Nell Green, with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, tells why she prays for Muslims during Ramadan:
- I love my Muslim friends and neighbors. I want God’s best for them.
- I learn from my Muslim friends and neighbors. I learn the value of community, the value of fasting, the value of regularly coming aside in the middle of a crazy world to pray, and so much more.
- During this time of Ramadan my Muslim friends are seeking God and desire for God to meet them as they pray. It is a joy to pray that with them.
- It connects me to the realities of much turmoil and strife that is occurring in many countries, but during the month of Ramadan I am able to focus my prayers particularly for those Muslim countries that are suffering in one way or another.
- I sense a stronger connection to my Muslim friends and neighbors and God changes me as I pray for them.
- I am more sensitive to the people who are around me, particularly when I see someone who appears to a follower of Islam. I am able to offer a prayer on their behalf.
- As I read, study, and use various guides for my prayers, I learn more about the many different peoples God has placed upon this earth. God nudges my heart to pray for them with insight and sincerity.
- I become more sensitive to ways that I might be stereotyping people of other faiths and ways that they are perhaps marginalized in our society.
- I am drawn to a closer walk with God because of my heightened awareness.
- God calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves. I know of no better way to love someone than to pray. And then if possible be the one who expresses God’s love by word and deed.