Last night my friend Ahmed came by for a guitar lesson. He’s one of the guys I met through the Boy’s Home, a tall, lanky twenty year old who speaks fluent English. “So”, he says, “You told me that God touched your life, and last night I was watching something on Bosnian TV about how God touches people’s lives.” It’s doubtful I used the term God “touched” me with my Muslim friend, but I wasn’t about to protest. It was too much of a welcome opening for talking about spiritual things.
As it turns out, the program featured a woman who saw the face of Jesus in a cheese sandwich, and was subsequently “changed.” At least that was Ahmed’s take on it. (And now she owns a prosperous cheese sandwich franchise. I’m not making this up.) I tried so hard not to laugh, but just couldn’t control it. Why, O God, do we Christians insist on flakiness and shooting ourselves in the foot every chance we get? The tragedy here is that apart from the few Bosnians who happen to know a missionary, almost the entire repertoire of what these people know of Protestant Christianity has been gleaned from TBN and their happy-clappy troop of televangelists. (Yes… Bosnia does have both TBN and MTV!)
In the end we had a wonderful conversation about the reality of Jesus, and the difference between Christianity’s God of love and relationship, and Allah, who’s great concern is that everyone will submit to his “religion.” I’m glad Ahmed brought the whole thing up. But my concern is for all those Bosnians who went to bed Saturday night thinking we Christians take this cheese-sandwich stuff seriously. It makes my job just a little more difficult than it already is.
On another more cheerful note, one of my dear Muslim friends blessed me the other day when I invited him to pray for our lunch. I’ve been sharing Christ with this young man for about eight years while patiently watching for signs that something may be getting through. But his prayer on Saturday went something like this: “Thank you Jesus for this food…. and for Don and for our friendship and all of your blessings. Please use this food to strengthen us in Your name, Amen.” Those words, for a Muslim, are huge. And my heart is encouraged.
Dispatches from the Shadowlands 
Is God so small that he cannot use a cheese sandwich to proclaim himself? Is not written that God uses the foolish to confound the wise? See 1 Corinthians 1:27. If the world sees me as foolish, I am a spectacle and can point to Christ. If they see me as wise, no one wonders what is different and I have no opportunity to share. Indeed, in the case of this young man, a person that saw God in a cheese sandwich planted a seed, which you where given the opportunity to water. Our concern is not how they respond to flakiness, but where they are going to spend eternity.
“Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” Philippians 1:15-18
O’ that I would be more foolish in the eyes of the world.
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Don you were a big blessing to our school in Lebanon. Thank you a lot.
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ahh when i just think of that days makes me happy just of thinking of my starting to get know jesus and look at me now i am loved and i injoin god blasse u Don
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