This happened about two years ago, with my friend and brother in Christ, Hamid.* However, at that time, he was just a neighbor.
Sharing with Hamid
I had to visit with him and his family one evening, but the urgency of the visit wasn’t that big of a deal. So we drank tea and coffee and talked about different subjects. One of those discussions led to my saying, “Jesus said something about this.” I looked up in Matthew 5 where Jesus said, “For you have heard it said, that you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you that you should love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”
I showed this verse to Hamid on my iPhone. He read it aloud once and then to himself about three or four times. After, he asked if anyone had a paper and pen so he could write this down. “This is very important,” he said.
Just before I went to see him, I had stopped at our apartment to grab my backpack. Before I walked out the door, the Holy Spirit impressed upon me that I should put in a new Arabic Bible. So I did, not knowing what the impression was about.
After Hamid asked for paper and pen, I asked him if he would like that verse already written down. He said yes. So I pulled out the Bible from my backpack. He asked if that was a whole Bible. I said that it was. He then wanted me to show him exactly where the verse was so that he could compare it to my phone.
A Dream from God
That evening, he started reading about 9:00pm, and then kept reading until the early morning. He finally got too tired to read any more, and started to fall asleep. As soon as he closed his eyes, a man in a white robe with a staff in one hand appeared to him. Hamid told me this story a couple weeks after it happened because he was afraid.
In the dream/vision, it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen with a large green grassy field and a river running through it. The man was so bright that Hamid couldn’t see his face. As Hamid gazed at what he was seeing, he felt an enormous amount of love emanating from the man. As he stood there, the man said, “Come to me.” So Hamid walked forward and the man put his arms around Hamid. Hamid had never known peace or love like this in his life. He then woke up.
When I asked him who the man was, he said, “It was Jesus. There was no one else it could be.” I agreed. Jesus had appeared to Hamid just as Hamid was digging into His Word. Hamid and his brother were baptized about 6 or 7 months later.
Life with Jesus
About 1 1/2 years after he had this dream/vision of Jesus, Hamid had to make a choice about whether or not to fast during Ramadan. He told me that when he thought about it, he remembered that Jesus had appeared directly to him, and that he didn’t want to lose what Jesus had given him that day – true peace.
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*Name changed
