Middle East: Digging Rocks

The Muslim call to prayer runs through this city five times a day. I should be used to that now, but it always takes me off guard every time. Formerly, a muezzin climbed the minaret tower of the mosque and sang the call to prayer from there, his Arab song carrying only the extent that his voice could reach. Today, his voice is pumped through a public address system to reach the city as a whole.

And he is not alone. In every mosque (and there are as many mosques here as there are churches in a decent sized southern city), a voice is heard. The product is a strange mixture of deep voices (with varying degrees of vocal capacity) that sing on top of each other. It pours into the moist Middle East air and enters every home and business to invite locals to pray. As a result, everyone knows when it's time to pray. The other result is that my teammates and I never forget where we are and how much we are stacked against the good news in this land.

Before coming to the Middle East, it was said that mission work here would be difficult and slow. I can still hear the words of a supervisor: "Do you know the parable of the four soils? Well, the kind of work you're going to do is more like pre-sowing. You will dig up some rocks. I did not hear a more specific description.

For example, the other day, I had a conversation with a Muslim teenager and the subject of Jesus appeared. The girl tried to explain to me that he did not die on the cross. (Muslims generally believe that traitor Judas intervened to take Christ's place.)

She would have continued her little speech, but I avoided the debate on Judas and asked if she knew why Christians believe that Jesus died that day. A look of surprise crossed his once confident expression.

"No, I do not know," she replied.

I explained the concept of sacrifice, highlighting its parallels with Islam and the identity of Christ as Lamb of God. . She listened patiently, but shortly thereafter we discussed a different subject

How much of this conversation has remained in her mind? I have no way of knowing. What I do know, though, is that she – and all other Muslims – "deserve to hear". These are the words of a Palestinian Christian I met before leaving. After being trapped in a system of works trying to reach paradise, they deserve to know the truth and the freedom that our Savior brings. As the above meeting illustrates, much of what they have been taught about Christians and Jesus are distortions and lies. These are the "rocks" that must be unearthed as part of the seed sowing process.

But for all the misconceptions that they have about us, they have a good thing to do. They call us masiHee, which has its root in the word messiah. For them, we are the ones who believe in a messiah. And indeed, that's what we are. The question remains for us: are we going to show them what it means to belong to the Messiah?

Traditional mission work does not fly over here. In fact, it is very illegal. But to tell the truth, the Muslims I serve in this country do not need our gospel tracts or our preaching, and they certainly do not need donations (this particular country is rather rich. What Christians need, however, is living among them and waving the word of life (Php 2:16). Among this people, we are "letters of Christ", as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3. We are letters written by the Spirit and sent to this culture and generation, with the ink of freedom and still fresh love on every page. 19659002] Does it take time to break the lies here? Yes. Does it take time and effort to earn their trust and share our hope? Yes. Are there times when it seems that the message simply does not pbad? Once again, yes. But a tip I've learned at workout always sounds in my ears: "The best way to respond to any situation is to believe and hope."

After a brilliant conversation about Jesus-faith and hope. And after a daunting day with what seems to be no progress, faith and hope. By this I mean not a mere blind optimism for the task ahead, but an unshakeable faith that Christ is what he says he is and a brilliant hope that he even controls here. If Christ is for us, who can be against us? Even now, he works to settle all things.

And the work in this region has not been fruitless. A worker here described the sense of fresh wonder among two new indigenous believers as she walked through the word of God with them. "God did that … put all this together in a beautiful story … They asked us with fear."

It's a joy like this that brings me back to the parable of the four floors. In many ways, it can be perceived as a sad story.Three of the soils smother all new life that is being formed! But Jesus says that the fourth floor bears a harvest that yields a hundred times more than what was sown in the past. And I came to take this not only in numbers, but in beauty.Because it's a special kind of beauty still a single Muslim realizes that the good news of Jesus Christ is neither an American thing or a Western thing, but a gift and a promise for all peoples.

harvest not a satisfaction of our pride and not a fulfillment of our own agendas, but a harvest in its own way and time. the seed sown by his servants and watered by the Esp laughs himself, I am convinced that the harvest will continue to grow in this land too. All that remains is to continue in faith and hope, trusting our Savior until the end.

Libby, a student at Baylor University, served in the Middle East with Go Now Missions. Her last name is held for security reasons.