"Dreams and Visions" by Tom Doyle {A Review}

A while back I was asked if I would like to do a book review on the book

DREAMS AND VISIONS: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World? by Tom Doyle. As world missions are of great interest to me and this book sounded intriguing, I said yes.

  I will admit I went in to this book with some scepticism. I believe that we have an incredibly powerful God that can work in any way that He chooses but I also believe that for the most part in our time He chooses to communicate through His written word - The Bible and that he chooses to work through His people - Christians. But with that said I do think that God is able to work through Dreams and Visions as well if that is what He wants to do.

 The writer of this book to me understanding has thought much the same way that I did and so when he started hearing stories of Dreams and Visions being had by Muslims in the middle east - He also was sceptical until he started researching it for himself.

   The book is an incredibly interesting compilation of stories about Muslims who have been introduced to Jesus through a dream or vision. That dream or vision has then caused them to search farther either online, through radio programs or even finding Christians in their area so that they can learn more.

  It is so interesting and inspiring to read about these Muslim people who are willing to seek to find out more about Jesus even though the result could quite likely be (and has been in many cases) death for them should somebody find out. The Middle East is a very challenging place for missionaries to go and maybe that is why Jesus is visiting people in dreams and visions. He does truly desire for all people to be saved.

  This book wakes us up to the realization of how hungry those people are for Love and Truth. Many of them might fight against it but many of them realize just how empty their lives are now and long for something more.

 I want to share with you something that Tom wrote in the book. He says:

"Muslims have a seriously bad image among the world's non-Muslims. Just about every night you can watch national news coverage of the latest terrorist attack, usually at the hands of "Islamic extremists". Muslims see these news reports, too, and know what the majority of the world thinks of them. But I think it's exactly in keeping with the character of God to reach out especially to those who seem hard to love or are the despised of society."

Tom does also point out that he (and other missionaries that work with the Muslims) are not in any way promoting the idea that they don't need God's word to spread the gospel to Muslims or that a Muslims goes to sleep a Muslim and then has a dream of Jesus and wakes up a Christian- It doesn't work that way. The fact is however that 80% of Muslims cannot read or write and perhaps that is why God is coming to them more often in dreams and visions to wake up their desire to know Him more. Also they point out that conversions with Muslims (even with those that have dreams) is generally a long process, but the dreams do help to remove many of their doubts.

This book does cause me to want to do more. Here are some of the things that I have been thinking about:

• Supporting Financially "Key Communications" a group that I know to be careful to teach the truth of the bible and their passion is to reach the Muslim world for Christ. They have been concentrating on Pakistan but also reach out to other countries as well. They have been using Radio broadcasts as well as other means to spread the gospel.
• Finding ways to reach out to the Muslims that may be around me. Though our area doesn't have many Muslims there are usually some that come over as students to attend the university here. Our family has had contact with quite a few over the years and have attempted to share Jesus love with them but lately we have not been as involved with international students and haven't really spent time with any Muslims ones for quite a while. I am considering becoming more involved with international university students again. While over in the US these students would have much better opportunity to hear the gospel and then hopefully they can eventually share that message with their family at home as well.
• Pray for Muslims! This is something I have done but I now feel much more passionately about doing that and doing it often. Please join me in praying for the Muslims that they would find Jesus!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this book or the idea of sharing the gospel with the Muslim world!

Disclaimer- I received this book free of charge for purposes of reviewing. All thoughts are my own. The link to the book above is an affiliate link at Amazon- if you purchase something then I will receive a percentage.