From Buddha to Jesus: A Chinese Buddhist’s Journey to Christianity
My name is Yan Budai, and this is my testimony. I was born into a devout Buddhist family in China, raised inside temple life, and taught humility, detachment, and self-purification. But over the years I began to see cracks in my faith. Buddhism felt imbalanced and lacked a practical framework for everyday life.
我叫严布岱，这是我的证言。我出生在中国一个虔诚的佛教家庭，在寺庙中长大，从小受到的教育是谦逊、超脱和自我净化。但多年来，我开始发现自己的信仰出现了裂痕。佛教似乎有些不平衡，缺乏日常生活的实用框架。
Searching for truth, I explored Islam through my sister’s influence. At first I admired its strict discipline, but soon I grew troubled by contradictions in the Quran, the violence connected with terrorism, and the questionable life of Muhammad. Conversations with Muslim friends shocked me—they admitted believing in Jesus but feared openly confessing Him. My questions remained unanswered, so I began praying earnestly to God, without using any name, asking for truth.
为了追寻真理，我在姐姐的影响下探索了伊斯兰教。起初，我钦佩其严格的戒律，但很快，《古兰经》中的矛盾之处、与恐怖主义相关的暴力以及穆罕默德可疑的生平让我感到不安。与穆斯林朋友的谈话让我震惊——他们承认相信耶稣，却害怕公开承认他。我的疑问一直没有得到解答，于是我开始虔诚地向真主祈祷，不以任何名字来祈求真理。
In 2014, my turning point came. I read Nabeel Qureshi’s book Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus * and was moved deeply. For the first time, I saw how Christianity offered a perfect balance—worship, family, work, and guidance all united. I entered different churches for four years, saw unity in prayer, and marveled at the Bible’s unchanged preservation.
2014年，我的人生转折点到来了。我读了纳比尔·库雷希的《寻找真主，找到耶稣》，深受感动。我第一次看到基督教如何提供完美的平衡——将崇拜、家庭、工作和人生指引融为一体。四年来，我进入不同的教会，在祷告中看到合一，并惊叹于圣经始终如一地保存至今。
At first I hid my conversion from my family, but over time my consistent love and patience softened their hearts. My mother and brother eventually came to Christ too. Today, I share the message of Jesus with Buddhists, Muslims, atheists, and anyone searching for truth. Christianity is open to all who sincerely seek.
起初，我向家人隐瞒了我的皈依，但随着时间的推移，我始终如一的爱和耐心软化了他们的心。我的母亲和弟弟最终也皈依了基督。如今，我向佛教徒、穆斯林、无神论者以及任何寻求真理的人分享耶稣的信息。基督教向所有真诚寻求的人开放。
If you are questioning your faith, or if you are an atheist who has already rejected false gods, you are closer to the truth than you think. All that remains is to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.
如果你正在质疑自己的信仰，或者你是一位已经拒绝假神的无神论者，那么你比你想象的更接近真理。剩下的就是承认耶稣是主和救主。
这是我的旅程——从佛教，到伊斯兰教，最终在耶稣基督里找到永恒的平安。
This is my journey—from Buddhism, through Islam, to finding eternal peace in Jesus Christ.
My name is Yan Budai. I am 78 years old and I was born in 1947 in the old town of Hangzhou, a place famous for West Lake and its many ancient temples. My earliest memories are not of toys or playgrounds, but of incense, smoke, chanting monks, and the deep sound of temple bells. My parents were both devout Buddhists committed to the faith not just as a belief but as a way of life. My father was a craftsman who carved wooden Buddhist statues for the temple and my mother prepared vegetarian meals for visiting monks. I grew up with the temple as my second home. Every morning before the sun rose, I was taken there to join in morning prayers. I learned to bow before the statues, fold my hands, and repeat the sutras until they became as familiar to me as my own name. I was taught from a young age that life's purpose was to rise above selfish desires, to live with humility, and to show kindness to all living things. The temple monks spoke softly, walked slowly, and treated every creature with care, even ants on the ground. I remember spending hours sweeping the stone courtyard, the bristles of the broom scratching against the floor, while monks reminded me that cleaning was a form of purifying the heart. I never questioned these lessons at the time. They were the air I breathed. My parents often reminded me that our family's honor depended on our devotion to these teachings. Every festival, we lit lanterns, made offerings, and chanted together. It was a quiet life, one where discipline was considered love, and self-control was a virtue above all others. By the time I turned 12, I could recite long passages from the Lotus Sutra without looking at the text. I knew how to sit in meditation for hours, my legs crossed, my breathing slow and deep. The temple's abbot often praised me for my discipline and dedication, saying I had the heart of a monk. My school friends sometimes teased me because l spent more time in the temple than on the playground, but I didn't mind. I felt special, almost chosen to live such a pure life. The smell of incense, the slow ringing of the bell, and the rhythmic chanting gave me a sense of peace l couldn't find anywhere else. My days were carefully ordered. Study, chores, prayers, and reflection. I believed I had found the highest path a person could walk. As I grew into my teenage years, the world outside the temple began to change. The streets of Hangzhou were becoming busier, markets get louder, and more people were talking about new ideas, foreign trade, and different beliefs. But inside the temple walls, time felt frozen. The monks wore the same robes, walked the same paths, and repeated the same teachings. I still valued what I had been taught, humility, detachment, self-purification. But I began to notice how little it prepared me for dealing with the world beyond the temple gates. When people came to the temple with real life problems like debts, sickness, or family disputes, the monks offered prayers, but little practical advice. I started to wonder if something was missing. It was a quiet thought, one l didn't dare share aloud, but it lingered in my mind like a shadow. My father sensed my restlessness, though he never said it directly. He would remind me that Buddhism's strength was in its ability to rise above worldly troubles. The world outside will always be noisy. He told me one evening as we sat in the dim light of our kitchen. The temple teaches you to be still. I respected his words, but I could not ignore the feeling that life required more than stillness. I saw neighbors struggling to earn enough to eat, and I wondered how detachment from the world could help them. Sometimes when I sat cross-legged in meditation, my mind wandered to these thoughts and I would feel guilty for being distracted.
