Pay attention to the Saudi prince in white robes reading mockingly. His name is Abid. He just gathered his family to ridicule Christianity by reading from a Bible. Then he suddenly freezes, trembles uncontrollably, and collapses to his knees in prayer.

My name is Abbid. I was 28 years old on May 1st, 2012. Born into Saudi royalty with unlimited wealth and privilege, I lived in a world where servants bowed to my every command. That night changed everything when I tried to mock God. What happened next defied all logic and shattered my arrogant heart completely.

I lived in a palace where servants bowed to my every command. From the moment I could walk, I was taught that I was different, special, chosen by Allah to rule over others. My father owned oil fields that stretched beyond the horizon. And my mother wore jewelry worth more than most people would see in 10 lifetimes.

I had everything a man could want. Fast cars imported from Germany, private jets that could take me anywhere in the world within hours, and bank accounts with numbers so large they seemed fictional. But wealth was just the beginning of my arrogance. I was raised to believe that our faith, Islam, was the only true path to God. Every morning I would watch the servants prostrate themselves for prayer, and I felt superior even to them. If I was above these devout Muslims, then certainly I was far above the followers of other religions.

Christianity in particular seemed like a joke to me. How could anyone worship a man who claimed to be God, who died on a cross like a common criminal who preached love and forgiveness instead of strength and conquest? My education only reinforced these beliefs. I studied at the finest universities surrounded by professors who praised my intelligence and students who sought my friendship for my connections. I learned about world religions in my comparative studies courses but only to understand how inferior they were to Islam.

When we studied Christianity, I would laugh openly in class. The professor would describe Jesus turning the other cheek and I would think about how weak that sounded. A real man, a real leader would fight back. A true God would demonstrate power, not surrender to humiliation.

Have you ever been so proud that you thought you were above God’s reach? I was that proud. I believe that my royal blood made me untouchable, that my wealth proved God’s favor, that my intelligence elevated me above the common masses who needed religion as a crutch. I saw Christians as desperate people clinging to false hope, telling themselves stories about a loving God because they could not handle the harsh realities of life. I pied them really. In my mind, they were like children who still believed in fairy tales.

My contempt for Christianity grew stronger every time I encountered it. When western businessmen came to meet with my father, they would sometimes mention their faith, and I would smile politely while internally mocking them. How could these educated, successful men believe such nonsense? When I traveled to Europe and America for business or pleasure, I would see the grand cathedrals and beautiful churches, but I saw them only as monuments to human delusion. The art was impressive, I admitted, but it was art dedicated to a lie.

I remember one particular incident that shaped my hatred for Christianity. I was 25, traveling through Italy with friends when we visited the Vatican. As we walked through St. Peter’s Basilica, I watched tourists and pilgrims kneeling in prayer, some with tears streaming down their faces. One old woman, probably a grandmother, was clutching a rosary and whispering prayers with such intensity that her whole body shook. I turned to my friend and whispered, “Look at these people. They are praying to statues and paintings. How is this different from the pagans our ancestors conquered?” We laughed quietly, feeling superior to these worshippers.

But my arrogance went deeper than just religious superiority. I believed that my position as a Saudi prince made me inherently better than other people. When I walked into a room, conversations stopped. When I spoke, people listened with reverence, not because of my wisdom, but because of my title. I confused respect for my position with respect for my person, and it fed my ego until it became monstrous. I began to believe that I was chosen not just by birth, but by divine appointment to judge others, to determine what was true and what was false.

This pride extended to how I treated the servants in our palace, while my parents at least maintained the pretense of Islamic humility. I made no such effort. I would snap my fingers to summon them, never saying please or thank you. I would change my mind about meals or travel plans without consideration for the work it caused them. In my mind, they existed to serve me, and their feelings or convenience were irrelevant. I was the prince. They were the subjects, and that was the natural order of things.

My contempt for other religions became a source of entertainment for me and my social circle. At parties with other wealthy young Saudis, we would compete to see who could tell the most ridiculous story about Christians or Jews or Buddhists we had encountered. I became known for my particularly cutting observations about Christianity. I would describe the Christians I had met as weak, emotional, and intellectually inferior. My friends would draw with laughter when I imitated their prayers or mocked their beliefs about love and forgiveness.

