When Yassir Eric was 16, he believed he knew exactly who his enemies were. One of them was a new boy at school named Zakariya\u2014quiet, brilliant, gentle, and unmistakably Christian, with the fan-shaped scars on his forehead marking him as part of the Dinka people. For Yassir, raised in an elite Sudanese Muslim family steeped in jihadist zeal, that was enough to justify hatred. Every day at noon prayers, he asked God to destroy Zakariya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two years later, he and his friends ambushed the boy on a dark path. They beat him, stabbed him, and walked away assuming he was dead. Zakariya vanished from school, and the memory was buried under Yassir\u2019s growing religious pride.
But life unraveled his certainties. His respected uncle unexpectedly became a Christian. His young cousin, near death, miraculously revived after the prayers of two Egyptian Coptic believers. Yassir secretly began reading a Bible, feeling the foundations of his world shift. When he eventually confessed his faith in Jesus, he lost everything\u2014family, inheritance, even his name. He was arrested, beaten, and hunted, yet he rebuilt a new life far from Sudan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years later, now a Christian minister in Cairo, he finished preaching at a conference when a man approached him, walking slowly with a limp. His right eye was frozen from an old injury. His hand was twisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you recognize me?\u201d the man asked. \u201cI\u2019m Zakariya.\u201d He opened his Bible. On the first page was a handwritten prayer list. At the top was Yassir\u2019s name. \u201cBecause you hated me so deeply,\u201d Zakariya said, \u201cI always prayed for you.\u201d
Sometimes the people we try hardest to erase are the very ones carrying our names\u2014quietly, faithfully\u2014before God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3499,3689,4010,4285,4395,4679,4810],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-65857","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-bitterness","tax_ctp_tags-conversion","tax_ctp_tags-forgiveness","tax_ctp_tags-islam","tax_ctp_tags-love","tax_ctp_tags-prayer","tax_ctp_tags-resentment"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"\n