Possibly Offensive

This post might be offensive to some people. If you are one of those people then please stop reading now. I am going to tell you a story I heard from a friend this last week. I will attempt to tell it to you as nearly exactly as it was relayed to me.

“It started quite innocently. A few words in a coffee shop. He was nice and smiled, asked me how my day was and where I came from. I was polite, a little distracted, and probably slightly cold as I easily tire of such questions. He did however manage to secure my phone number by inviting me for an event later in the week. Then he called me. I was uninterested. But he still called me. So we talked a little, hung out, I let him take me out to coffee. He admitted that he liked me. I told him I had 3 objections to that. A.) that I was pretty sure I was older than him. B.) that we didn’t know each other very well yet. And C.) that God was really important in my life and I would need to make sure that I would never think of pursuing a relationship with someone who didn’t believe the same way.

He took it all in, agreed with me, and resolved it. Yes, I was older but we had yet to see if that would be an issue. Yes, we did not know each other very well yet, but what he did know about me he liked and he wanted me to allow him to get to know me more. And finally yes, he agreed that God should be important in any person’s life.

So we went on. Enjoyed getting to know each other better. We talked, we laughed, shared jokes and meals. I honestly had no idea.

I can clearly remember the day that it hit me at work. I should have seen it earlier, but when that last piece of the puzzle fell into place I could see it very clearly. The blatant fact that I had been overlooking. I rushed from work to confront him.

I had been pursuing a relationship with a Muslim.

Yes, he admitted it. He said that he thought I knew. We had talked about God a number of times without running up against any roadblocks and I know he had never used the word Allah or shied away. He didn’t act or dress like any Muslims that I knew and he had never once rejected my western ways of dressing or Christian mannerisms. Hadn’t I prayed over dinner? He had a biblical name anyway, so how was I supposed to know?

But it was true. Of course I needed to know right away… what was I to do with such information? Should I break off with him for this one fatal flaw? I was raised in the west and have read my Bible. I know that I don’t bear the Judge’s gavel. I don’t decide what is right and wrong. God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. In that instant I didn’t need to know whether this young man that I was starting to like was right or wrong in his conviction of the religion which he was raised in, but rather was I right or wrong in continuing to see him?? A very different question entirely.

As nearly as I can understand it, Allah is another name for basically the same God. I believe that Muslims worship the same God that I do in the same way that I believe that Jews worship the same God that I do. But its like a huge piece is missing from the puzzle. When you take Jesus out of the picture then I descend back into hopeless, helpless sin. Still trying to earn and garnish favor, out of my pitiful utterly sinful state, with a God who is the very definition of justice. It’s like trying to climb a dune in a sandstorm with your arms and legs tied. The complete hopelessness of it would kill me if I believed that, because I know myself way to well. I know that I will fail tomorrow. I know I will fail the next day. And the day after that. In fact, I know I have already failed in over 15 ways today, and that’s without over-analyzing my daily activities and attitudes. Jesus is the only thing that keeps me from that well of eternal depression. He covers everything. For every time that I fail, His perfection already sacrificed for me keeps me buoyed up on hope and able to still come before a God who is the very essence of justice and be able to argue my case with any hope of walking free. Someone has already taken my sentence of death, swallowed it up in life, and given me that freedom that I crave. Freedom to be able to come to God without fear of retribution or punishment for every time that I fail, but with boldness to approach Him as a Father who loves me.

That much being said, what could I say to this young man in front of me? Could I walk away just like that and for such a difference? It’s somehow the same, but also somehow sooooo different. We compared notes. Our understanding of God is the same. Our understanding of how to get near to Him or to worship Him is different. He respected my beliefs. So I tried to also respect his.

The catch came a month or so later. In telling a friend about him, I mentioned that he was Muslim. I was immediately blasted for even considering dating such a guy. I was a “bad Christian”, I shouldn’t be “unequally yoked”, and I was suddenly “really lost”. I can’t even begin to tell you how upsetting this was to hear from another Christian. I know sometimes people hate things that they don’t understand and Jesus turned the other cheek, so I tried to move on, to be okay with it. But it haunted the back of my mind. If I could have that conversation back and change it… other than never having it in the first place… I would have a few things to say to my friend.