I studied the Bible briefly in university, but only to better understand how to attack it. I learned enough about Christian theology to identify what I saw as contradictions and weaknesses. The concept of the Trinity seemed absurd to me. How could one God be three persons? The idea of God becoming human was offensive to my understanding of divine majesty. Why would the Almighty creator of the universe lower himself to become a mortal man? And the crucifixion was the ultimate proof of Christianity’s falseness in my mind. What kind of God would allow himself to be tortured and killed by his own creation?

Looking back now, I realize that my hatred for Christianity was really hatred for anything that challenged my pride. Christianity threatened me because it suggested that all people, regardless of wealth or status, were equal before God. It taught that the last shall be first and the first shall be last, which was the opposite of everything I believed about myself and my place in the world. The Christian message of humility, service, and sacrifice contradicted every value I had been raised with. I was taught to rule, not serve. I was taught to take, not sacrifice. I was taught to be proud, not humble.

It was a Tuesday afternoon in late April when everything began. I was walking through one of the guest quarters of our palace, inspecting some renovations that had been completed for an upcoming diplomatic visit. The workers had finished installing new marble flooring and goldplated fixtures, and I was admiring the craftsmanship when something caught my eye on a side table near the window.

There, sitting innocuously among some rolled architectural plans and a cup of cold tea, was a black leather book that I had never seen before. I picked it up with casual curiosity, expecting it to be some construction manual or perhaps a forgotten notebook from one of the workers. But when I opened the cover, my blood ran cold with disgust. There, printed in gold letters on the first page were the words, “Holy Bible!” I nearly dropped it in revulsion. How had this contaminated object found its way into my family’s palace? I held it away from my body as if it might infect me with its presence.

Later that day, I discovered that the Bible belonged to James, a British contractor who had been overseeing the electrical work in the guest wing. He had apparently left it behind after finishing his morning devotions, something he did every day before starting work. When I confronted him about it, he apologized profusely and reached out to take it back, but something stopped me from returning it immediately. An idea was forming in my mind, a delicious opportunity that I could not pass up.

I held the book like it was contaminated, laughing at its very existence as I turned it over in my hands. The leather cover was worn from use, and I could see little notes scribbled in the margins where this foolish man had tried to make sense of the nonsense within. The pages were thin and delicate, marked with yellow highlighting and small cross symbols drawn next to certain verses. It was obvious that James took this book seriously, that he actually believed the words written inside were divine truth. The thought made me laugh out loud.

That evening, as I sat in my private study, examining the Bible more closely, the perfect plan crystallized in my mind. Why should I simply return this book and let the opportunity pass? Here was a chance to provide my family with the most entertaining evening we had enjoyed in months. I could gather them together and read from this ridiculous book, showing them firsthand just how absurd Christian beliefs really were. It would be educational and hilarious at the same time.

I began planning the evening like a theatrical performance. I would choose the most outrageous passages, the ones that claimed Jesus could walk on water or turn water into wine or raise people from the dead. I would read them with dramatic flare, changing my voice to emphasize how ridiculous they sounded. My family would laugh and applaud my wit, and we would all share in the superiority of our true faith. over this obvious collection of fairy tales.

The next day, I sent word to my family members that I wanted them to gather in the main family sitting room after dinner for a special presentation. I told my father that I had discovered something fascinating that would interest the whole family. I informed my mother that I had planned an evening of entertainment that would bring us all closer together. To my brother and sister, I hinted that they were in for a treat that would give us stories to tell for years to come.

As the sun set on May 1st, 2012, I made my final preparations for what I expected to be a triumph of wit and wisdom. I selected the sitting room because it was our most formal space, decorated with the finest Persian rugs and golden ornaments that reflected our family’s wealth and status. The room had a large circular seating area with plush cushions arranged in traditional style, perfect for gathering the family around me as I performed my demonstration.

I placed the Bible carefully on the ornate wooden table in the center of the room, positioning it so that everyone could see the ridiculous book that would be the source of our amusement. I had already marked several pages with small pieces of paper, identifying the passages that I thought would be most entertaining to read aloud. I had chosen stories about Jesus walking on water, of feeding thousands of people with a few fish and loaves of bread, and claiming to be the son of God. Each story seemed more preposterous than the last.

