Dreams and visions

Asking Jesus to appear to Muslims as part of Project Prayer: Ramadan 2021

By Elaine Fallesen, Women’s and Family Ministry, Climbing For Christ

Elaine with Taner and his mother in eastern Turkey in July 2020. Taner is a Kurdish man Elaine has prayed for since first meeting on Mission: Ararat 2014. He is being discipled by our Kingdom worker in Turkey. (Photo by Gary Fallesen)

Let’s cut to the chase – want to know the BEST way to pray for our Muslim friends and family to come to Christ? Ask Jesus to appear to them in a dream or a vision.

I am convinced of this since reading Women Who Risk: Secret Agents for Jesus in the Muslim World. Praying for hearts to be softened and ears to be opened to the Truth is not a bad way to pray. But man, if you want to see jaw-dropping action, get specific and ask Jesus to speak to them in person. He does it all the time throughout the Muslim world – using dreams and visions as His preferred tools of the trade.

This collection of real-life stories published this year by authors Tom and Joann Doyle focuses on the testimonies of former Muslim women who have encountered Jesus and given their lives to Him in Muslim hot spots: Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and even the heart of Islam itself – Mecca.

These women – some abused, beaten or forced into marriage, or refugees in camps and bombed cities where war and death are everyday – have no reason to make up their life-altering experiences of meeting the God of the Bible. The resulting dangers and enormous risks they now face as new Christ followers convinces us they aren’t doing this for fun. Their eternal lives are at stake, and they are willing to risk their earthly lives for it – because Jesus spoke to them and showed them He is worth it.

One testimony is from Layla, a Syrian who found herself a beaten – literally and spiritually – refugee in a Lebanese camp after her abusive, ISIS-supporting husband fled from the Syrian Arab Army.

Layla describes how one night, alone in her tent, “all of a sudden there was a flash of light in the tent, and He was there. He told me, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Layla, do you believe?’

“I bowed my face to the ground and said, ‘Yes, Jesus. Yes!’ Then He was gone. But the light remained. In fact, as I sat there, several neighbors came by and asked me, ‘Where did you get your lights?’ When Yassar (her husband) returned, even he saw the heavenly glow on my face and the light.”

Layla accepted Jesus into her heart the next day. Muslim background believers who’d been led to her by the Spirit continue to disciple her.

Jesus feeds the two soldiers

In another account, Jesus appears first to a cheating husband, who comes to faith after comparing notes with another Syrian soldier while the two hide from the enemy in a basement for 10 days in their war-torn city of Aleppo. Both realized they had been having the same dreams of a Man in a white robe for some time. Things get really real when their food runs out on day seven. A sudden knock at the basement window of their hiding place leads one of them to cautiously inch up to the glass and peer out. “It’s Him again!” he whispers to the other soldier. “The Man in the white robe.”

After insisting he is not delirious the soldier explains, “He brought food to me when I was trapped in my office for a week last month.” As the two men stand up they see that the window has already been opened from the outside. Bundles of food and jars of water sit within reach.

If that isn’t enough to give you God bumps, the next story will do that and more.

Jesus comes to Mecca

The hajj, an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. (Photo by Prayercast)

The final and most astounding testimony in the book details when Jesus appears at Mecca, where millions of Muslims pilgrimage annually to Islam’s holiest site to walk in a circle around the Kaaba stone during the hajj.

Bold young Kady was having so many dreams about Jesus that she prayed one night, “Jesus if You’re who You say You are…meet me at the Kaaba stone during the hajj.”

The next day, on her first walk around the stone, “All of a sudden I heard it. I was concentrating on my prayers when the name Jesus pierced through my memorized words, and I said His name out loud. But it wasn’t just me who said His name. I realized people around me all uttered it at the same time.”

Afraid at first that she had been caught in the act of speaking the Lord’s name, she looks around and sees that no one is coming to arrest her. A few minutes later she hears it again. And then Jesus presents her with a vision:

“I found out later that a whole group of people had a vision of Jesus at the same time…We saw Jesus standing on top of the Kaaba stone with an astounding, magnetic smile on His face. Instinctively, I reached for Him. Then I was instantly afraid and drew my hands back. What if someone saw me?

“But I stared at Jesus, and He seemed to sense my fear. He did not want me to be frightened and swept His hand over the mass of people for me to see what was happening. I realized I wasn’t alone. So many hands were reaching toward Him. I had no doubt – He was there. Jesus was there – at the Kaaba!”

Boom! Drop the mic. This is the all-powerful Christ the Messiah at work in the world today. He is above all gods. He stands – He stands – on top of all idols. He IS the Name above all names. Visions and dreams are His special weapons of spiritual warfare in His mighty work of saving, healing, and loving the Muslim world. Pray, pray, pray for the Lord of the harvest to reveal Himself in a dream or a vision to the Muslims you know!