30 Days Muslim Prayer Focus

by Kirk M. Wellum @ http://redeemingthetime.blogspot.com

This past Tuesday America remembered the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. In this part of the world most people not only associate these attacks with Al-Qaeda but with Islam in general. Although moderate Muslims want to distance themselves from the terrorist interpretation (and some would say distortion) of their faith many people I talk to express uneasiness at the growing presence of Muslims in Canada and the United States. Consequently, the start of Ramadan this past Thursday, an Islamic holy month of fasting, is not something that many people welcome or want to see going on around them. It is just another annoying example of something they really do not want being foisted upon them because of the unapproved immigration policies of bureaucrats who do not seem to grasp the long term repercussions of their pragmatic but naive actions.

Christians, however, should look upon what is going on around us in a different way. Many have pointed out that the nations have come to us in the West and now we have an opportunity to tell them about the true God who is only revealed and known through the Messiah he promised long ago, the Messiah who has come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. To this end I was encouraged to read about a program called 30 Days Muslim Prayer Focus. This gives Christians a chance to pray for the Muslim world in a special way that corresponds to the religious observances of Ramadan. In my mind this is far more productive than griping about the presence of Islam in the world. We are called upon to love Muslims and to pray that they might come to a knowledge of the truth. If we would pray and then take the initiative to befriend Muslim people who knows what would happen! Certainly we believe that God is able to stop Islamic terrorism in its tracks and glorify his name by coming in saving power and making the hearts of thousands his own. Let's pray to that end!