Tonight, I told them when they began to arrive, I would show them how ridiculous these Christian beliefs truly were. I explained that I had discovered this book of Christian mythology and thought it would be educational for all of us to examine it together. We could learn about the strange ideas that influence so much of the Western world, and we could appreciate even more deeply the wisdom and truth of our own Islamic faith. By contrast, my father arrived first, settling onto his usual cushion with the dignity befitting the head of our household. He looked curiously at the Bible on the table, but said nothing, trusting that I had planned something worthwhile.

My mother joined us next, her jewelry catching the light from the crystal chandelier above, as she gracefully arranged herself on her favorite silk cushion. She smiled at me with the indulgent affection she had shown since I was a child, ready to enjoy whatever entertainment I had prepared.

My brother came in laughing with my sister about something that had happened during the day, both of them young and eager for distraction. They noticed the black book immediately and began speculating about what I had planned. When they realized it was a Bible, their expression shifted to amused anticipation. They knew my opinions about Christianity and expected that I was about to deliver a particularly clever critique of this foreign religion.

As my family settled into their places around me, I felt a surge of confident anticipation. This would be my masterpiece of mockery, my definitive demonstration of intellectual superiority over the superstitious masses who believe such obvious nonsense. I picked up the Bible with theatrical flourish, holding it high enough for everyone to see clearly. The stage was set, the audience was ready, and I was about to give the performance of my life.

I opened the Bible with exaggerated ceremony, making sure my family could see every theatrical gesture. The leather binding creaked as I turned to the first passage I had marked, a story from the Gospel of Matthew about Jesus walking on water. I cleared my throat dramatically and began to read in a voice dripping with sarcasm and mockery.

“Listen to this ridiculous tale,” I announced to my captive audience. “Apparently, this Jesus character decided to take a stroll across the Sea of Galilee like it was a sidewalk. I changed my voice to sound overly pious and naive as I read the verses, emphasizing every word that seemed particularly absurd to me. “And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them walking on the sea.” I paused and looked up at my family with the expression of mock amazement. “Walking on water. Can you imagine anything more preposterous?”

My family erupted in laughter exactly as I had hoped. My father shook his head and chuckled, muttering something about the gullibility of people who would believe such obvious fiction. My mother covered her mouth with her hand, trying to contain her giggles at my theatrical performance. My brother and sister were less restrained, laughing openly and encouraging me to continue with gestures and applause.

Emboldened by their response, I flipped to another Mark passage, this one about Jesus feeding 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish. I stood up from my cushion and began pacing around the room as I read, using grand gestures to emphasize the impossibility of what I was describing. “Now watch this magic trick,” I said with a showman’s flourish. “Our hero is going to feed an entire crowd with a child’s lunch.”

I changed my voice again, making it sound simple and credulous as I read about the miracle. When I reached the part where the disciples collected 12 baskets of leftover fragments, I pretended to count on my fingers in an exaggerated display of mathematical confusion. “12 baskets from five loaves. Even my sister’s mathematics tutor could solve that equation.” The room filled with renewed laughter as my sister playfully threw a small cushion at me in mock offense.

I felt so intelligent, so superior to these simple Christian stories that millions of people somehow took seriously. Every laugh from my family fed my pride and encouraged me to become even bolder in my mockery. I was putting on quite a show, changing my voice to sound alternatively naive, pompous, or mystical, depending on which aspect of the story I wanted to ridicule. The Bible felt light in my hands, just a collection of paper and ink that represented humanity’s desperate need to believe in something greater than themselves.

My confidence grew with each passage I read and each burst of laughter from my audience. I moved on to the story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding in Kaa, describing it as the world’s first case of religious fraud. “Imagine showing up to a wedding and the host runs out of wine,” I said with mock concern. “No problem. Just call the local miracle worker to turn the bath water into vintage grape juice.” I mimed drinking from an invisible cup and making exaggerated faces of disgust, suggesting that the wine probably tasted like the dirty water it had been moments before.

But it was when I reached the parables that I truly hit my stride as a performer. The story of the good Samaritan became, in my telling, a naive fairy tale about a world where strangers help each other without expecting anything in return. “Listen to this fantasy,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “A man gets robbed and beaten, and instead of his own people helping him, some random foreigner stops to bandage his wounds and pay for his medical care. Who writes this stuff? Someone who has clearly never lived in the real world?”

