June 2026
He Leads Me to Home
As a child, like most children born in Iran, I was born into a Muslim family. From an early age, I believed that if you accept something as faith, you must remain committed to it and practice it completely without compromise. With this deep in my head, I often appeared even more devoted than my parents. I prayed on time, followed all the religious ceremonies and rituals, and even what I listened to most was the recitation of the Qur’an.
While I went on with all of these things faithfully, I began to see myself as a robot, someone who had become dependent on routine, rituals, and the religious customs of Islam through constant repetition. Before my high school years my friends knew me mainly for three qualities: honest, fair and religious.
It was during that time I began to discuss with friends who were less religious, or not religious at all. Religious and political conversations were often mixed together. They would pinpoint certain Islamic teachings and reject them. As a religious person, I felt obligated to defend and to reject everything they said from my Islamic point of view. They would criticize the government of the Islamic Republic and the injustices within it, and I, as a religious person, would either deny those injustices, or justify them, or at most say that the government was not truly Islamic and that their behavior should not be attributed to Islam.
I would not take any of their reasonings unless it agreed with what I was holding as a committed Muslim. When they raised objections, if I had a logical answer, I would give it quickly. But if I did not have a reasonable answer, I would turn to denial, sophistry, and fallacies. I shut up my eyes and ears to what they were saying and only search for a defense, even if it had no real logic or rationality.
This continued until one day I saw my real self in an argument with one of my closest friends. My anger and aggression exploded that it deeply hurt him. That moment shook me. My so-called qualities were all gone except “religious”. That very moment started affecting me deeply.
One day, while I was alone, I decided to set aside all my assumptions and search for the truth. Because I thought this might even be an unforgivable sin before the God, so I entered into a state of prayer and spoke to God within me. I said:
“God, this is my life story, and You are the One who placed me in this life. I am sure that You want me to follow You with all my heart. But You also know that my behavior has been based on habit and ignorance, not on love and devotion. So I am going to reset it. I will re-examine everything I have learned so far, and I ask You to guide my journey toward the truth. And if I go astray, please remind me that I am on the wrong path.”
From that moment on, I began to research and re-evaluate everything I had learned. I opened my eyes and ears to hear different and opposing views, and I would accept or reject them based on reasons and logics. During my university years, I would read books, on my laptop computer, that are critical of Islamic beliefs. Those books were illegal and in some cases possessing or reading them could cost you the death penalty. At the same time, I would bring well-known religious books from the university library, place them side by side, and judge the claims with my own mind, reasoning, and logic.
My opposition to the behavior of the Islamic government in Iran also grew stronger. Among friends, we would criticize its inhumane policies, and sometimes, as much as we could without putting our lives in danger, we tried to take a stand and show our opposition. After extensive research and hundreds of pages of notes, I came to realize I had been on the wrong path. My beliefs had been mistaken and what I had once thought was truth was not the truth at all.
At that point, the most important answer I had found about life, creation, and humanity could be summarized in one sentence:
I do not know, but God exists.
When people asked me, “what this world is? where we came from? where are we going? what beliefs we should hold?” or anything about the afterlife, heaven and hell, good and evil, and countless other difficult questions, I no longer repeated my religious teachings. I simply said, “I do not know.”
Yet this not-knowing created a deep emptiness in me, and over time it left me confused. Yes, it was possible to act like a thinker, to deny everything, and then take pride in the fact that I was no longer committed to any religion, that all religions were the result of foolishness, that they were all deception.
But there was one thing I could not do: deceive myself.
If there was no God, then who was I talking to on that first day when I asked to be shown the right path? Who was that voice within me guiding me toward a better way? Where did that force come from that was drawing me step by step toward itself?
For years, I lived with this sentence: “I do not know, but God exists.” I kept searching for the truth.
Looking back, in His amazing love God was opening door for me to meet Him!
8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 7:8
I was a website designer, I worked with many clients outside Iran. One of them was a very political person. He was a nationalist and royalist living in Germany, someone who had suffered greatly under the Iranian regime because of his support for the Pahlavi family.
