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And Yet He Still Chose to Pursue Christ
Having grown up in a
devout Muslim family on the West Bank, Ismail* knew that starting to follow
Christ would cost him everything: his status, his income, his house, his
friends and his family. This is how a Koran-memorizing Palestinian teenager
grew more and more towards Christ. And he keeps following Him, despite all the
struggles he encountered while living as a secret believer on the West Bank.
He is in his late thirties
now, but Ismail remembers vividly when he first laid eyes on a Christian book.
“One day I came home from high school. A
package from Europe had been delivered to my cousin. I was curious because
there was English writing on it. He had written to a Christian organization and
they had sent him some evangelistic materials.” Ismail and his friends had
just been busy memorizing the Koran—a process that takes a number of years in
many young Muslim’s lives when they grow up. “Whenever we had another third part of the book memorized, there was a
celebration in the mosque. That week I had just memorized two chapters about
Mary and Jesus. The Koran teaches that Jesus was not crucified but Judas
instead of him,” Ismail explains.
He asked his grandfather
why the Christians would still believe in Jesus as the Son of God if this
really was the case. “My grandfather was
an esteemed Islamic scholar but he responded harshly. He said: ‘Don’t think. There
is no answer. The Christians made up their story, otherwise, no one would have
believed them.’ To be honest, I didn’t buy that. I was not satisfied with this
explanation.” This set Ismail off on a quest for the truth. At first, he
tried to find answers in Islam. But when he couldn’t find the truth about Jesus
there, he started studying the Bible together with his cousin. “Until then I never had met a Christian in
person. But we started exchanging letters with an organization in Europe,
asking them our questions. Every time we sent a letter through it would take
one and a half months for an answer to arrive.”
Tails Like Devils
Even to correspond with a Christian would have been a huge step for any Palestinian Muslim, especially back in those days. Ismail shares how many Muslims in his country grow up with a distorted view of Christians. “Some parents tell their kids stories that Christians are not human beings, or that they have tails like devils. That was the time before internet and social media, so we lived more isolated.” A few months later, one of Ismail’s discussions about Christianity with his relatives was overheard by one of their neighbours. “I heard you talk about Christianity. If you’d like to know Christian people, I´ll introduce you,” he said.
Ismail responded quickly:
“I want to understand why God came to
earth to ride on a donkey.” He explains how that question kept nagging him.
Why would an almighty God humiliate himself like that? “In my Muslim mind, it was unbelievable and unacceptable to talk that
way about God.” The neighbour introduced Ismail to a group of Christian
students. “They told me more about Jesus
and their religion. I had tons of questions for them.”
Christians: Crazy and Delusional?
What he didn’t see back then is that he gradually started growing towards Jesus. When the students couldn’t answer his questions anymore, they introduced him to a pastor who started to teach him about the Bible. “I quickly told him: ‘Everything you say I already know. But what I don’t know is how to live with Christ.’ In my head, I was still in doubt: were the Christians right, or were they crazy and delusional?”
He decided to put it to
the test. “I was fascinated by the way
Christians speak directly to the Lord in prayer. So I remembered some prayers I
heard Christians pray. When I was alone I closed my eyes and repeated those
words to see what would happen. I told the Lord that I was a sinner and prayed
about His love. The words were amazing, but in my heart there was still doubt.
The Muslim notion of ‘what you don’t see doesn’t exist’ kept me from accepting
Christ.” Then God intervened and in a simple and short dream cleared that
barrier: “I saw a white face and heard a
voice: ‘Follow Me.’ Nothing more. But it was enough. I made the decision to
follow Him.”
“Leave and Never Come Home”
It may sound easy now, but
that was the hardest decision Ismail ever made. “Following Christ would mean losing my family and losing my nice life.
Being born again meant, for me, being completely alone with a lot of problems.”
He explains how, in the Palestinian village he grew up in, leaving Islam was
seen as bringing shame onto the whole family and community. “Instantly, I was the black sheep, the worst
family member they had. In our tradition, you have to respect the community,
and you have to take care of the elders. Social status is everything. When you
lose that, it’s not easy to rebuild.”
He left all of this behind
when he was cast out of his community directly after his family found out about
his newfound faith. “I lost all my
status, all my family. I was forced to leave the house. My father told me to
leave and never come back again.”
“Cut Off from My Family, Christ Filled My Whole Existence”
A new chapter started in
Ismail’s life. He started to read the Bible even more intensively, writing down
all his questions so he could ask his pastors. The group of students quickly
became his new family, and he started reaching out to other Muslims with the
gospel. “My faith is not something that
affects just the Sunday prayer time and church visits, like it is for some
Christians. For me—someone who lost his entire normal life—my faith in Christ
is everything. It fills my whole existence.” Ismail saw several Muslims
accept Jesus as their Saviour over the years. “We don’t do the work, we are just a tool,” he says. “Most Muslims come to the Lord through
visions and dreams, not through evangelists.”
THINK BIG.
START SMALL. GO DEEP.
Source: https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/
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