The parable of the prodigal son received even harsher treatment. I described it as the story of a spoiled brat who wastes his inheritance on parties and prostitutes, then comes crawling back to daddy expecting forgiveness and a celebration. “The moral of this story,” I announced with theatrical authority, “is that being irresponsible and selfish will be rewarded with a feast in your honor. What kind of lesson is that for children?”

My family was thoroughly entertained by now, and I was feeling like the most clever person who had ever lived. Every joke landed perfectly. Every sarcastic observation drew appreciative laughter. Every mocking gesture was met with nods of agreement. I felt like I was performing a public service, exposing the ridiculous foundations of a religion that somehow commanded the devotion of billions of people around the world.

Then I decided to tackle the crown jewel of Christian absurdity, the crucifixion and resurrection. I had saved this for last because I knew it would be my most devastating critique. Here was the central claim of Christianity, the event that the entire faith rested upon, and it was so obviously impossible that even children should be able to see through it.

I turned to the Gospel of Luke and began reading about Jesus’s arrest and trial with even more dramatic flare than I had used for the earlier stories. I made Pontius Pilate sound like a reasonable administrator trying to deal with the delusional criminal and I portrayed Jesus as a confused man who had started believing his own publicity. When I reached the crucifixion scene, I described it as the predictable end for someone who had been causing trouble and making impossible claims about his own divinity.

But it was the resurrection that I planned to demolish completely. I was preparing to read about the empty tomb and the claims that Jesus had risen from the dead when I decided to make my most bold statement yet. I stood up in the center of our family circle holding the Bible high above my head like a trophy and announced with supreme confidence, “Now we come to the most ridiculous claim of all. These Christians actually believe that their dead leader came back to life 3 days later.” Watch how they try to make this sound believable.

I open to the passage in Luke chapter 24 where the women discover the empty tomb, ready to deliver what I was certain would be my most devastating performance yet. The Bible felt perfectly normal in my hands, just leather and paper containing the desperate fantasies of ancient people who could not accept that death was final. I looked down at the page, drew in a breath to begin my final triumphant mockery, and started to read the words that would change my life forever.

I began reading from Luke chapter 24 with the same mocking tone I had used throughout the evening. But something was different from the very first word. The Bible, which had felt like ordinary leather and paper just moments before, suddenly became unusually warm in my hands. At first, I thought it was just the heat from the room, or perhaps my own body temperature rising from the excitement of performing, but the warmth was distinctly localized to the book itself, as if it were generating its own heat from within.

“But upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sephila, bringing the spices which they had prepared,” I read, trying to maintain my sarcastic delivery, but my voice already sounded less confident than it had moments before. The warmth in the book was growing more noticeable, spreading from the binding into my palms and fingers.

I glanced down at the pages and nearly dropped the Bible in shock. The black ink on the white pages had begun to emit a soft golden light that seemed to pulse gently with each word I spoke. It was not bright enough to illuminate the entire room, but it was unmistakably supernatural, unlike anything I had ever seen or could explain. I blinked hard several times, thinking that perhaps the chandelier above was reflecting off the pages in some unusual way, but the glow remained steady and impossible to rationalize away.

My hands began trembling uncontrollably, but not from fear or nervousness. It felt as though a gentle electrical current was flowing through the Bible into my body, not painful, but overwhelming in its intensity. I tried to steady my grip on the book, but the trembling only grew worse as I continued reading, “and they found the stone rolled away from the sephiler, and they entered in and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.”

The temperature in our luxurious sitting room, which had been pleasantly warm from the spring evening, suddenly dropped noticeably. I could see my brother pulling his light jacket closer around his shoulders and my sister rubbing her arms as if she had felt a sudden chill, but the Bible in my hands continued to radiate warmth, creating an impossible contrast that made no logical sense. The book was becoming warmer while everything around it grew cooler.

I tried to continue my mocking performance, but my voice was changing without my permission or control. The sarcastic tone I had been using all evening was replaced by something more serious, more reverent, as if the words themselves were forcing me to treat them with respect. “And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments.”

My family had stopped laughing. I could see them leaning forward with expressions of concern and confusion, but they seemed far away, as if I were viewing them through a thick glass wall. My mother was pointing at the Bible in my hands, her mouth open in silent amazement. My father was rising from his cushion, his face showing the kind of alarm I had never seen in him before. My brother and sister were backing away from me, their earlier laughter replaced by obvious fear.