Communicating with such people from inside Iran meant risks and even life danger. Although I tried to be very careful, I was not overly scared of surveillance or our conversations being monitored. When he asked me whether I was scared to work with him, I answered that we took security precautions, we did not bow to the current authoritarian regime.
During one of our video calls, I noticed a cross hanging on the wall above him. With a slight smile, I said to him that it seemed strange for someone with his level of understanding and intelligence to jump out of one pit only to fall into another, to leave one religion and trap himself in another. His answer was surprising and interesting. He said that he had accepted it not as a religion but as a “Lifestyle”, and then he asked me how much I knew about Christianity.
I told him I did not know. He asked me that just as I had spent so much time investigating Islam, I should also spend a little time exploring this subject. “How about we have several conversations about Christianity?” he proposed.
Because of my previous background, I considered it a waste of time. But deep inside, there was a beautiful feeling nudging me, “Accept it. Perhaps this is what you have been looking for.”
Week after week, we talked, and each time I discovered new differences from my previous belief. In his belief, I did not hear violence and jihad.
Instead, we spoke about prayer for own salvation and for others. In his belief, I did not hear that people who were not of the same faith should be killed. Instead, I heard that Jesus Christ was crucified for the forgiveness of the sins of all so that we might be saved.
It was beautiful, and it was fascinating.
I was thirsty to know more about Jesus Christ. I would eagerly arrange the next meeting and wait for it throughout the week. Little by little, I was becoming more familiar with that voice within me that had been calling me. He encouraged me to keep my eyes open in my daily life for the miracles that God would do for me.
I saw myself on a new path and was excited to record that journey, I designed a website called MyNewJourney, where, without using my real name, I documented what I was learning. I felt that a miracle was going to happen.
For some reason, I was forced to leave Iran and come to the UK in 2025. During that dangerous journey, what gave me peace were the lessons I had learned from that friend. When I was on the sea and the fear came over me, I remembered Jesus calmed the sea and walked on the water. When I was afraid of loneliness and the hardship of the path ahead, God comforted me, “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.”
10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10
It was this peace in the middle of hardship that finally brought me to the UK.
In my first days in England, I walked around the area near the hotel where I was staying, and nearby I saw a church. That old building gave me a sense of peace. I had no idea of what church was like, and everything here was new to me. The church door was closed, so I decided to go on one Sunday with one of my Indian Christian friends.
On Sunday morning, my friend could not resist the temptation to keep sleeping and did not come, I went to that church by myself. I was among the first to arrive eagerly near the church, looking for the entrance, when a kind, energetic, and warm-hearted man came out and spoke to me kindly, guided me inside, and introduced me to his lovely wife.
That man was Jeff, and his wife was Mabel.
They both welcomed me warmly and introduced me to the other church members. Before the service began, the host announced my presence in the church, and everyone applauded for me together. The atmosphere was incredibly warm and friendly, and I felt as if I had found a new and wonderful family. The kindness and love of the two pastors, Mabel and Joanna — even though Joanna is younger than my mother by two years — felt no less than a mother’s love.
They invited me to an introductory meeting at a cafe, and I went there with another Iranian friend of mine who was eager to visit the church after hearing me describing it after that Sunday. There, they began teaching us. Through those conversations, step by step I arrived at my real answer. It’s no longer, “I do not know, but God exists.”
Now I know He is my God.
I understood where that force came from, the One who had always been drawing me toward Himself.
In one of those cafe meetings, I gave my heart to Jesus and testified that He is my God. Mabel and Joanna prayed that I would be filled with the Holy Spirit.
It was truly beautiful.
After years of confusion, I had finally found the truth, and God had fulfilled His promise to reveal Himself to me. I shared this good news with other friends in the asylum hotel, so that they could taste the sweetness of this moment as well. Week by week, more people joined us as we went together to church for worship and discipleship.
There, I had the honor of translating The Turning book, as well as translating worship and discipleship sessions, and this made me enjoy understanding Christianity more and more. After several sessions, my friends and I were baptized during a special service, and that day became one of the most beautiful and unforgettable days of our lives. We felt we were born again into a new family.
The Gate Church is truly a heavenly gate for me into my new journey in my Christian life.
78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.
Luke 1:78-79