To Naeem Fazal, a Pakistani reared in a Muslim family in Kuwait, the idea of God being personal once seemed ridiculous. But when his older brother, who had become a Christian while a student in South Carolina, challenged him to ask God to reveal Himself, he did just that.
“Whoever You are,” he prayed, “whatever is up there, if You’re real—if what my idiot brother says about You is true—then why don’t You show me?”
Fazal didn’t have a revelation of Jesus. Instead, three days later he encountered a demonic spirit that pinned him to his bed and told him: “I’m going to kill you.” Unfamiliar with demonic attacks, Fazal asked his brother for help, and his brother once again shared the gospel with him, telling Fazal that Jesus was the only one with authority over demons. This time Fazal accepted Christ.
Again there was no miraculous peace. Fazal went back to his room, still fearful of being attacked by demons. When he finally tried to get some sleep, he felt as if someone was shaking him. Thinking it was another demonic attack, he willed himself not to open his eyes, but somehow he found himself sitting on his bed, wide awake.
“And that’s when I saw Him,” he writes in his book, Ex-Muslim. “I cannot describe what I saw except to say I was overwhelmed by His presence. Just as I understood the demon’s murderous intent as it approached me, I understood with astonishing clarity what Jesus communicated right there, right then: I am Jesus. Your life is not your own.”
Now pastor of Mosaic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, Fazal marvels at the way God captured the heart of an 18-year-old Muslim from Kuwait who was more interested in meeting girls than meeting Jesus. “[God is] relentless in terms of His obsession with us,” Fazal says. “I wasn’t particularly interested in religion or spirituality, and He pursued me. My hope is that everyone … will discover that [God is pursuing them too] … and pursue Him back.”
