Monthly Archives: February 2026

I don’t know how full and rough your life is right now, but I bet it’s not as bad as a Ramadan Mom. Consider this:

1. Everyone’s getting up early for breakfast. She’s getting up earlier to make breakfast. 
2. Once she gets breakfast going, she’s got to wake up grumpy kids and hubby. Many of you wake family up for school, but imagine for a month, they’re getting up an hour earlier!
3. After breakfast, she gets sluggish school kids and grumpy husband (No cigarettes now the sun’s up!) out the door and cleans up breakfast.
4. She maybe catches a break by not having to make lunch? Not so fast, the kids still at home aren’t fasting. And since breakfast was early, they want to eat again at 10.30am, noon and 2pm!
5. She then decides what to make for iftar (the fast breaking meal) this evening while stressing over how to afford the extra food for the extended family hubby invited over!
6. She cleans up after iftar, probably while everyone else drifts off to sleep.
7. Dropping into bed, she worries about her own lack of prayer during the day. She hopes God honors her fast, even though she didn’t make it to the mosque and she snuck a little baklava late in the afternoon.

Ramadan Mom is strong, tired, faithful and sometimes invisible. But not to God. As Hagar, her great foremother first declared, “You are the God who sees me.” At the angel’s direction, she named her boy Ishmael to commemorate the profoundly good news that God hears. 

May God hear her prayers, wedged among the extra work, this Ramadan. And may he hear ours for Ramadan Moms throughout the Muslim world.

PS: Click here to download a one page weekly guide to praying for Muslims during Ramadan. 

Holy holiday hat trick, Batman! The Lunar New Year was yesterday. Today marks the beginning of both Lent and Ramadan! Given the number of people who celebrate the Lunar New Year and the number of Muslims and Christians who could keep Ramadan and Lent, upwards of 6 billion people have a religious, or semi-religious, observation going on right now! That’s nearly three-quarters of the planet! 

Does Lent carry special significance for you? Muslim Connect readers come from a variety of backgrounds and likely have a variety of involvement with Lent. If your forehead is ashed as you read this, good on you. May God meet you in a special way. Maybe you’re giving up something for Lent? I’m planning to stay off Facebook. That will be of some value. If I can take some portion of my “redeemed” Facebook time and use it to pray for Muslims during Ramadan, that would be of more value! 

I wonder what Christians get from Lent. I also wonder what Muslims get from Ramadan. Maybe there is some overlap. Here’s my quick take on how Muslims benefit, or hope to, from dedicated practice of the fast. 

1. Obedience
   God said to fast, so we’re going to do it. When I do it successfully, I honor God and I show myself that I’m an obedient follower.
2. Community
   We do this thing together. We’re committed to each other, or at least we engage in this common-across-the-religion practice together.
3. Family
   As you probably know, Ramadan is a season of increased family activity. It may be rigorous during the day, but it’s warm and wonderful when the sun goes down.
4. Forgiveness
   “The word ‘Ramadan’ is derived from ramad, which refers to the intense burning heat of the sun. Thus, ‘Ramadan’ is the month in which the sins of the believer are burned by their righteous deeds.” It is a time of repentance and seeking forgiveness.
5. Show off Islam
   This one is a hunch: I suspect there is sometimes a sense of pride in actually practicing a challenging part of the faith. Here’s how the convo plays in my head, “You’re giving up Facebook for Lent? Wow. For thirty days, while the sun is up, I will not eat, drink, smoke or get frisky with my spouse. Pretty much same same!”

   PS: Click here to download a one page weekly guide to praying for Muslims during Ramadan. 

Our church’s bookkeeper also helps lead our prayer efforts. I asked him to give an announcement promoting the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World booklets that we’ll pray through during Ramadan. He did well with the announcement, but upgraded it with an amazing story:

He and his friend were on a prayer journey in the Middle East. They were feeling a little feisty one day at lunch and asked their waiter if they could pray for him. “After all,” he said, “That’s what we were there for!”

The waiter agreed, then recounted how he’d had a dream the last two nights about Jesus. In the dream Jesus was calling the waiter to follow him! 

My bookkeeper/prayer warrior friend said, “We can pray with you right now to accept Jesus and begin to follow him. Would you like to do that?” 

The man said yes. They all prayed and he began his walk with Christ that day. 

If you read Muslim Connect, you’ve most likely heard about Jesus showing up in Muslims’ dreams. I love it that such things happen and I love hearing a first-hand example from someone I know! Add to that the reliability of a story told by a bookkeeper, because, as you know, they mind the details and don’t exaggerate! 

Thanks to God that he continues to pursue Muslims, showing up in all kinds of ways, including both mundane and miraculous. 

Should God bless you with a conversation with a Muslim this week, can I encourage you to follow my friend’s example and ask if you can pray for them? It’s been my experience that they’ll usually, sincerely say yes. 

Who knows what God may then do! 

P.S. Let’s pray for more stories just like the waiter’s. Grab your prayer guide, so we can all be on the same page (literally!) as we pray through Ramadan together.

I got a call today asking me to consider not showing the halftime show during our church’s Super Bowl party this Sunday. Apparently Bad Bunny really is!

I’m not sure what’s right or wrong on this, but I’m confident the safer route for me as a pastor is to not show it. But then I also think, it’s safer to not even have a Super Bowl Party. And honestly, it’s probably safer not to have a youth group. No kids get hurt, messed up or misled on my watch if I have no watch! 

This ends up landing me here: It’s always safer on the couch. 

Not sure if you should show the HT show? Don’t have the party and avoid the decision.

Nervous about a new relationship? Don’t engage. Stay on the couch. 

Didn’t finish your “Read Through the Bible in a Year” program last year? Stay on the couch and keep your Bible on the night stand this year. Much safer to not start than to fail again.

The maxim is also a good antidote to involvement with Muslims. 

If you’re considering a new effort to connect with or bless Muslims, let me be clear: It’s safer to stay on the couch than it is to introduce yourself to someone, to advocate for Muslims’ welfare within your church, to visit a Muslim city, and the couch is certainly safer than relocating yourself and your family to a distant Muslim neighborhood. (And asking people to give you money to do so!)

So why do we do it? Why do we care about Muslims? Why do we, at least slightly and temporarily, set safety aside and get off the couch?

Paul captures the why in Romans 15.16 “God gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God. . . .” 

Like Paul, we’re given grace so we can offer the living God to Muslims. And then, grace upon grace, we offer Muslims to the living God! Muslims get the life they need. God gets the worship he wants and deserves.

Join me in resisting the safety of the couch?

PS: If you want to tell me what to do about the halftime show, I’m listening!