But the more I tried to push them away, the more they returned. By the time l was 17, I had become a regular helper in the temple's library, organizing scrolls and repairing worn books. It was there that I first began to notice the limits of the teachings I had been raised on. The scrolls were filled with wisdom about inner peace, moral conduct, and spiritual discipline. But they offered little guidance on daily responsibilities, how to raise a family, how to work honestly in a changing economy, how to solve disputes fairly. I wondered if perhaps the problem was me, that I lacked the patience or understanding to see the deeper meaning. Yet, no matter how much I studied or meditated, the gap remained. The teachings gave me comfort, but did not always give me direction. I still remember the day a traveling monk from Fujian visited our temple. He had spent years walking from one province to another, spreading Buddhist teachings. During his talk, he spoke of letting go of all attachments, even family ties, to reach true enlightenment. Many in the audience nodded in agreement, but I felt a quiet discomfort. My family was everything to me. Could wisdom really mean turning away from them? The question stayed with me long after the monk had left. I began to realize that while I valued humility and detachment, I could not accept the idea of abandoning love and responsibility for those close to me. It was the first clear crack in the perfect wall of my childhood faith. In those days, questioning the temple's teachings felt almost like betrayal. I still kept my daily rituals, still bowed before the statue of Buddha, still swept the courtyard with care. But in my heart, a seed of doubt had taken root. I began to notice how much emphasis was placed on following rituals perfectly, even when people's hearts were heavy or distracted. Some monks seemed more concerned with the exact number of bows than with the compassion behind them. I started to think about whether a faith should not only aim to purify the self, but also to guide a person in living fully and responsibly in the world. Looking back, I see that my upbringing gave me a strong foundation, respect, self-control, patience. But it also left me unprepared for the practical demands of life. At the time, though, I did not see it so clearly. I only knew that I was beginning to search for something more, something that could balance spiritual discipline with everyday living. I had no idea where that search would lead me, but the walls of the temple, once so comforting, had begun to feel like boundaries. I still honored the teachings I had been given, but I knew deep down that my journey was only beginning and the path ahead might take me far from the stone courtyards where I had spent my childhood. When I left my teenage years behind, my life no longer felt as simple as it once did inside the temple walls. I had learned the chance, memorized the sutras, and followed every ritual without fail. Yet, the more l stepped outside the temple and into the streets of Hangzhou, the more l saw a world that did not match the teachings I had been given. People faced problems that no amount of incense burning or bowing seemed to solve. Some families struggled to keep their children in school. Others worried about paying rent or finding medicine. I noticed that the temple's answers to these problems were always the same. Pray, meditate, and detach from desires. But how could a father detach from his desire to feed his children? These questions began to trouble me deeply, though I kept them hidden in my heart for fear of disrespecting the faith I had been raised in. The imbalance I began to feel was subtle at first. Buddhism had always taught me to seek inner peace and to avoid clinging to worldly things. But it seemed to me that the teachings went so far in this direction that they left little room for addressing the practical realities of life. The idea that the best path was to remove oneself from worldly matters entirely felt impossible for someone like me who valued family responsibility. I started to see a gap between the temple's ideals and the daily struggles I saw outside. It was as if the religion built a high wall around the mind, keeping out the noise of the world, but also keeping out the solutions to its problems. I wondered if the faith I had trusted since childhood was too focused on personal purity while neglecting the needs of community life. I also began to notice a certain inflexibility in the rules I had once accepted without question. Every aspect of temple life was governed by tradition. How to stand, how to speak, when to eat, even how many times to bow during prayer. While discipline had its place, I started to feel that the rules sometimes became more important than the purpose behind them. I saw people scolded for missing a chant, but ignored when they refused to help a struggling neighbour. This strictness seemed to create a narrow view of goodness where morality was measured by how perfectly one followed rituals rather than how much one cared for others. My mind began to search for a way of living that joins spiritual discipline with active compassion. The more l thought about it, the more I realized that Buddhism, at least as I had learned it, offered no full framework for everyday decisions. It told me how to quiet my mind, but not how to manage my time. It taught me how to bow in respect but not how to settle a conflict with fairness. In my youth, I believed that wisdom came only from detachment. But I began to see that life demanded engagement. If I worked in a market, how should I treat a dishonest supplier? If I married and had children, how should I raise them to be both good and capable? The temple gave few direct answers to such questions. Without them, I felt like a man standing between two worlds. One silent and spiritual, the other loud and demanding and not fully belonging to either. My frustration deepened when I realized that the pursuit of detachment sometimes encouraged people to ignore problems rather than solve them. I saw monks avoid helping a struggling neighbour because they believed attachment to worldly matters would disturb their peace. I saw families spend money on temple offerings while their own relatives went hungry. While l understood the value of focusing on the spirit, I could not accept that compassion meant only giving kind words and incense. I