Tears began flowing from my eyes involuntarily, streaming down my cheeks in a steady flow that I could not stop or control. I was not sad or emotional in any way that I could identify, but the tears continued as if my body was responding to something my mind had not yet comprehended. I tried to wipe them away with my shoulder while still holding the glowing Bible, but they were replaced immediately by fresh tears that seemed to come from some deep well inside me.

As I read about the angels asking the women why they sought the living among the dead, something began happening inside my chest that I can only describe as a breaking and a healing happening simultaneously. It was as though my heart, which had been frozen in pride and arrogance for 28 years, was cracking open like ice in springtime. But instead of pain, the breaking brought a warmth that spread through my entire body, more intense than the heat coming from the Bible, but somehow connected to it.

“He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’” As I spoke these words, they seemed to take on a weight and reality that pressed down on me with the force of absolute truth. This was not fiction or mythology or wishful thinking. This had actually happened. Jesus Christ had actually died and risen from the dead. And somehow in ways I could not understand. I knew it with more certainty than I had ever known anything in my life.

The presence that I felt filling our sitting room was unlike anything I had experienced before. It was not visible like the glowing pages or tangible like the warm Bible, but it was more real than the marble floors or golden ornaments that surrounded us. It felt like being in the presence of infinite love, perfect justice, and absolute truth all at the same time. And that presence was focused on me, not in judgment or condemnation, but with a tenderness that broke my heart completely.

I tried to put the Bible down, thinking that perhaps if I stopped reading, this overwhelming experience would end, and I could return to my comfortable world of skepticism and superiority. But my hands would not obey my mind. It was as though the book had become part of me. Or perhaps I had become part of it. I could not stop reading anymore. Then I could stop breathing or make my heart stop beating.

“And they remembered his words and returned from the sephila and told all these things unto the 11 and to all the rest.” My voice was now completely serious. All traces of mockery gone, replaced by a tone of wonder and reverence that sounded foreign coming from my own mouth.

The golden light from the pages seemed to be growing brighter, and I realized that my family could see it, too. They were not just concerned about my behavior. They were witnessing something that defied every law of nature they had ever known. It was like a warm presence filled the entire room. And I knew, I absolutely knew this was real. Not just the physical manifestations that my senses could detect, but the spiritual reality behind them. Jesus Christ was not a myth or a legend or a misguided teacher. He was the son of God, and he had died for my sins and risen from the dead exactly as these words proclaimed. And somehow in this moment he was reaching across 2,000 years and halfway around the world to touch the heart of a proud Saudi prince who had gathered his family to mock his name.

The weight of what I had been doing for the past hour crashed down on me like a physical blow. Every joke, every mocking gesture, every sarcastic word felt like a stone pressing against my chest, making it difficult to breathe. I had not just been reading from a book or telling stories to entertain my family. I had been ridiculing the actual son of God, making fun of his sacrifice, turning his love into a source of laughter. The magnitude of my blasphemy was so overwhelming that I felt like I might collapse under the burden of it.

But even as the guilt threatened to crush me, something else was happening that defied all logic and understanding. The presence that filled our sitting room was not angry or vengeful as I expected it to be. Instead, it radiated a love so pure and complete that it seemed to wash over me in waves, dissolving my fear and replacing it with something I had never experienced before. It was as though Jesus Christ himself was standing in our room looking at me with eyes full of compassion rather than condemnation, offering forgiveness before I had even thought to ask for it.

I felt Jesus’s love washing over me, and it broke my proud heart completely. Every wall I had built around myself. Every defense I had constructed to protect my ego. Every justification I had created for my superiority crumbled in an instant. The arrogance that had defined my entire identity was stripped away, leaving me naked and vulnerable before a god whose love was greater than anything I could have imagined.

I was a proud prince who had spent his life looking down on others. But in that moment, I felt smaller than the humblest servant in our palace. The Bible was still glowing in my hands, still radiating warmth that seemed to flow directly into my heart. But I could no longer stand upright. My knees buckled and I found myself sinking toward the floor as if an invisible weight was pulling me down. But it was not a weight of condemnation. It was the weight of absolute truth. The undeniable reality of who Jesus was and what he had done for me personally. I was not falling in defeat. I was kneeling in surrender.

