An incredible testimony

I have a friend named Sean Quereshi who I have known for the last four years. Sean was born into a Muslim family and has been a devout Muslim for the last 21 years of his life. This is his story and testimony of how God changed his life:

"May 22nd, 2010. The night that Jesus opened my eyes and I could see for the first time was unlike any other. Spent the day talking to a good friend about how we sometimes miss God’s big picture for us and had to catch myself from time to time because I would start talking about Jesus and how good He is. Haha so Jesus didn’t just show up on one night and rock my world, but instead he took an icepick and slowly started to chip away and unfreeze my heart and reveal His love for me. But at Midnight Worship, everything seemed perfect and even if you didn’t believe in God, you couldn’t deny a spiritual presence in the room. The message was good and the music just sang in tune with every bone on my body.

But somehow despite the loudness of the place praising Jesus, a stillness swept over me and I drifted into a childhood memory. I have a terrible memory so this is literally the only childhood memory I can remember and I strongly believe there was a reason now why I remember it so vivdly. I was 4 years old and we were visiting Pakistan. I went with my dad to go buy some bread and a local outdoor market. I’m not sure how I got distracted, but for a child my age it probably wasn’t easy. I somehow lost where my father was, but then saw a man that was dressed exactly like him so I started following him home. When he got to his house, he closed the door behind him with me still standing outside. I was so confused, so I started knocking and that slowly turned into pounding as I couldn’t understand why my father wasn’t answering my distressed call. After awhile, I left and somehow made it to a dark alley and tears started flowing from my eyes, as different thoughts ran through my head: my father doesn’t love me, maybe I did something wrong, why wasn’t I a better son. I’m not sure how long I was there until I saw a bright light defeat the darkness around me. It was one of my father’s relatives on his motorcycle so thankful that he found me because my father was worried sick about me being lost. I can still remember what I said when my father found me, I said in hindi, "Sean goomo, baba dunliya" or in english "I was lost, but my Father found me."

The impact of that illustration is that even though I was seeking and knocking and praying God would open the door for me, I wasn’t knocking on my real Father’s door. Instead my Father knew me, but I had lost Him for 21 years and laid crying in a dark alley trying to fix myself up so my father would like me again. But “No one knows the Father except the Son and to those to whom the son chooses to reveal to Him.” That relative who came and wrapped his arms around me was Jesus and he took me back home so that I could rejoice with my true Father.

I opened up my eyes at Midnight Worship and tears were rolling down my face and I thought the whole time I had my arms crossed around me, but they were at my side, something else was holding me tight. My Father was holding me tight. At this point, I turned to my friend next to me and asked him what I had to do to be saved and he prayed over me and I surrendered myself to Jesus around 1:50 am on that late Friday night."

This image of God our Father absolutely made cry. I praise God for his grace that has continually been poured down. May God's name continue to receive glory as his story is passed on. I am super stoaked that I can now call my friend Sean a brother in Christ. Share his story; he wants it to be shared.