began to feel that there had to be a balance between caring for the soul and caring for the body, between seeking personal enlightenment and meeting the needs of others. Without that balance, the teachings felt incomplete . I remember one particular incident that stayed with me. A young man from our neighborhood lost his job and came to the temple seeking advice. The monk listened patiently and then told him to meditate on detachment from worldly suffering. The young man nodded politely, but I could see the disappointment in his eyes. He did not need detachment. He needed guidance on finding work, encouragement to keep going, and perhaps a little help from those who had more. In that moment, I realized that while the temple's words could comfort the mind, they often left the hands empty. This was when my faith began to feel less like a complete answer and more like a partial truth. As I wrestled with these thoughts, I also began to see how restrictive the faith could be for anyone who wanted to question or adapt it. There was little room for discussion about whether certain practices could change with the times. The elders believed that to question tradition was to risk losing the path to enlightenment. But I believed that truth should be able to withstand questions. If a teaching was right, would it not stand even when tested? Yet in the temple, questions about practicality or adaptation were met with silence or warnings. This created a quiet pressure to follow without thinking too much, a pressure l could no longer accept. The more I noticed these imbalances, the more restless I became. It was not that I wanted to abandon what I had learned. I still respected the discipline, humility, and self-control that Buddhism had given me. But I began to feel that a true way of life must guide a person in every area, spiritual, family, and work, not only in the search for inner peace. I longed for something that c.ould help me live well in the world while also preparing my soul for whatever came after. The idea that faith should be separate from daily life no longer made sense to me.
My heart began to search for a belief system that could join the two. By my mid 20s, I knew | could not ignore these cracks any longer. I had spent years trying to fill the gaps by reading more sutras, attending more ceremonies, and speaking with more monks. But the same questions returned. Why must faith avoid the world instead of improving it? Why should tradition remain untouched even when life changes around it? And why did the pursuit of detachment sometimes feel like an excuse for inaction? These questions formed the quiet foundation of my desire to look beyond what I had been given. I did not yet know where to turn, but I knew I had to keep looking. The lotus flower that had seemed so perfect in my youth now showed signs of wilting, and I could not ignore it any longer. It was around my 36th year when my sister May returned from studying in Guangzhou with a change I had not expected. She had always been close to me, the kind of sister who shared her thoughts openly. But now her way of speaking was different. She wore a headscarf, spoke about God using Arabic words, and prayed five times a day on a smal mat. She told me she had become a Muslim after meeting friends from Xinjiang who introduced her to Islam. At first, I was simply curious. I had heard of Islam, but it felt like something far away, connected to desert lands and foreign customs. May spoke about it with such confidence that I found myself listening closely. She described it as a religion with clear rules, a strong moral code, and a structure for daily life. After my growing frustrations with Buddhism's lack of practicality, I could not help but pay attention. May explained that Islam guided a person not only in worship, but in every aspect of living, family relations, business dealings, even personal hygiene. She said it had no room for confusion because the Qur'an and the hadith* of Prophet Muhammad gave clear instructions for almost every situation. I found this appealing. After years of feeling that my faith lacked a rational framework, the idea of a religion that could address both the spiritual and the practical was attractive. She spoke of fasting during Ramadan, giving charity, and keeping away from alcohol and gambling. These rules seem to create a disciplined and moral society. I could see why many people were drawn to such order, especially in times when life felt uncertain. Islam appeared to offer a complete way of life and I began to wonder if this might be the balance I was searching for. In the months that followed, May introduced me to some of her Muslim friends. They were from different parts of China, some wiguri, and they welcomed me with warm smiles. I attended a few gatherings where the men prayed together in Arabic, and I listened as they explained the meaning of their rituals. I was impressed by their unity and their strict commitment to prayer times. No matter where they were, the mosque they attended was simple but organized with everyone knowing their place and role. Compared to the slow, detached rhythm of the temple, this felt energetic and purposeful. The idea that God cared about the details of life, from how to treat parents to how to conduct trade, seemed to answer some of the questions I had carried for years. However, as my interest grew, so did my questions. I began reading the Qur'an in Chinese translation, hoping to understand for myself what made this religion so confident in its truth. At first, I admired its emphasis on belief in one God, on honesty, and on charity. But soon, I noticed things that troubled me. Some passages seemed to contradict others, and certain verses felt vague when it came to their application. I asked May about them, but she often told me that only scholars could explain the deeper meanings. While l respected the need for knowledge, I felt uneasy about a faith where an ordinary believer could not easily understand the holy book without depending completely on others interpretations. The more l read, the more questions I had, questions about violence, war, and the treatment of non-Muslims. I saw verses that seemed to allow fighting against those who rejected the faith. When l asked May's friends, they explained that these were taken out of context or related to historical battles. Yet I could not ignore the reality I saw in the news.
