Rainy season evidenced. Lush tropical landscape encompassing the environment. Darkness ebbing. Dawn’s first light revealing. The call to Muslim prayer cascading through the very fabric of this context. Simultaneously and resoundingly, the call greets the dawn.
Visiting a local village, I met six Muslim women and chatted with them. The women excitedly unloaded the usual battery of questions regarding our family. Conversely, I asked many get-to-know-you-type questions concerning their lives. The gentle flow of pleasant conversation provided a beautiful opportunity to dive into the deeper waters of their world. I inquired as to whether any of their family or friends had experienced much illness. They answered that none were ill at present.
Feeling prompted by the Spirit of God, I asked if any one of them was afflicted with a tumorous growth. They, in a startled response, said yes. In fact, one among them presently suffered this way. At this point, a lady around fifty years old lifted her blouse to expose her abdominal area to me. I felt the distended stomach area of this woman, confirming basketball-sized proportions. As I sought information related to the history of this tumor, she revealed her desperate attempts to secure healing from the area witch doctor. I told them that I was not a doctor, though I have some medical knowledge, but that I know the Great Physician and Healer of all.
They asked me if I was a Muslim, to which I answered, “No, I am a follower of Isa Al Masih (the Arabic term for Jesus).” I explained that God is a loving God who is able to heal according to His will for His purposes, but that the most important healing is that we be reconciled to Him and know Him through Jesus Christ, the ultimate healing. I asked if I could pray with them for God to work and touch this woman. While lifting my hands to pray in the Islamic style, she immediately reached out her hands for me to embrace. I prayed for her in terms that they as Muslims understood. Closing in prayer, I noticed that one of the women was teary-eyed, the others just dumbfounded. I took this precious woman’s hands in my own and looked her in the eye as I tried to communicate just how precious she is to God and that only through faith in Jesus can she know Him. Sometimes it is in the little encounters living among one million S_____ Muslim that I follow the Lord’s bidding to declare Him profoundly irresistible.
Reflections for meditation
This story is yet another time that God just shakes me in my sandals and definitively declares that He is the God who calls to the lost lambs in the obscure places neglected by the flow of modern man. He is the God who calls to men, women, and children who weigh little to nothing on the scales of significance in the world’s eyes. Is that not precisely what He has done for all of us who have followed Jesus as our Lord and Savior? Truly, it is only by His grace and only by His mercy that we have come to know Jesus. Ask the Lord to show you in what ways He desires to express His grace and mercy in greater measure in and through you. Are there areas where you sense the Father desiring to increase the cultivation of a listening heart to His Holy Spirit, in your own spheres of influence, for His own glory?
Prayer
Dear Abba Father,
Thank You that Your righteousness draws near speedily, that Your salvation is on the way for those whom You are calling to Your side. Lord, I adore You. You alone will bring justice to the nations. Even these islands, the islands of S____ and beyond, are among the islands that You say will look to You, O Lord. I praise You and thank You for Your hope, the hope that You alone are bringing to these islands and to the peoples of the earth. Lord, align my heart with the things that break and move Your own. I praise and thank You for Your risen power in my life. In Jesus’ matchless name, I pray.
Amen
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