Ahmad Quraisy was a commanding officer in a militant Islamist group in Indonesia. The economic collapse of the late 1990s had radicalised him, and he blamed Christians for what had gone wrong. So he built a plan. He carried a time bomb into a Protestant church in Jakarta, intending to kill everyone inside.
Then he heard the pastor preach. The man was telling his congregation to love their enemies and to pray for the people who persecuted them. Quraisy froze. "I never saw that Christian love before in my life," he said. He could not do it. He carried the bomb back out. His own leaders locked him up for a month for failing.
The love he could not detonate That was only the beginning. In the year that followed, Quraisy began having visions he was sure came from Jesus. He was healed of typhus. His wife, unknown to him, had been quietly praying. By 2001 he gave his life to Christ.
The man who wanted to blow up a church now builds them. Quraisy leads an underground network of around seven thousand former Muslims meeting in house churches across Indonesia, most of them still keeping a low profile to stay safe.
The love that stopped his hand in that church is the same love reaching for you. It is stronger than the worst thing you ever planned to do.
