GOD HEARS Prayer Letters

Ramadan, the Islamic month of daytime fasting, begins April 2. Right in the middle of this global communal effort to gain God's favour through self-denial and intensified prayer, Christians will celebrate Passover and Resurrection Sunday.

The musical My Fair Lady is about an arrogant phonetician who bets another linguist that he can transform a lower class "flower girl" with a thick Cockney accent into a proper lady within six months.

These past few weeks, the Lord seems to be pointing out my personal shortcomings and asking me to write about them. It's humbling, and appropriately so as we approach our remembrance of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection focusing on how He, "being in very nature God...humbled Himself and became obedient to death" (Philippians 2:6, 8), even though He was sinless and perfect in God's eyes.

Sunday last, we took a Muslim international student out for dinner to celebrate his birthday. He chose a place that serves the kind of food he would eat at home.

Last Saturday, we threw off the confines of COVID and had two couples with small children over for dinner. Both couples have lived in Canada between 10 and 20 years, and both come from cultures quite different from ours, one from East Africa and the other from Iran and Afghanistan.

Around the time of Holocaust Remembrance Day, in rapid succession, I read two books to help me observe it meaningfully. The first was Maus: A Survivor's Tale, a graphic novel in which cartoonist Art Spiegelman interviews his father, who survived the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz.

It has been over 20 years since 911 when Islam grabbed the world spotlight in a most brutal and terrifying way. People immediately began educating themselves about militant Islam.

My friend left Islam decades ago and has passionately prayed for her family ever since. Through the years, she has experienced verbal attacks on her faith, rejection (including divorce), strong pressure to return to practicing Islam, spiritual attacks and more.

Contemplating how extraordinary and incomprehensible it is that Christ chooses to live in human beings like you and me, I looked up "Christ in you". Of course, Colossians 1:27 appeared. As I read the context, I was blown away by how clearly opposite it is to what Muslims expect from following Islam. 

I confess that I've been involved in some cross cultural missteps. Once, I invited a couple from a very traditional culture over for dinner and left the extremely uncomfortable teenaged wife sitting with her husband and mine in the living room while I finished the meal in the kitchen.