Persian Springs

Khosrow was born a Muslim in Iran and brought up by an uncle and aunt. He arrived in England in 1971 and later married Debby. But God began to work in Khosrow's life ...

Khosrow had never been tempted to gamble in Iran. But soon after he had arrived in England, one of his fellow students - another Iranian - had started taking him to casinos and betting shops. This had led to an obsession with gambling. Marriage made no difference - he was an addict.

However, one day a very strange thing happened - and Khosrow felt he was never quite the same person afterwards.

The voice

It was Grand National Day and he wanted to bet on a horse. He had just sat down in his living room to study the lists of horses, when suddenly he heard a voice talking to him. It seemed to come from inside him and at first he thought he was imagining things.

The voice said: 'If you obey me, I will give you the name of the winning horse'.
He asked: 'How?' and this answer came back. 'Write the names of the horses on bits of paper. Screw each paper up, put them in a bowl and pick one out'.

So he did it. He wrote the names of 40 horses on bits of paper, screwed them up, then put them in a bowl and picked one out. He read it carefully, but thought to himself: 'Once isn't enough. I'll do it again'.

He put the paper back, mixed them around and picked one out again. To his amazement, it was the same horse. But he still wasn't convinced and decided to do it one more time. When he opened the paper, he could hardly believe it. It was the same horse!

Khosrow was frightened now. He didn't know what was happening.

Another voice

Then he heard another voice, very different from the first voice. It said: 'I will not come that way'.

When he heard that second voice, Khosrow almost went to pieces. He felt he was in the presence of something 'beyond himself'; something he didn't understand at all. He was very confused and didn't bet at all that day.

Three o'clock came and the Grand National started. Khosrow was sitting in front of the television, his eyes glued to the screen. The horse he had picked had been given odds of 12-1, so its chances didn't seem too great. Yet it wasn't long before it was thundering past the winning post - in first place. It was Red Rum.

Khosrow could hardly believe his eyes. He had thought he didn't believe in anything supernatural, but now he began to wonder.

Time passed. Debby and Khosrow had a baby girl, Rebecca. Then in 1981, when Rebecca was nearly five years old, Khosrow's adoptive parents died - within a week of each other.

Difficult time

Khosrow went straight off to Iran, leaving Debby behind with Rebecca at a difficult time, with a lot of bills to pay. She was upset and he was upset and when he came back to England he was still in emotional turmoil. He was full of questions about life and death: 'What happens after death? Where are my parents now? Can there really be a God?'

He had once dismissed God as a fairy tale and, although the strange voices he'd heard had made him think again, they hadn't answered his questions about God. Neither had they stopped him gambling. He was continuing to gamble away his family's hard-earned money, and this was causing serious problems for him and Debby.

Hopeless

Khosrow got more and more desperate - till finally, in the summer of 1982, he could bear it no longer. He came out of the betting shop one day, having lost a lot of money, and overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness. Life just wasn't worth living. He could never change his ways - he was destroying himself and his family and he couldn't stop it. He almost wished he could die.

Suddenly the events of that Grand National day came back into his mind. Again the thought came to him, 'Maybe it was God who helped me not to gamble that day'.

He stood still on the pavement. Not caring if anyone was watching him, he turned his face up to the sky and prayed: 'If there is any God up there, I really want to know'.

It was an honest prayer.

Just one week later, Khosrow was in Brighton with Debby and Rebecca, when something very strange happened. This is how he describes it:

'We were walking along the street when suddenly I felt something in me was different. I knew for sure that I had to go into a shop we were passing. When I looked at the sign, it said: "Christian bookshop".

'I was surprised by that sign, but I went in. I found myself standing in front of some books and felt I couldn't leave the shop without one. They were Good News Bibles.

'Debby had no idea what was happening to me. I had turned into the shop without explaining anything to her. I was from a Muslim background and she was Jewish, so what on earth were we doing in a Christian bookshop?

'But I knew I had to buy one of those Bibles. When I got home, I couldn't wait to start reading it. There was a real thirst in me, to read that book. This was unusual for me, as I wasn't really a book-reading person.

So thirsty

'As soon as I got home from work every day, I wanted to sit down and read that Bible. I couldn't have enough of it, I was so thirsty for it. Sometimes I read a bit before I went to work. I had so many questions, but often the questions were answered by other verses I just happened to read later.

'After about nine months of reading the Bible, I came to believe there really is a God. And to my amazement, this God had always had contact with human beings. He didn't stay far apart from them, way up in the sky. No, from the very beginning, God came close to people in different ways. I had never heard these things before.

'Then in the New Testament I read about Jesus - and he became like a real person to me.

'Debby didn't understand it, but she noticed I was becoming a different person. I was giving up some of my bad habits, because of what I was reading in the Bible. Gambling had had a very strong hold on me, but now I didn't want to gamble any more. Jesus had become real to me and I just knew I had to stop such things.

'I didn't explain all this to Debby. Maybe it was because before we'd got married, we'd told each other that religion causes problems. But maybe it wasn't that. It just never occurred to me to share with her what I was finding.'

Easter

By now, Khosrow had been reading the Bible for almost a year and Easter was approaching. When he saw there was going to be a film on TV about the life of Jesus, he was very excited.

'Debby was going out with Rebecca that day - it was Saturday. I told her I was going to stay home to watch this film - although I thought I'd know everything in it, because I'd read the book.

'Yet there was one thing that still puzzled me. If God came down to earth as Jesus, to be with mankind, why did he die? Surely God is not like a man, who can die. I just couldn't accept that Jesus had died on a cross.

'Anyway, I sat down that afternoon, really looking forward to watching the film. It all happened the way I knew it would. Then at the end of the film they put a cross on the floor and - they put Jesus on it. They put the nails in his hands and his feet.

Why did Jesus die?

'When they lifted the cross up, it seemed that something inside me broke down. I started crying, crying like a little child. I couldn't stop myself. Maybe it was love for him, I don't know, but I was sobbing, sobbing my heart out.

'I found myself shouting at the TV: "If you are God, why don't you rescue yourself? Why do you allow them to kill you? Why?"

'Suddenly I heard a voice - a voice I recognised. It was one of the voices I had heard on that Grand National day - the one that had warned me against betting. Now that same voice came to me and said: "Son, this was for your sin".

'As soon as I heard it, it was like daylight dawning on me. Suddenly I knew why Jesus had died. The force of it put me on my knees on the floor before the television and I said: "Jesus, you let those people kill you, for my sake. You did it because of my sin".

'One minute it had been a big puzzle to me - the next minute I could see it as clear as anything. Jesus had taken the punishment that I deserved for my sins upon himself. That's why he had died. I really accepted him into my life at that point. Yes, that's how I became a Christian.'

This extract is taken from Persian Springs by Pauline Selby, published by Highland Books at £3.50, and is reprinted with permission.

The Best Bet - the story of an Iranian Christian