Terrorist attacks, bombings, and armed groups claiming to act in the name of Islam. I began to wonder why so many who followed this religion turned to violence if its core message was peace. It troubled me that the Qur'an, while containing calls for mercy, also had verses that seemed to encourage hostility under certain. conditions. What unsettled me further was what I learned about the life of Prophet Muhammad. In Buddhist tradition, our teachers were expected to live simple, peaceful lives, setting an example above reproach. When I studied Muhammad's life, I found events that did not match the moral perfection l expected from a prophet. Stories of battles he led, the number of wives he married, and how some marriages involved very young girls. These accounts were not hidden. They were discussed openly by Muslims, but always explained away as being normal for the time. I could not fully accept that argument. If a prophet's life was meant to be a model for all people in all times, then should it not also rise above the flaws of its age? At the same time, I noticed a kind of fear among the Muslims I met when it came to certain topics. Many would speak about faith and obedience to God. But if the discussion turned to any possible criticism of Muhammad or the Qur'an, the conversation quickly ended. This made me uneasy. If truth was strong, why should it fear questions? I remembered how in the temple my own doubts had been met with silence and I began to feel I was seeing the same pattern here. Rules that must be followed without being fully understood or questioned. While l still respected the devotion of May and her friends, I began to realise that Islam for all its structure and clarity carried its own walls of restriction. The turning point came when I had a conversation with a Muslim man in his 40s. We spoke about faith in God and he surprised me by saying of course we believe in Jesus. He is a prophet and the Messiah. My eyes widened. I had assumed that Muslims completely rejected Jesus. But he explained that while they honored Jesus, they could not call him the son of God. What struck me even more was when he admitted quietly that he sometimes wondered about Jesus being more than a prophet. But he could never say such things openly. If my family knew I questioned this, he said I would be cut off. That moment stayed with me. It was one thing to have rules about prayer and diet, but it was another to live in fear of speaking about what you truly believed. It made me question whether any faith should demand such silence from its followers. The conversation with the Hui Muslim man about Jesus did not leave my mind For days, I replayed his words. "Of course, we believe in Jesus," he had said. Yet he also admitted he could not speak openly about his deeper thoughts. This felt strange to me. I had expected Muslims to reject Jesus completely. But here I was learning that he was part of their own the same pattern. My Muslim friends spoke respectfully of Jesus, calling him Issa, acknowledging his miracles, his virgin birth, and even his role as the Messiah. But when l asked if they could talk about him as the son of God, their faces would tense. Some changed the subject. Others lowered their voices and warned me to be careful. It was the first time l realized that faith could honor someone yet be afraid to speak of him fully. One evening during tea at May's apartment, I asked her directly why Muslims could believe so much about Jesus yet stop short of confessing him as Lord. She answered quickly, almost as if she had rehearsed it. Because the Qur'an says he is only a prophet. To say otherwise is sherk. Associating partners with God and that is the worst sin. I pressed further asking why if he was born of a virgin, performed miracles and was called the Messiah, his role should be limited. May became uneasy. She told me not to ask such questions because they caused division and could lead to serious trouble. The way she avoided eye contact told me she was afraid not only for me but for herself. Her fear was not of God's judgment alone, but of how her Muslim community would respond if they thought she was doubting. In the weeks that followed, I tried to continue the discussion with others, but I met the same resistance. Some gave me the official answers from the Qur'an, saying Jesus was a prophet who would return one day to bring justice. ( If so, why Qur'an says Muhammad is the last prophet from God? ) Others admitted in quiet whispers that they sometimes wondered why the Qur'an gave him such a special place if he was only a man. But every time the conversation would end abruptly, as if an invisible wall had been hit. I noticed how even a hint of questioning about Muhammad or the Qur'an was dangerous. But questioning about Jesus carried its own risk. It was like walking a thin bridge where one wrong word could cause the entire community to turn against you. The silence and fear unsettled me more than disagreement would have. If the truth about Jesus was so certain, why could it not be discussed openly? I began to see a deeper problem, not only in Islam but in myself. I had been moving from one religion to another, hoping to find answers. But I had been relying entirely on people to explain their faiths to me. Now I was facing a wall that no one seemed willing to open. The questions about Jesus burned in my mind. Who was he really? Why did he stand out even in religions that did not fully follow him? And why did people fear to speak his name in certain ways?
