handle it? By limiting his interactions with his unbelieving relatives. By refusing to compromise who and what he was in God’s eyes. By putting his duty to God ahead of his duty to his blood relatives. By prioritizing doing God’s will and God’s will only.

It can be a minefield to tread among unbelieving relatives, especially when some of them are actively working against you. When Jesus said that we’ll find our worst enemies among our own kith and kin, and he wasn’t overstating or being dramatic. God will permit Satan to use these people to test us, because where more frequently do we “let our hair down” and just be ourselves than among those we grew up with? It’s in these familiar and intimate settings that God wants to see how we respond to provocations. Out in the world among strangers, we act and react self-protectively—at arm’s length—whereas within the bosom of our families we tend to do and say things without overthinking them. It’s in these raw uncalculated moments that God can best assess our spiritual development.

A case in point for me is having “pagan” witches and freemason witches as relatives. How am I, as a born-again believer, to interact with these servants of Satan? The same way my believing grandmother used to interact with me before I was born-again – with patience, with kindness, and with copious behind-the-scenes prayers. It helps for me to remember the many kindnesses these relatives did before they signed on with the devil. Paul says that if there’s anything good in a person, we should think on that, and so I do. While it’s highly unlikely that these people will ever renounce their satanic oaths, that’s not my business. My business is to pray for whoever God guides me to pray for in the way that God shows me. The rest I let be.

Even within his own immediate family, Jesus experienced the emotional minefield of interacting with spiritual enemies. Thanks to the record of the Gospels, we know how he dealt with them. We are to do the same.