As I collapsed to my knees on the ornate Persian rug, still clutching the Bible against my chest, words began pouring out of my mouth that I had never planned to speak. “Jesus, forgive me. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand.” The words came from somewhere deeper than my conscious mind, as if my spirit was crying out to God while my intellect was still trying to process what was happening. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for mocking you, for laughing at your sacrifice, for thinking I was better than you.”

My family watched in complete shock as their proud prince became humble before their eyes. My father, who had raised me to be strong and dignified, was staring at me with an expression of horror and confusion. In our culture, in our family, men did not cry publicly, and they certainly did not kneel before foreign gods. But I was beyond caring about cultural expectations or family honor. The only thing that mattered was the overwhelming need to surrender to the God I had spent the evening trying to ridicule.

Can you imagine the shock? One moment I was mocking God, standing tall and confident in my superiority, and the next moment I was on my knees before him, weeping like a child and begging for forgiveness. The transformation was so sudden and complete that even I could hardly believe it was happening to me. But the evidence was undeniable. The Bible was still warm and glowing in my hands. The presence of Jesus was still filling our room. And my heart was still breaking and healing simultaneously under the weight of his love.

My mother was the first to find her voice, and when she spoke, it was with the kind of panic that only a mother can feel when she sees her child in distress. “Abbid, what is happening to you? What is wrong?” She started to move toward me, but something made her stop halfway, as if she could sense that this was not a medical emergency or a psychological breakdown, but something far beyond her understanding or ability to fix.

My brother and sister had backed all the way to the far wall of the sitting room, their faces showing a mixture of fear and fascination. They could see the light coming from the Bible. They could feel the change in the atmosphere of the room, but they had no framework for understanding what they were witnessing. In their minds, their older brother had somehow become possessed or had suffered a complete mental collapse. The idea that he might be encountering the living God was too far outside their worldview to even consider.

My father’s reaction was the most painful for me to witness. His face showed not just confusion but betrayal, as if I had personally violated everything he had taught me and everything our family stood for. “Stop this nonsense immediately,” he commanded in the voice he used when addressing servants who had displeased him. “Get up from the floor and put that book away. This behavior is unacceptable for a member of our family.”

But I could not obey him even if I had wanted to. The Bible seemed to have become part of me and I was overwhelmed by a compulsion to continue reading to learn more about this Jesus who had just revealed himself to me in such an undeniable way. I looked up at my father with tears streaming down my face and tried to explain what was happening. But the words that came out were nothing like what I had planned to say.

“Father, he is real. Jesus Christ is real. And he just showed me the truth about who he is.” My voice was shaking with emotion, but underneath the trembling was a certainty that surprised me with its strength. “I know this seems impossible. I know this goes against everything we believe, but I cannot deny what just happened to me. God himself just spoke to my heart.”

The room fell silent except for the sound of my continued weeping and the barely audible whisper of pages turning as a light breeze from the air conditioning moved through the Bible in my hands. My family stared at me as if I had become a stranger, as if the person they had known and loved for 28 years had been replaced by someone they did not recognize. And in a way, they were right. The proud, arrogant prince who had gathered them to mock Christianity was gone forever. And in his place knelt a broken man who had just encountered the love of God.

One moment I was mocking God, the next I was surrendering to him. And the distance between those two realities was measured not in time, but in the infinite grace of a savior who pursued even his enemies with relentless love.

The immediate aftermath of my conversion was unlike anything I could have prepared for. As the supernatural presence gradually faded from our sitting room, and the Bible’s glow dimmed back to ordinary black ink on white pages, my family was left to grapple with what they had witnessed. The silence that followed was deafening. Nobody knew what to say or how to process what had just happened to their son, their brother, their prince, who had been transformed before their very eyes.

My father was the first to break the silence, and his words cut through me like a blade. “This is not our way, a bid. This is not who we are.” His voice carried a mixture of disappointment and barely controlled anger that I had never heard directed at me before. “You have been deceived by some kind of trick, some psychological manipulation. No son of mine bows down to the god of our historical enemies.”

But even as he spoke, I could see uncertainty in his eyes. He had witnessed the same supernatural events that I had experienced, seen the same unexplainable light emanating from the Bible, felt the same presence that had filled our room. His rational mind was trying to find alternative explanations for what had happened. But his heart knew that he had encountered something beyond the natural world. The conflict between what he believed should be possible and what he had actually seen was written across his face.