One Friday afternoon, after a long and frustrating talk with a Muslim friend who refused to go beyond rehearsed explanations, I walked alone along the banks of West Lake. The spring air was warm, but my heart felt heavy. I sat on a bench staring at the water and realized I was tired. Tired of half answers, tired of traditions that discouraged honest searching. I thought about the Buddha I had bowed to as a child, about the rules of Islam I had studied, and now about the Jesus whose name seemed to open both respect and fear. I knew I could no longer accept other people's words alone. If there was a God who was real, I needed him to tell me himself. That evening in my small apartment, I sat on the floor with no scriptures open, no statues before me, and no prayer rugs spread out. For the first time in my life, I prayed without addressing any religious figure by name. I simply said, "God, if you are there, show me who you are. Show me the truth." I did not call him Buddha. I did not call him Allah. I did not call him Jesus. I left the name blank because l did not want to assume l already knew. All I wanted was for the real God to make himself known to me in a way I could understand. The days after that prayer were both quiet and restless. I went about my work, visited May, and attended the mosque gathering she invited me to, but my mind was somewhere else. Every time l heard Jesus' name mentioned in passing, my attention sharpened. I noticed that even when Muslims prayed or taught, they spoke of him with an unusual honor, sometimes more warmth than they used for other prophets. This only deepened my curiosity. I began to think that perhaps the answer to my prayer would have something to do with him. I had no proof yet, but the thought stayed in my heart like a small light in the dark. Still, I had no idea how that light would grow or where it would lead me. My search for truth had moved me from the temple to the mosque, and now it seemed to be pointing beyond both. But all I could do for the moment was keep praying, still without a name, still asking for clarity. I promised myself that if God answered, I would follow no matter the cost. I did not know then how serious that promise would become or how much it would change not only my beliefs but my entire life. It was early in the spring of 2014 when my search for truth took an unexpected turn. By then, months had passed since I began praying without using any name for God. I had not yet received a clear answer, but my heart was more awake than it had been in years. I listened more closely to anything about faith, always wondering if this might be the moment God spoke.
One afternoon while browsing through a small foreign language bookstore near the Hangzhou railway station, I noticed a section of books in English and Chinese translation. Among them was a title that caught my eye. Seeking Allah, finding Jesus. The name struck me like a spark. It was as if the book mirrored my own journey. Someone searching through Islam yet finding something unexpected in Jesus. I picked it up and saw the author's name, Nabeel Qureshi, a Pakistani American who had converted from Islam to Christianity. I had never heard of Nabeel Qureshi before, but the description on the back of the book spoke directly to my situation. It told of his upbringing in a devout Muslim family, his love for his faith, and his eventual questioning after deep study and debate with Christian friends. It mentioned his struggle with leaving behind family expectations and the pain of losing he community he had grown up in. I felt as if the story could almost be mine. Different religion at the start, but the same hunger for answers.
I bought the book without hesitation, thinking it might at least help me understand more about Islam's view of Jesus. What I did not know was that it would do far more than that. Reading Seeking Allah, finding Jesus was like having a conversation with someone who understood my restlessness. Nabeel described how he tested his beliefs against evidence, how he refused to accept easy answers, and how he faced the cost of searching for truth. His honesty impressed me. He was not attacking his old faith and bitterness. He was simply determined to follow the evidence wherever it led. That struck a deep cord with me because l had grown tired of answers that demanded blind acceptance. I saw in his journey a model of how faith could be examined with both the heart and the mind. He asked hard questions and when he found convincing answers, he acted on them even when it cost him dearly. What drew me most, however, was how Nabeel described Christian life. He wrote about how faith in Jesus was not limited to rituals or strict laws, but flowed naturally into family relationships, work, and daily decisions. He spoke of Christians sharing meals, supporting each other through hardships, and praying together in a personal heartfelt way. It was a kind of faith that seemed balanced, deeply spiritual, yet fully engaged with the real needs of life. I had been searching for something that joined the spiritual with the practical. And here was a living example. Christianity, as Nabeel described it, offered both devotion to God and guidance for everyday living. I remember one evening sitting at my small desk with the book open, feeling both excited and uneasy. Excited because l saw a new possibility for the kind of life I had long wanted. Uneasy because l knew that if I took this path seriously, it could change everything. My family might not understand. May would likely see it as betrayal just as Nabeel's family had.
