A Christmas greeting from a Saudi Arabian Muslim

I received this in my inbox today.

Thought my might enjoy reading about what Jesus means to a Saudi Arabian/American Muslim.

Enjoy!

Friends,
Yesterday December 24, 2011 a friend and a brother sent me his wish for a Merry Christmas and said: “I hope today you have been able in some way to celebrate the life we have in Christ!”. This led me to think about what celebrating the birth of Jesus truly means to me. This early morning, I woke up as usual at 5.30 A.M. to perform my morning prayer and was sitting after prayers thinking and suddenly, I felt a surge of bless flowing through me and the meaning of celebrating Jesus birth became clear in my heart and in my mind. The urge to write to all of you sharing these wonderful feelings I have is out of love to all of you. In fact this whole thing is about love.

When I was sixteen of age, I observed that all we human beings do including love and friendship is originated in a basic instinct to preserve the species. Later, I observed that from there we moved into self glorification of our particular race. This certainly was not very flattering to our human race. But that is truly how I felt. Later, I learned that there must be a creator. My observation to His universe taught me that He deeply cares about me and I found myself surrendering myself to His care. This put me on one side of the fence and put those that did not surrender on the other side. Islam that I learned at that time had something missing. My teachers were mostly Islamocentrics. They taught me that Muslims are the only saved people. All others are doomed. They were self glorifying themselves and those like them. While this was not racial per say, still it added another dimension to my understanding i.e. people self glorify themselves based on many elements of race, tribe, party or even religion.

When I met Jesus I observed that for the first time someone is not motivated in his behavior by ego or egotistical motives. He is teaching that we are all children of God and He loves us all equally. He is teaching not only to love those that you call your people or those that belong to your religion but to love even your enemies. He teaches that if you want to lead you have to serve, if you want to be the first you have to be the last and if you want life you have to give up life. His own life completed what was missing in my own understanding. He is the bridge that connected me to the purpose God created me for. To love Him and to serve others. Jesus is a man that had an exceptional miraculous birth, an exceptional miraculous life and exceptional miraculous death and resurrection by the will of God.

I was sharing this with my daughter minutes after I felt it and she said but dad today might not be his real birthday. I said, If you follow his teachings, you will be celebrating his birth every day.
Blessings,
Safi