My mother’s reaction was different but equally painful. She approached me with the cautious concern of someone trying to help a person who might be having a mental health crisis. “My son, you are exhausted from too much work, too much stress. This is not real. Tomorrow morning you will feel better and we will never speak of this night again.” Her voice was gentle but firm, the voice she had used when I was a child and had woken up from nightmares. She wanted to protect me from what she saw as a delusion that threatened to destroy my life.

The weight of their rejection pressed down on me, but it could not diminish the certainty that burned in my heart. I had encountered the living God, and no amount of family pressure or cultural expectation could make me deny that reality.

“I understand how this must look to all of you,” I said, still kneeling on the floor with the Bible in my hands. “I know this goes against everything we have been taught, everything our family believes, but I cannot lie about what just happened to me. Jesus Christ revealed himself to me, and my life will never be the same.”

My brother and sister exchanged worried glances, clearly convinced that I had suffered some kind of psychological breakdown. My sister, who had always been close to me, knelt down beside me with tears in her eyes. “Brother, please come back to us. Whatever is happening to you, we can fix it. We can get you help. We can make this go away. Just tell us that you do not really believe this Christian nonsense.”

But I could not give her the reassurance she was looking for. The truth had taken root in my heart so deeply that trying to deny it would have been like trying to deny my own existence. “I lost almost everything that night,” I told her honestly, “but I gained eternal life. I know that sounds crazy to you right now, but someday I hope you will understand.”

The days and weeks that followed were the most difficult of my life up to that point. Word of my conversion spread quickly through our extended family and social circle, bringing shame and embarrassment to the family name. My father tried everything he could think of to change my mind. He brought in Islamic scholars to debate with me, thinking that perhaps I had been confused by some theological misunderstanding. He arranged for me to meet with psychologists and medical doctors, convinced that my experience had been some kind of hallucination or mental breakdown.

When gentle persuasion failed, the pressure became more intense. I was stripped of many of my privileges and responsibilities within the family business. My access to our financial accounts was severely restricted. Social invitations that had once come automatically were suddenly withdrawn. Friends and relatives who had once sought my company now avoided me, as if my new faith might be contagious.

Living as a secret Christian in Saudi Arabia became a daily exercise in careful balance and constant prayer. I could not openly practice my new faith without putting my life in serious danger. So I learned to worship in private, to pray silently, to study the Bible in hidden moments when no one was watching. James, the British contractor whose Bible had started this whole journey, became my secret mentor and friend, teaching me about Christian doctrine and helping me understand the faith I had so suddenly embraced.

Every day I thanked Jesus for not giving up on me, even when I was his enemy. I would remember that night in our sitting room when I had stood before my family with supreme confidence in my own superiority, mocking the very God who would soon reveal his love to me in such an undeniable way. The irony was almost too incredible to believe. God used my own mockery to reach my heart, turning my weapon of ridicule into an instrument of his grace.

I began to understand that my conversion was not just about my personal salvation but about God’s amazing ability to reach anyone anywhere under any circumstances. If the God of Christianity could penetrate the heart of a proud Saudi prince who was actively ridiculing him, then no one was beyond the reach of his love. No amount of wealth, power, or religious tradition could protect someone from an encounter with the living God if he chose to reveal himself.

Look inside your own heart right now. Are you harboring the same kind of pride that I carried for 28 years? Do you think your intelligence, your success, your religious background, or your cultural identity makes you immune to God’s call on your life? I thought I was untouchable, unreachable, too sophisticated, and too important for the simple message of Christianity. But God met me exactly where I was, in my arrogance and my mockery. And he transformed my heart in a single moment.

I may have lost my earthly kingdom, but I gained a heavenly one, and that trade was worth everything. The palaces and servants and bank accounts that once defined my identity now seem like toys compared to the relationship I have with Jesus Christ. The family approval and social status that I sacrificed for my faith were temporary treasures that would have turned to dust eventually anyway. But the eternal life I received in exchange will never fade or diminish.

If God can change a mocking Saudi prince, he can change anyone. No heart is too hard. No pride too great, no prejudice too deep for the love of Jesus Christ to penetrate and transform. That night in May 2012, I learned that God’s grace is not limited by human expectations or cultural boundaries. His love reaches into the most unlikely places and touches the most resistant hearts, turning enemies into children and mockers into worshippers.