But the thought of living in the faith that welcomed both the mind's questions and the heart's devotion was too strong to ignore. I began to reread certain passages underlining words about love, grace, and truth. These were not vague ideas. They were presented as real and active forces in the lives of believers. The book also opened my eyes to the historical reliability of the Bible. Nabeel explained how the Christian scriptures had been preserved through centuries without losing their core message, how multiple eyewitness accounts of Jesus life supported each other, and how archaeology and history confirmed many of its details. This was in sharp contrast to my experiences with the Qur'an, where difficult questions about contradictions were often brushed aside. I realized that if a book claiming to be God's word could stand up to historical testing, it deserved serious consideration. The idea that truth could be verified, not just accepted blindly, was refreshing. It made me want to study more to see if what Nabeel found could also be true for me. Over the weeks that followed, I read the book slowly, sometimes stopping for days to think over what I had learned. I found myself comparing what I read with my memories of temple life and mosque gatherings. In Buddhism, I had seen detachment from the world at the cost of practical guidance. In Islam, I had seen strong rules for life, but fear and silence around certain truths. In Christianity, as Nabeel described it, I saw worship joined with community, truth joined with compassion, and freedom joined with responsibility. It was not a perfect picture. No human community is, but it was closer to the balance l had been searching for. One part of the book that stayed with me was when Nabeel described his first experiences in Christian worship. He spoke of believers singing not as a ritual but as an expression of love for God. He wrote about how they prayed freely speaking from the heart rather than following a fixed formula. This reminded me of my own prayer months earlier when I had called out to God without using a name. It made me wonder if perhaps that prayer had been a step toward the very faith I was now reading about. I began to think that God might be answering me, not in a voice from the sky, but through the testimony of someone who had walked a similar path. By the time I finished the book, I knew I could not go back to ignoring Christianity. I had to see it for myself, not just on the page, but in real life. I wanted to meet Christians to watch how they lived, to hear how they understood Jesus. I wanted to ask my own questions and see if they would welcome them without fear. Nabeel's story had done more than inspire me. It had challenged me to act. If I was truly seeking truth, I could not stop at reading. I had to experience it. That decision would soon take me into places I had never imagined entering. Places where my understanding of faith would be tested and transformed. When I finished the book , I knew reading was no longer enough. I had to see with my own eyes what Christian life looked like. My first step was finding a church in Hangzhou that welcomed newcomers. I searched quietly, not wanting May or my friends to know yet. Eventually, I learned of a small international fellowship that met in a rented hall near West Lake.
One Sunday morning in the summer of 2014, I walked there alone. The moment I stepped inside, I noticed something different. People greeted me warmly, not because they knew me, but simply because I had come. There were no strict seating arrangements, no complex rituals to follow. When the service began, they sang together with joy that felt real. The music was simple, yet I could see tears in the eyes of some as they lifted their voices. I felt as if I had stepped into something living. During that first service, the pastor read from the Gospel of John about Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life. It struck me that these were not instructions for a set of rules, but an invitation to a relationship. After the message, people prayed aloud for each other. They mentioned specific needs, health, family troubles, work challenges, and prayed as if God was listening closely. This openness surprised me. In the temple, prayers had been formal and memorized. In the mosque, they had been fixed in Arabic. Here, prayer was spoken in the heart's own language, and no one seemed afraid to bring their personal struggles before God. I left that day with a feeling I had never experienced before, the sense that faith could be both holy and deeply human. I began attending regularly though I kept it secret from my family. I told May I was spending time with friends which was true but I did not mention that these friends were Christians. Over the next year l visited other churches as well. House gatherings in Hangzhou, larger congregations in Shanghai and even an underground church where believers whispered hymns to avoid attracting attention. Each place was different in style. Yet there was a common thread, a unity in prayer and a deep respect for the Bible as God's word. I saw people from different countries speaking different languages. But when they read the same scripture, their understanding and worship joined together. It felt like the opposite of the division I had seen elsewhere. What moved me most was the way the Bible had been preserved. In every church, whether the people used Chinese, English, Korean, or French translations, the message remained the same. I learned that Christians had used these same scriptures for nearly 2,000 years and that ancient manuscripts matched closely with the Bibles of today. I compared this to the doubts I had faced when reading the Qur'an, where uncomfortable questions were often avoided. Here, the history of the Bible was explained openly with evidence to study. It was as if God had kept his word safe for all generations. This gave me a kind of trust one had never felt toward any holy book before.
By 2016, I had begun traveling outside China through work opportunities. And wherever I went, I sought out local churches. In Singapore, l joined a Sunday service where Chinese, Malay, and Indian believers worshiped side by side. In South Korea, l attended a prayer meeting that lasted through the night with people taking turns reading scripture and singing. In Germany, I found a small fellowship in Berlin where refugees from Syria prayed next to locals who had lived there all their lives. These experiences showed me that Christianity was not tied to one culture or race. No matter the country, the message of Jesus remained the same. It was a global family united not by tradition alone, but by a shared love for God and one another. During those four years, I did more than attend services. I lived with Christian families, stayed in goose houses run by churches, and joined Bible study groups that met in homes. I learned how believers practiced their faith outside Sunday worship, how they treated their children, conducted their work, and handled disagreements. I noticed that their faith shaped decisions about honesty in business, generosity toward strangers, and forgiveness after conflict. Christianity was not a religion of empty ritual. It was a way of life that connected worship to daily living. This was the balance I had searched for through Buddhism and Islam, but had never found until now. Yet, even as my faith in Jesus grew, I still kept it hidden from my family. I feared May's disappointment and my mother's hurt. I knew they might see my choice as betrayal. For a while, I thought I could simply live quietly as a Christian without telling them. But the longer I waited, the heavier the secret became.