This guy, regardless of his religion, treats me better than any of the other professed Christian guys I have dated in my life. He cares about my purity. Treats me respectfully. Honors my family. Provides for me. Cares about my feelings. Listens to me. Misses me when I’m not around. Shares the pieces of his soul with me. Even came and reported himself when some chic gave him her number. He used to smoke, but he quit when I told him of a dear family member who died of lung cancer. I didn’t ask him to, he just went and flushed his cigarettes down the toilet and hasn’t smoked again. He knew how much that person meant to me, he could hear it in my voice, and he refused to cause me that pain.

I have never had a guy that I’ve seen in a romantic manner who didn’t end up cheating on me. Emotionally or physically. They all were professed Christians. So my question to my friend is this… Where are the young Christian men who will give this guy a run for his money? Yes, I would much rather be with a Christian guy who shared everything with me in the way I thought and believed, but where are they? If anything, you should use this as a call to arms for your brothers. Rise up, men of faith, and challenge yourselves to be great. To actually embrace those good and noble and right things which you are supposed to be pursuing as a young man seeking the heart of God. To respect the women you are pursuing and not make them objects of lust. Or just a therapist to sit on the couch of and spill your woes. Or a bank account to help you out in a jam. Or an option instead of a priority. Or let us otherwise waste our time when you still have no freakin’ idea what you want in life or in a woman.

And sadly, what happened to praying. I have prayed for this guy every day since I started to like him. Prayed that God would reveal Himself to him in new ways. That he would use me and few other friends of his which I know are also actively seeking God to speak truth into his life. That his mind would be willing to receive the gospel and that Jesus would stand there knocking on the door of his heart relentlessly until he opens it.”

This was basically the story. I was saddened and sobered by it, and even moved as I was attempting to capture it in story form for you, my dear reader. There are so many half-truths which lurk in the world today and they are so easy to believe because the stench of foul lies is covered over with some slightly appealing glaze of truth. It’s easy to judge a person without understanding their entire story.

I wish I could tell you that this story has a happy ending. However that is not the case. The girl is still conflicted about what to do and trying to hold all her hopes and dreams with an open palm for God to do with as He will. She still prays for him, but she knows that she would never be able to be his wife with his current belief system because of what she believes about submission. The friend, she sadly has never confronted with the rest of her story and why she chose to stay with her Muslim guy for now. And I, remain regretful and saddened by the whole thing. My heart aches because this is not the first story I’ve known like this. I have friends who have married atheists and agnostics after their original church-leader fiancé was caught in an affair. I have seen some girls leave the church entirely, completely deluded by the men there to the point that they think even God must not care. My heart aches for a woman who has been so injured by the men who should have treated her the best (because of how Jesus taught them) that she feels safer in the arms of someone who doesn’t even share her Jesus.

Something to think about my dear reader. Until we chat again: may God bless you, make you thoughtful, and give you His wisdom.


**Update... as many of you have no doubt guessed by now, though I posted this with a thin veil of anonymity, I was in fact my "friend".
My dear, dear husband and I wrestled long and hard about how to approach this issue. In the end, Jesus and His love won out!
Moses committed to following wholeheartedly after Christ as part of his vows to me as a potential husband, and it is with a ridiculous amount of internal joy that I have secured this front row seat to watch wide-eyed as Christ grows in his heart.
Oh my dear reader! How I wish you could share the joy that I felt as he came to me and asked who he needed to talk to at church about being baptized! He told me he felt he had been "dating Christ" for some time, and he needed move his relationship into "marriage". And then the flurry of "why wait?" when he jumped into that commitment with no hesitation or regrets the moment he asked our pastor about it.
What a blessing and warmth is brings to my heart every time he stops and reminds us as a family that we need to pray and seek God on an issue. How beautiful it is to see him praying with our son or studying the scriptures on his own time. There is nothing quite as utterly beautiful to my soul as observing the work of God on a heart that I prayed over so many, many times!