“If Abu wanted to be a Christian, he’d have to do it somewhere else. We surrounded his house, ready to force him out and burn it.
“As we got closer, we could hear him talking. Had he gathered others to help him? we wondered. Then we could hear that he was praying for the entire village and asking Jesus to forgive us for what we were about to do! This made us even angrier, so twenty-five of us rushed toward his house to apprehend him. But there was an invisible force that would not let any of us enter his house, and we were frightened away.
“When I got home, I could not sleep. I kept thinking about Abu’s prayer. Finally at three in the morning, I went back to Abu’s house. I asked him to tell me about Jesus. After three hours of talking with Abu, I asked Jesus to forgive me, and I surrendered my life to him. I rushed to my house and shared what happened to me with my wife, and she also became a Christian, along with my children.”
Within days, Idris Miah, the Bangladeshi believer who told this story, faced a test. He was fired from his job, and his children were forced out of school. Yet he says that he still has joy, for he has Jesus in his heart.
Often we can’t choose our life context, but we can choose our attitude and response. We can always make those choices, despite the circumstances. So when, like Abu, we stand at the brink of disaster, will we choose a prayerful, Christlike response, or will we give in to panic and distress? It is impossible for others, despite their best efforts, to make us angry or stressed. We make those choices ourselves. In the same way, we can choose to imitate Christ in our response to opposition. Who knows what will come of it? Ask God for help today to choose the proper response to any trying situation.
