"You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me." Gen 16:13
During a recent visit to Syrian refugee camps in the Middle East I was astounded by numerous accounts of Muslims having had multiple dreams and visions of Jesus. Countless Christian aid-workers and refugees shared their accounts of entire families dreaming near identical dreams of visitations by Jesus. Almost without exception the recipients of these dreams, though hard-core Muslim and with very limited exposure to people of the Christian faith, identified the person in their dreams as being Jesus. The dreams were all so vivid and the encounters with Jesus so sweet that Muslim recipients were literally starting to bang on the doors of Christians to find out more about the man in their dreams. Everywhere I went I found Christians; pastors and missionaries alike, baffled by this phenomenon of Muslims now becoming Bible-reading, Jesus-followers whilst still clinging to their Islamic identity.
Are we to step in and "convert" them to Christianity in the conventional ways or is God up to something very unique and mysterious here? For now the predominant strategy is to befriend and build trusting relationships with uprooted and heavily traumatized Syrian families; creating space for the Holy Spirit to do His persuasive work in their midst. Pondering on the above during my return-flight home, I could not help but wonder if this was maybe a repetition of God's encounter with matriarch to the Arab-nation; Hagar, thousands of years before. Can this be God's strategy to open the eyes of the Syrian people to recognize Him in her midst? For an answer to this we will have to wait and see!
During a recent visit to Syrian refugee camps in the Middle East I was astounded by numerous accounts of Muslims having had multiple dreams and visions of Jesus. Countless Christian aid-workers and refugees shared their accounts of entire families dreaming near identical dreams of visitations by Jesus. Almost without exception the recipients of these dreams, though hard-core Muslim and with very limited exposure to people of the Christian faith, identified the person in their dreams as being Jesus. The dreams were all so vivid and the encounters with Jesus so sweet that Muslim recipients were literally starting to bang on the doors of Christians to find out more about the man in their dreams. Everywhere I went I found Christians; pastors and missionaries alike, baffled by this phenomenon of Muslims now becoming Bible-reading, Jesus-followers whilst still clinging to their Islamic identity.
Are we to step in and "convert" them to Christianity in the conventional ways or is God up to something very unique and mysterious here? For now the predominant strategy is to befriend and build trusting relationships with uprooted and heavily traumatized Syrian families; creating space for the Holy Spirit to do His persuasive work in their midst. Pondering on the above during my return-flight home, I could not help but wonder if this was maybe a repetition of God's encounter with matriarch to the Arab-nation; Hagar, thousands of years before. Can this be God's strategy to open the eyes of the Syrian people to recognize Him in her midst? For an answer to this we will have to wait and see!
