DEAR CHRISTIAN

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DEAR CHRISTIAN

Nabeel Qureshi, on an unspecified day in 2001, had arrived at Old Dominion University where he was a freshman. One of the students from his Forensics class went out to meet him. The student was David Wood. He welcomed him to the university and showed him around as if he was not a freshman as well. Their friendship hit the ground running. It skipped past formalities and ran straight into brotherly teasing. In the days that followed, many commented that David and Nabeel were foils of one another. Even though they had many commonalities, where it mattered, they contrasted. And what Nabeel did not know about David was to be the starkest contrast of all; while Nabeel was a devout Muslim, David was a Christian with strong convictions.

Nabeel had seen street preachers but there was a simple reason that he never listened to them: they didn’t seem to care about him. They treated him like an object of their agenda. He found that many Christians think of evangelism the same way, imposing Christian beliefs on strangers in chance encounters. Many people are not eager to listen to someone who doesn’t know about their lives but still tells them to change. On the other hand, if a true friend shares the exact same message with heartfelt sincerity, speaking to specific circumstances and struggles, then the message is louder and clearer. For Nabeel, effective evangelism requires relationships.

David became Nabeel’s friend even though he was of a different Faith. He stuck with him through hell and high water. David debated a lot of beliefs about the Christian and Islamic faiths with Nabeel. More than that, he shared the gospel with him and on several occasions invited him to his church. During this time, David read his bible and about it even more. He also read the Quran and about it also. You don’t try to convince someone to convert without knowing full well what you or they are talking about. He introduced Nabeel to his friends and they sat with him and exchanged views on issues David didn’t have answers to. They debated the truth that Jesus died on the cross and that after three days He rose from the grave. They debated the truth that Jesus’ death alone was enough to save everyone who believes in Him. They also debated the legitimacy of the Quran and the truth about Muhammad.

When the two met, Nabeel was convinced that he would convert David to Islam. At the end of the book, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, Nabeel was a crumpled heap on the ground, trembling before God. He pleaded with Him, while wailing and stammering through quivering lips, “why, God…?” He could not formulate the words. The shaking was uncontrollable. His father had pleaded with him, through eyes welled with tears, to stay Muslim. He told him that his decision to give his life to Jesus had made him feel as if his backbone had been ripped out from inside him. The words tore through Nabeel. It felt like patricide. He had not just given up his life to follow Jesus, he was killing his father. During the time, he clung to scriptures like Philippians 4:6-7, Luke 18:1-8, and Matthew 6:25-34. Nabeel later went on to join David in ministry. On May 21, they preached a sermon together where two atheists came to accept Christ.

Dear Christian,

You have non-Christian neighbors but you have never sat down with them to hear their story or in the least share your testimony with them. You have never given your life to someone, befriended them, learnt about them, and shared the gospel with them. You are not honest enough with them to call them out on their lives lived without God. Some of these ‘neighbors’ are your closest friends, but you won’t help them still. What’s worse is even though you claim to be a Christian, you live a careless life, everyday using the name of the LORD in vain. What you may not take seriously is how you’re making them twice children of hell. Daniel Ngoma said that, not me.  

You claim to be a Christian, yet, your closest friends are not Christians. You know that light and darkness have no fellowship but you keep trying to reinvent the wheel. Then you wonder, year after year, why you don’t grow into the image of Christ. Dear Christian, how can you? Then also, without Christian friends how can you address non-Christians’ specific needs? If you met someone addicted to marijuana you could introduce them to a Christian friend who had to contend against it and they would be more instrumental than you could be. The problem is, even Christians don’t want the friends they need.

You are comfortable with the little you know about the Faith that you learn through bible studies and sermons. You never go home and search the scriptures for yourself with all your heart and mind. You never pick up Christian literature and soak yourself in. And so you can’t persuasively debate a lot of issues that concern your Savior and the gospel. I am not saying any of this to be sarcastic or with an eye roll; the book only gave me a lot to think about. And as I wrapped myself tightly in the literature, absorbing the wisdom of a better writer, I realized that people, you included, just believe the worldview that was handed to them without question and that those who seek to avoid the truth usually succeed. 

Dear non-Christian,

Don’t get offended or ask me to miss you with all this. Do you realize that the world you love is passing away? Do you realize that the sin you live in is but a shameful thing? Do you realize that it only pays in death for wages? Or is it that for you, there’s no way in the world you would accept the Christian message? Or do you so badly want to convert and be saved but for your fear of being ostracized from your community? What is keeping you from believing that Jesus is God and that He saves all who call on Him? Every day, as you go on living in sin, you choose to be a deer in the headlights.

What you don’t realize is that as you’re making those decisions the costs are not considered consciously. They only form a part of your knee-jerk reaction against the gospel. You don’t say you refuse to become a Christian. Far from it, you subconsciously find ways and means to go on rejecting the gospel so that you would not be faced with what you would have to pay. You find it difficult to act on what you know because to act is to be committed and to be committed is to be in danger. My only wish is that you would lay prostrate wherever you would, broken before God. My only plea is that the edifice of your worldview would be dismantled and that you would lay in ruin, petitioning God. And that you would seek Him with all your heart and look and live.

Sorry, I forgot to add a spoiler alert for the book. Happy New Year.

Akwasi Dzifa