Finally, in 2018, after much prayer, I decided to speak. I first told my mother, explaining that I had found peace and truth in following Jesus. To my surprise, she did not become angry. She said she had noticed changes in me, more patience, more kindness, and more joy. She told me that if this faith made me a better son, she could not oppose it. Her words felt like a door opening. Telling May was harder. At first, she refused to speak to me about it. She said she feared for my soul and accused me of abandoning the truth of God as she
knew it. I did not argue. Instead, I continued to treat her with respect, helped her when she needed it, and prayed for her quietly. Over time, her anger softened. She began asking small questions about the Bible, at first out of curiosity, then out of genuine interest. By 2019, both she and my elder brother had begun attending church services with me occasionally. They said they wanted to understand why I believed. I knew God was working in their hearts just as he had worked in mine. Looking back on those four years, I see them as the most transformative of my life. I went from a seeker without a clear path to a follower of Jesus with a home in his church. I witnessed the unity of believers across cultures, the power of prayer offered without fear, and the unshakable preservation of God's word. I learned that faith is not about hiding from the world, but living in it with truth and grace. And I discovered that when God answers a prayer for truth, he often does so step by step, leading from one encounter to the next until the path becomes clear. For me, that path had led from the temple through the mosque and finally into the church, into truth. When l look back on my journey now, I see clearly how every step prepared me for the truth I found in Jesus Christ. I moved from the temple of my childhood to the mosque of my searching years and finally into the church where l found life. Each faith had its strengths. Buddhism taught me discipline and humility. Islam taught me moral structure, but both left me incomplete. Only in Christianity did I find the full picture. A God who is both holy and loving, truth that can be examined without fear, and a way of life that touches every part of existence. For me, the cross is not only a symbol of suffering, but the point where justice and mercy meet. I no longer feel like a man standing between two worlds.
In Christ, l am whole and my faith is not confined to a temple or a set of rules. It is alive in me every day. The difference between Christianity and my former faiths is not small. In Buddhism. I was taught to detach from the world to find peace. In Islam, I was told to submit to strict laws to please God. In Christianity, I learned that God himself came into the world to bring peace and salvation. This truth changes everything. I no longer strive to reach God through my own effort. Instead, I live in response to what he has already done through Jesus. Buddhism left me with unanswered questions about practical living. And Islam left me with fear and silence about certain truths.
Christianity gave me confidence, not because l know everything, but because I know the one who holds the truth. The more l studied the Bible, the more l saw its harmony across centuries, its preservation through trials, and its power to unite people from all nations under the same gospel. Living as a Christian in modern China has not been without its challenges. While my family eventually accepted my faith, many people I meet still see religion as a weakness or a foreign influence. Atheism is common here in China, not only as a rejection of organized religion, but as a worldview shaped by decades of teaching that God does not exist. When I speak to atheists, I do not start by attacking their disbelief. I tell them that in one way they are already halfway to Christianity because they have rejected false gods and empty traditions. All that remains is to take the final step to accept that Jesus Christ is the true Lord and Savior. I explained that believing in him is not about blind faith but about trusting in a truth supported by history, evidence, and the witness of millions of lives transformed. One of the ways I share my faith is through distributing Bibles. Over the years, I have given out hundreds copies of Bible, sometimes in public places, sometimes privately, to people who are curious. I have seen the surprise on the faces of those who open the Bible for the first time and realize it is not a book of foreign myths, but a living word that speaks to their lives. Some read a few pages and put it aside. But others come back with questions. Questions about forgiveness, about eternal life, about why Jesus died and rose again. Those are the conversations I value most because they are the same questions that once burned in my own heart. I know what it is like to search without finding.
And I know the joy of finally finding. My mission now is simple. To live in a way that points people to Jesus. I try to let my actions speak as loudly as my words. When l help a neighbour in need, I do it because Christ taught me to love others. When I forgive an offense, I do it because I have been forgiven much. I have learned that preaching does not always mean standing on a stage. It can be lived out quietly in the market, at a dinner table, or in the way you treat someone who disagrees with you. Many people have been drawn to ask about my faith, not because of a sermon, but because they saw something different in my behavior and wanted to know why. That is when I tell them, "It is not me, it is Christ in me." I also make it a point to speak to those who are still in Buddhism or Islam because I know their struggles. To Buddhists, I share that detachment from the world will never satisfy the longing for purpose that God placed in our hearts. To Muslims, I say that rules and rituals cannot remove sin, but Jesus offers forgiveness freely to all who believe in him. I tell them that Christianity is not about abandoning morality, but about grounding it in the love and grace of God. Sometimes the response is anger or dismissal, but other times it opens a door for further conversation. I have learned to be patient. Remembering that it took me many years to reach the place where I was ready to hear and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. To those who are seeking truth, my advice is always the same. Go to the source. Do not rely only on what others say about Christianity, whether positive or negative. Read the Bible for yourself. Study it with fairness as you would study any important subject.
Compare it with other religious texts and ask which one stands firm in history, consistency, and moral truth.
