Inspiring Story: Saad's Story

It's time for another Inspiring Story. This week, I'd like to share Saad's story. "Saad" is a fifteen-year-old Pakistani who now resides in Florida.

For the first few years of his life, he resided in Pakistan -- a predominately Muslim country -- with his Muslim family, until their move to the United States in 1997. The next decade brought with it many changes such as adjusting to American society, making new friends, and watching his mother battle breast cancer. All of these things prompted various emotions and questions that Saad had no answers for. April 16, 2010 is a day that Saad will never forget. He describes it as follows:

The world was marked between AD and BC, and now it would mark on April 16th, the most important day of my life. I wonder if I hadn't done anything on that day, would my life be as crazy as it is now? Who knows? Anyways, it was a chat on Facebook, and I just thought I'd talk to Robert for a second. I wish I could have copy and pasted the conversation onto Notepad or something, because that conversation was intense. I asked him first (without saying "hey" or anything) - How do you forgive yourself? And Robert replied - I just forgive them. I didn't say anything back when he wrote something else. - I actually forgive myself through Jesus Christ. Bam. Clack. Baboom. Fickle. Shabang. Wackle. Ploop. He said it, he actually said it. What do you think I did then? Did I go offline? Did I yell at him? Did I then preach him Islam? The answer is inside the heart. I could have done those things, but I loved him, and I thought we could actually have a good conversation if we continued. So there we go, Robert's got me in. We talked for a half an hour before he sent me a message that wouldn't fit on chat. It was the "life-changing" message.

He was talking about the Resurrection, and how Jesus died for our sins, that is how he forgave people. To be absolutely honest, I had no idea what he was talking about! He was going on about Jesus, Mary, the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and I honestly had no clue what the whole "Ressurection" ideal was, but then his very last sentence almost made me cry. He said "I'm telling you this because I love you man, and I want to see you in heaven for an eternity" (It was along those lines, but you get the point).

You're probably asking me now, why did you almost cry at that? Well, you obviously don't know me that well. I loved him dearly, and I considered him my best friend, when I'm sure at that point I was just a good friend of his. I guess we were all confused about the values of our friends. Anyways, when he told me that he loved me first, I was astonished because I never knew he loved me too. Now time and time again, I ask myself whether that was "Yah, I love you" or "I love you forever" kind of thing. I choose to believe it's the second one, but only God knows what was inside his heart that day. But anyways, it made me happy, and I started off this journey blinded with the fact that if Robert loved me too, then I got the whole world with me. He was and still is my best friend till this day.

When everything first started taking into play, I obviously had questions. I wondered if there was a way that Islam and Christianity could converge, somewhere they could actually meet, so I could make this work with my family too. But they were two different religions. I asked Robert whether it was okay if you didn't believe that Jesus was the son of God and still go to heaven. Answer: Absolutely not. My hopes of unification were shattered, all of my other little questions were definitely "no" too. I believe we talked right through April 18th, when he had told me he had just bought me a Bible. It was a Sunday that day, and we would meet in the morning the following day of school. I was nervous. I was about to meet a new friend. My life-companion, I guess. When Robert gave me the Bible that Monday morning, I was happy. We had scheduled a time during lunch to read it. We started with John first. We were originally starting with Mark but then his father influenced Robert to start with John. Since then, I had oddly wanted to meet Robert's Dad for that, for good purposes of course.

In all of this, there was one lie. I had told Robert that my parents were "okay" with me being Christian. But it wasn't a big deal at that time, so I ignored it.... Everything was good, we even started a Bible Reading Schedule. We would spend 30 minutes a day at home reading the Bible. We started in Mid-May but we ended quicker than I thought.

June 3rd - The big day. THE day. The day I was saved. Yes, you read it correctly. This 14-year old boy was saved on June 3rd, becoming a true son of the Lord, and a follower of his now Saviour, Jesus Christ. Crazy day, believe me. We, Robert and I, had decided the night before to do it on that day, he thought I was ready. We did during our lunch period the following day. Robert was nervous, I was calm on the surface, but nervous too. I was about to embark on an extremely dangerous trip. There was no turning back. And on June 3rd, at around 12 PM, on a side-bench near my teacher's room, I was saved.

You must remember that Saad comes from a Muslim family -- if you know anything about Islam, you know that Muslims are not particularly fond of Christians, much less someone in their own family turning to Christianity! Eventually, Saad notified his family of his decision to follow Christ in what resulted as a very heartbreaking experience -- they were not happy at all. You can read the rest of the story at Saad's blog; please give him a follow!

I have posted this story to point out two things: Firstly, Saad's story is not unique; many, many Christians around the world are suffering for their faith in Jesus -- in Muslim countries, in Buddhist countries, in Communist countries. Yet, they persevere. If you read the rest of the story you will see that although Saad almost lost faith, God clung to Him... and he clung ever tighter to God. And this brings me to the second point: those who are persecuted for their faith do not stop sharing the Good News of the Gospel no matter what they face. Why? Because they have the mentality that more people should come to Christ -- they are self-less, caring only for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. In fact, today, Saad uses his blog to encourage Christians to not take their faith in God for granted. May we all learn from these prime examples.

In closing, I would encourage you to pray for Saad's native country, Pakistan, in light of the recent turmoil that has been going on... and pray for Saad, as well, that he would continue to remain strong in the Lord.

If you have a testimony or inspirational story that you'd like to share, I would love to hear from you. Just leave me a comment or leave a link to where I can view it (if posted elsewhere) here. Thank you! The next Inspiring Story will be January 21-23. I hope to see you there!