Monthly Archives: June 2024

A fictional account of the brevity of Hajj blessings.

Not even two days. How can it be? Less than 48 hours from finishing my first Hajj, the pinnacle of my faith, and I’ve lost the sense of forgiveness I’d gained. Three reckless words and it’s gone. 

It was good while it lasted; that feeling of pleasing Allah, being cleaned of my sins. Blessed forgiveness. We chatted, the other Hajjis and me, about the goodness of Allah, the wisdom of our prophet, the fellowship of the ummah. Together we mourned the blessed dead who’d perished during the pilgrimage, 1100 souls now in paradise. 

We left the holy city to our respective places, eyes on Allah, hearts filled with peace and hope. 

I pulled into the driveway and my family poured out the front door of our home. We hugged and cried. They could tell I was different. We had no idea how brief the difference would last. 

In the living room, I opened my bag to pass out the gifts I’d brought: Hand of Fatima necklaces for the teenaged girls, a football jersey for the 10 year old boy. As I pulled the shirt out, a bottle sparkled in the suitcase and he snatched it, the perfume I’d bought for my wife, the expensive one she only gets when someone passes through a duty free shop in Dubai. 

You suspect what happened, no? The bottle sprang from his hand, arced through the air and glanced against the granite end table as if fell, breaking into dozens of pieces, the precious perfume soaking into the carpet. 

“Damn you, Jamal!” The words sprang from my mouth as cleanness fled my soul. 

It would be nice to blame it on jet lag, but sin is sin. I’m reminded my white soul is black every time I walk through the fragrant living room. And what am I to do? I apologized to Jamal, of course, and began today to save money to return on the Hajj again someday. 

If forcibly displaced people were their own country, they’d rank 13th in order of population! That’s just after Japan and ahead of the Philippines. 

Today is World Refugee Day. Thanks for taking a moment to try to take in the situation. Look over my commentary, click a couple of links and if you’re a visual learner, drink in the three stunning graphics below that I poached from an insightful Al Jazeera article. 

Three things to remember:

1. God has a warm heart for displaced people. Jesus is God and experienced with his family the trauma of fleeing for their lives to a foreign land. 
2. If you’re an American Christian, please join me in growing our understanding of the situation at our southern border and refusing to conflate and hate. 
3. The majority of refugees today are Muslim.Al Jazeera says, “As of 2024, almost three-quarters (72 percent) of all refugees came from just five countries: Afghanistan (6.4 million), Syria (6.4 million), Venezuela (6.1 million), Ukraine (6 million) and Palestine (6 million).”

Four things to do:

1. Pray: Here’s a brief meditation and prayer you can pray through and share with others. 
2. Pay: The INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR REFUGEES serves displaced in many places. Your gift to them would be put to good use. 
3. Play: Football, chess and dolls are supra-cultural. Find a place refugees gather nearby or far away and take some time to play. I think it would fall under Jesus’s category of “cup of cold water in my name.”
4. Invite them to stay: Americans recently have been given the opportunity to band together and sponsor refugee families. Remembering that God doesn’t ask anyone to do everything, how cool would it be for Christians to receive grace from Him to help bring the number of refugees admitted all the way up to the 125,000 ceiling! 

The annual Hajj is here. Two million Muslims will make this year’s pilgrimage to Mecca. They’re fulfilling one of the five pillars of Islam and hoping to receive God’s forgiveness for their sins. 

Please grab this provocativeHajj prayer guide and join with believers seeking God’s best blessing for the pilgrims. 

Tomorrow (Friday, June 14) will be a worldwide day of prayer for Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran. Please share this link freely and plan to pray at noon in your time zone. 

Thanks for praying for the retreat I’m hosting. God’s hearing and answering your prayers. 

Would you like to hear something really cool? Last week a friend from Montana donated his theological library to my church! I now have about 2500 books on my reading list! 

And this one: Soul by Soul: The Evangelical Mission to Spread the Gospel to Muslims by Brazilian journalist Adriana Carranca. 

Carranca, who is not a believer, became friends with fellow Brazilians in Afghanistan who happened to be missionaries. In the book, she tells their story in order to, in the words of Frontiers’ founder Greg Livingstone, “. . . let the world know it ain’t just “gringos” risking their lives to tell Muslims who Jesucristo really is.”

I suppose you might share my mix of hope and fear when a mainstream journalist writes about missionary activity. The reviews seemed solid enough and excerpts sufficiently gripping for me to encourage the effort by buying the book. It should arrive this weekend. Want to grab a copy and read it with me?

I’d also love to hear what you’re reading lately. I’m currently reading At Home in Mitford to my wife, Unoffendable on the recommendation of a church member and am committed to re-read Francis Chan’s The Forgotten God, because I want to be better friends with the Holy Spirit. 

As you’re interested and able, please sharebook recommendations here for the rest of the Muslim Connect tribe. 

PS: Please pray for me: I’m hosting a retreat next week for a cadre of missions people who’ve rallied to the dream of no unengaged people groups by the end of next year. Currently our best research says there are 1586! Ask God to help us take the steps he has in mind to the end worship arises from among all peoples. Thank you.