Do not let fear or community pressure silence your questions. Truth is not afraid of examination. I often remind people that God invites us to seek him with all our heart and mind and he promises to be found by those who search sincerely. My personal message to non-Christians is this. I was once like you. I was devoted to Buddhism. I explored Islam with open eyes and I even prayed without knowing who I was speaking to. But the day I encountered Jesus, I found the answer to my search. He is not only a teacher or a prophet. He is God in the flesh. The one who gave his life for my sins and rose again to give me eternal life. If you truly want to know whether this is real, ask God himself to show you. Pray sincerely even if you do not yet believe and be willing to follow the truth wherever it leads. That prayer changed my life forever and I believe it can change yours too. As I end my story, I think of the journey as three symbols. The lotus of my Buddhist beginnings, the crescent of my years in Islam, and the cross of my life now. The lotus taught me discipline, the crescent gave me structure, but the cross gave me life. I no longer walk in search of balance because l have found the one who is the center of all truth. My hope is that anyone who hears my story will not stop at the lotus or the crescent, but will come to the cross and find there the same peace, truth, and love that l now have.
NOTES: *
"Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity" is a book
Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity Is a book that is part autobiography, part history, part Christian apologetics, and part testimony of Nabeel Qureshi’s conversion from Islam to Christianity.
For the purposes of this review, I will focus on four key takeaways from this book
1. The value of investing in meaningful friendships with muslims (or any non-Christian)
Nabeel Qureshi is a first generation American whose parent’s came from Pakistan and who’s Grandparents served as Muslim missionaries in Indonesia and Uganda. As part of a devout muslim family, Nabeel grew up praying arabic prayers and joyfully observing all of the traditional Muslim holidays and traditions.
Nabeel never had any reason to doubt his Muslim beliefs, and in fact, was taught by his parents to be an evangelist for Islam. This was not a difficult task for Nabeel, as most professing Christians he spoke with had no idea about Islam and an almost equally weak understanding of historic Christian beliefs.
This scenario changed as Nabeel entered his freshman year of college and became friends with David – A Christian who was prepared to answer objections to Christianity and who cared enough to pursue Nabeel as a friend. Over the course of many years, Nabeel and David shared life together and often discussed theological issues. This relationship would prove to be the key component to Nabeel’s eventual conversion.
Given the religious and cultural barriers between most Christians and Muslims, Nabeel appeals to Christians to take the first step out of their comfort zones to reach out to their muslim neighbors and coworkers.
Only the exceptional blend of love, humility, hospitality, and persistence can overcome these barriers, and not enough people make the effort (p. 78).
2. A primer on Islam.
In a day when ‘Islamic extremism’ is constantly talked about in the media, many people wonder what exactly muslims believe. Left to the media soundbites and cherrypicked verses from the Qur'an, we are led to believe that Islam is merely ‘a religion of peace’. This book gives a good overview of the core of muslim belief’s and then later, as Nabeel explores deeper into Islam’s origins and founder, demonstrates that Islam is in fact a violent faith with a violent history from its foundation.
3. Christian apologetics applied to a muslim context.
I am someone who loves to read books on Christian apologetics. This book had many of the same arguments and points I’ve studied elsewhere, but placed within the context of Nabeel’s muslim faith and life, the arguments seemed to carry even more weight than usual. This book not only helps the reader understand Islam, but it also helps the reader understand the foundation and fundamentals of Christianity and our key apologetic points (such as the resurrection of Jesus). The book also includes several articles from leading apologists on various related apologetics topics.
4. The cost of following Christ and the purpose of the follower of Christ.
After a long, agonizing period of wrestling with arguments for Christianity, reading the Bible, praying for and receiving several dreams and visions, Nabeel eventually surrendered his Islamic faith and embraced Christ. One of the major stumbling block for Nabeel (and for most muslims) was the feelings of betrayal of his family and culture if he were to convert to Islam. I’ve heard several stories from other Muslims about the same barrier to the Christian faith. Nevertheless, Nabeel finally surrendered to Christ and understood Christ’s call to take up his cross and follow Him, even if it meant the loss of his earthly family (Luke 14:25-33).
Nabeel leaves the reader with this compelling vision for what the purpose of life is for the follower of Christ:
Now I knew what it meant to follow God. It meant walking boldly by His Spirit of grace and love, in the firm confidence of everlasting life given through the Son, with the eternal purpose of proclaiming and glorifying the Father. Now I had found Jesus (p. 277).
Final thoughts:
This a great and timely book for our world today. It is clear throughout the book that God, in His sovereign grace, was pursuing Nabeel for a very long time. God’s purposes are never thwarted, and eventually His effectual call took root in Nabeel’s heart. While God used the ordained means of Nabeel’s friendship, apologetics, dreams, and visions, I was struck once again by the power of God’s Spirit to bring a spritually dead person (Eph. 2:1) to life in Christ by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9).
Praise God.
*What is Hadith? Hadith comes from the Arabic word h-d-th, which means 'to happen.' It means 'to report,' 'to give,' or 'speak of.' الحديث (alhadith)
***Nabeel Qureshi stood face-to-face with death, yet boldly declared here
No comments:
Post a Comment