GOD HEARS Prayer Letters

Ramadan, the Islamic month of daytime fasting and heightened devotion, charity and self discipline, begins Tuesday April 13 and continues until May 14. In non-COVID times, Muslim families and communities eagerly come together for prayer and nightly iftar (fast-breaking) meals.

Blood speaks. When Adam and Eve’s firstborn son Cain murdered his brother Abel, God said to him, “Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse…” (Ge 4:10-11a).

Sin is rebellion against God. It has consequences. Isn’t that what we should expect from a righteous God? There are different ways in which humans get around this uncomfortable fact. 

This might be the final week in which we examine how the Holy Spirit helps us pray for and minister among Muslims. But who knows? It is impossible to put limits on the Spirit!

This week we continue looking at some ways in which the Holy Spirit helps us as we pray for and minister among Muslims. Our fleshly nature is subject to so many desires, distractions and needs that, on our own, we repeatedly fail to live up to what we would like to do for Jesus.

Often when we pray for Muslims, we focus on them knowing God as their loving heavenly Father and Jesus as His divine Son who won their salvation by paying the price for their sin. Today I want to focus on the work and the benefits of the Holy Spirit.

This is “Salaam Week” at University of Alberta, sponsored by the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA). In a normal year, outreach booths on campus would be distributing printed materials and inviting people to hear speakers brought in for the occasion.

On January 8, 2020, Ukrainian International Airlines’ scheduled passenger flight PS752 was shot down shortly after takeoff from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, killing all 176 passengers and crew, including 55 Canadian citizens, 30 permanent residents and others with ties to Canada.

I’m going to be real here. Last week I wrote about keys to praying about a violent act of hatred toward two Muslim women. I speculated about prayers Christians would be very likely to pray, then prayed that God would help us pray “according to what You see from Your throne room”. I followed with some prayer points I felt I had discerned as I listened for His wisdom.

On December 8, 2020, a white man yelling “racially motivated obscenities” violently attacked two black Muslim women*, a mother and her adult daughter wearing hijabs, as they sat parked in their car at an Edmonton mall. Fortunately, citizens intervened even before police arrived.