IRAN: HUSSEIN
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19
Christ dramatically changed the life of “Hussein,” a former Muslim in Iran. He had once been a drug addict with thoughts of suicide, but after becoming an on-fire believer in Christ, he quit his job to pursue full-time ministry in the underground church. He was assigned to “shadow” a Christian couple in their ministry work as he learned and grew in his calling.
At one of the first houses he visited with the Christian couple, a young woman in the house began to weep as soon as she saw the three Christians standing outside her door. Confused by her response, the Christians wondered if she’d just suffered some great tragedy or if they had offended her in some way.
Then, through tears, she explained. She had wanted to see Jesus in her dreams, and just that week she finally had a dream in which Christ appeared to her. In the dream, Christ led her to a table and invited her to sit down with three people already sitting at the table. And now, only hours later, those same three people-whom she had never met before-were knocking on her door!
She invited them in, and before they left she had committed her heart and life to following Jesus. Hussein had been confident that God had called him into ministry work. And by the time he left that young woman’s house, God’s amazing work had obliterated any remaining shred of doubt in his mind. Hussein never again doubted God’s plan for his life, even when he was arrested and imprisoned for his faith.
Sometimes God makes His will so plain it’s as if he’s written it on the sky with a neon magic marker. Other times, we “see through a glass darkly,” as Paul wrote to the Corinthian church. Raymond Edman, former president of Wheaton College, advised students to “Never doubt in the dark what God told you in the light.” Hussein saw clearly God’s call on his life, confirmed in neon obviousness by the girl’s dream. He hung onto that clarity and remained faithful to Christ, even in police stations, prison cells and Iranian courtrooms. What truths has God revealed to you that you need to hold onto more tightly today?
This is one of the readings from the book, Extreme Devotion, available from VOM’s online bookstore. You can also receive devotional thoughts daily via email. Sign up here.
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