The People of Saudi Arabia

20 June 2017 / Day 25

Pray for Ahmed and Saudi Arabia

Several years ago, an American teenager gave his Saudi friend a Bible. It sat around his house, not being used, until one day the Saudi teenager’s father, Ahmed, found it and began to read it. Ahmed had been praying for God to reveal truth to him, and when he began to read the pages of the Injil (New Testament) he was cut to the heart and began to realize that this was the word of God – the truth he had been searching for his whole life.

Ahmed read the Bible through twice and he has begun talking to his wife about these things, however, his wife is threatening to leave him if he converts. It is no small thing to change your faith in Saudi Arabia. The penalty for choosing to follow Christ is severe – the government has the legal authority to imprison, beat or even kill someone who converts to another faith from Islam. Not only that, but families are so devastated and shamed by a relative converting that they will often exile, beat or even kill the one who has converted to restore the honor to their family name.

It takes great courage to even allow yourself to think differently about your faith in a nation like Saudi Arabia, known as the birthplace of Islam with its fierce tribal loyalty and strict religious laws. But no one has yet found a way to control the spirit of those who long to know the ways of God for themselves and many are finding ways to follow Jesus within Saudi culture.

How to Pray

• Pray for leaders and lawmakers in Saudi Arabia to permit an increase in religious freedom for their nation.
• Every woman in Saudi Arabia has a male guardian – often a father or husband, sometimes a brother or son – who has the power to make a range of critical decisions on their behalf. Pray for women who are protesting this inequality and seeking more freedom.
• Despite their different culture and experiences, Saudi men are at heart, just as all men are. Pray for them as you would pray for the men in your own family.