“Why should I ask for his forgiveness? He should be the one asking me for forgiveness!”

I first met Pastor Eddie Yeo of Acts Community Church at the Pastors’ Prayer Summit in January. We were both hanging around outside the hall getting a coffee when we started talking about our ministry roles. I asked him how he became a Christian, and this turned out to be a moving story of his father, forgiveness and faith.

Pastor Yeo had first started going to church at 12 years old. “Coming from a broken family, I was captivated by the love in the church.” 

Later asked if he would like to be baptised, he agreed. “I was so happy. I’ve never experienced that love before,” he said.

But Pastor Yeo’s father was livid that his son had been going to church and his anger turned violent the day he got baptised.

“I had just come home from church after getting baptised. When I was untying my shoelaces, he came from behind me and slapped me so hard.” Pastor Yeo said. “But he didn’t know that I was baptised that day.”

“In his anger he grabbed a pair of scissors that was on the table and pointed it at me. If not for my mother who stopped him, I don’t know if I’d still be here today.”

Still reeling from the impact from the initial slap, a young Pastor Yeo froze in front of his father. “I saw his eyes, they were red with anger,” he recalled.

His father gave him two options: Stop going to church or leave the family. 

“I was only Primary 6, where could I go?” So he stopped attending church until years later, after National Service.

“At that time, I would tell my parents I was going to watch a morning movie,” said Pastor Yeo. “I went week after week, and they must have wondered why I was so ‘on’.” Using that excuse as a way to leave the house without incurring his father’s wrath, he continued attending church. But a leader in the church told him that he couldn’t keep lying.

“But they had no idea what my father was like… I lied to save my life,” said Pastor Yeo.

It was an immense struggle for the then teenager, caught between biblical counsel and a very real fear of his physically and verbally abusive father. The thought of telling his father that he had been going to church brought back those memories from all years ago, when his father almost lunged at him with a scissors in hand.

“So I wrote a letter, put it in an envelope, left it on the dining table for my father and ran out of the house.” 

Things didn’t go well. “My father was so angry, he tore up my letter. I was already 21 at that time; if he wanted to hit me I’d have let him,” said Pastor Yeo.

His father didn’t hit him that day, but the hatred between them grew. That distance with his father affected Pastor Yeo’s ability to see God as his Father.

“I could never identify when the preacher talked about the Father’s love. What love? My father was abusive and often cursed me with his words.

“A mother’s love I knew, but not a father’s love.”

Attending Christian growth classes with his wife years later, something began to stir in his heart as he learnt about biblical principles in a way he hadn’t before. And in his second year of those classes, God began to speak to Pastor Yeo about asking for forgiveness from his father.

In his early 30s then, Pastor Yeo thought that God got it wrong – his father was a hot-tempered, violent man who stopped him from going to church!

“Why should I ask for his forgiveness? He should be the one asking me for forgiveness!”

But his wife’s words provided the confirmation he needed. “My wife said to me: ‘I think you need to reconcile with your dad.'”

In a classic move, Pastor Yeo told God that if that was what He really wanted, He’d make his father come to his house that same night. Together with his wife, he committed that matter to God in prayer.

After dinner that evening, their doorbell rang.

“My wife gave me a knowing look and said that she’ll leave us men to talk. She was so sure it was my father!”

According to Pastor Yeo, his father would only come by their house once in a while as they weren’t on good terms.

Somehow, his father had decided to visit them that day. “I know our meeting is God’s plan,” said Pastor Yeo.

The divine scene had been set, but now it was up to Pastor Yeo to hold up his end of the bargain.

He was excited that God had answered his prayer, but his walk to the door wasn’t without apprehension. After all, he was also about to open the door into years of hurt and pain that both men never addressed. 

“It was so difficult, you know? I sat beside him and was thinking how to bring it up,” Pastor Yeo shared about the moment he never forgot.

“Dad, I need to ask for your forgiveness…” In obedience, Pastor Yeo asked for forgiveness from his father for all the ways he fell short as a son. His father’s reaction to this was shocking.

“He told me, ‘Son, I forgive you.’ And for the first time in my life, he hugged me.”

“It was a form of release for me, and I was able to cry after that,” said Pastor Yeo, recounting the blessing of forgiveness. “Before this, I couldn’t really worship with a lot of emotions and I felt the need to be ‘strong’ even in the presence of Father God.

“My wife will tell you that I’m a different person before and after.”

In that same year, Pastor Yeo’s father stepped into a church for his first time and decided to acknowledge Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour.

A young Pastor Yeo probably never imagined that such a day would eventually unfold in such a way, but it did. It’s a tough one to walk – the road to forgiveness – but perhaps no other path would make us more like Christ than to go down the same one that He did in order to reconcile us back to God (Luke 23:34)

Forgiveness is a path that always leads us back to God – for the ones who choose to forgive and the ones who are forgiven.

Pastor Eddie Yeo was a businessman and a lay leader in the church before he heeded God’s call and founded Acts Community Church in 2005.