If you haven't read the previous blog called, "Revelation in the Food Court" -- it would help to probably read that one first. The Muslim guy that came and sat with Jeff for 1 1/2 hours a few weeks back and talked intensely about the differences in Christianity and Islam, well, he came back by last week. This week, however, he did not stay. He didn't sit down. He didn't linger at all. He seemed nervous and uncomfortable. Might this be because he got so very close to the real Light of the world -- and it threatened to undo him?
Jeff tried to initiate a conversation with this Muslim guy again, but there was only a quick and cursory conversation and then he was on his way. These particular "setbacks" in the past would discourage us greatly; however, we have learned that this is exactly what the convicting of the Holy Spirit looks like in a person's life. So we pray, we pray, and we wait........wait for another conversation or perhaps for someone else to enter this young man's life who will add yet another seed to the garden of searching that is going on inside his heart!
Another Muslim young man that we have known now for three years was at our house last week during our monthly home fellowship -- opened up to any UNCC student. We love this young man dearly and will never give up praying for the salvation of his hungry soul! He continues to love being around us and has stepped so very close to the Light, but he believes there is just too much to give up, to much at stake to take the complete step into Light.
The young Muslim woman that came to us also by a contact at the literature table has been illusive in the past three weeks. Today I will try to call her and just let her know that she is missed. She is an African-American woman, raised in a strict Church of Christ background, then her parents went to a Baptist church so that they could be freer to smoke cigarettes and other things. (Now what does that tell us about Baptists?!?!) This young lady was a teenager when this happened and it disillusioned her about God, the Bible, and Christians. There seemed to be such a division, an inconsistency about what Christians believed and did.........this is what took this lady to Islam. She felt there she would find the security and consistency in following God that she perceived that she needed to be right with God.
She has been a difficult one to talk with. Even though she knows scriptures, I do not believe she has ever had a personal relationship with God through the work of His Son, Jesus Christ. Christianity is not a religion in my opinion. It is a relationship with a holy God. Personal, freeing, and completely "enough". I'm praying this for all three of our Muslim friends that God has brought in our lives. That they will search and search and finally fall to their faces, accept the perfect work done on the cross of Christ, and find that God is truly enough!
