Christian Prisoners Offer Words of Wisdom and Faith
Christian Prisoners Offer Words of Wisdom and Faith.
“There was a fiddler who played so beautifully that everybody danced. A deaf man who could not hear music considered them all insane. Those who are with Jesus in suffering hear this music to which others are deaf. They dance and do not care if they are considered insane… Christians enter prisons for their faith with the joy of a bridegroom entering the bridal chambers… A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith… A man truly believes only in the things he is ready to die for.” (Richard Wurmbrand, imprisoned in Romania by the Communists for 14 years for believing in Jesus).
“This man Solzhenitsyn had learned in the prison camp the one thing you would have expected him not to learn, what it really means to be free. He realized that we can be free only if we are free in our souls; that a man in a prison camp who has learned to be free inside himself is freer than the freest man.” (from the British author Malcolm Muggeridge).
“And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through countries, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – But right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. All the writers who wrote about prison but did not themselves serve time there considered it their duty to express sympathy for prisoners and to curse prison. I have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!” (Russian author Alexandr Solzhenitsyn after being release from a Gulag prison camp).
“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away your ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer… You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have… There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still… I talked with my Savior. Never before had I such close fellowship with Him. It was a joy I hoped would continue unchanged. I was a prisoner – and yet – how free!… I was not brave. I was often like a timid, fluttery bird, looking for a hiding place. Coward and wayward and weak, I change with the changing the sky; today so eager and brave, tomorrow not caring to live. But God never gives in, and we two will win, Jesus and I.” (Corrie Ten Boom, imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for harboring Jews. Her story is told in the book, The Hiding Place).
“But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist? – ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for those who despitefully use you.’ Was not Amos an extremist for justice? – ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.’ Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ? – ‘I bear on my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.’ Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? – ‘This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.’ So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremist we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, imprisoned for his civil rights activity in Alabama, in 1963, ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’).
“O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But, do not remember all of the suffering they have inflicted upon us; Instead remember the fruits we have borne because of this suffering—our fellowship, our loyalty to one another, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown from this trouble. When our persecutors come to be judged by You, let all of these fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.” (an anonymous prayer found in the clothing of a child at Ravensbruck concentration camp).
“I was taken to prison, and here have lain now a full twelve years. I have continued with much contentment, through grace, but have met with many turnings upon my heart – from the Lord, from Satan, from my own corruption, by all of which glory be to Jesus Christ! I never had in all my life so great an insight into the Word of God as now. Those Scriptures that I saw nothing in before, were made, in this place and in this condition, to shine upon me. Jesus Christ has never been more real and apparent than now. Here I have seen and felt Him indeed… I will stay in jail to the end of my day before I make a mockery of my conscience.” (John Bunyan, jailed for twelve years for preaching the gospel in England in mid-1600’s, at which time he wrote one of the most famous books of all time, The Pilgrim’s Progress).
An excerpt from his poem written on death row in a Nazi prison: “Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved? An excerpt from his last letter to his fiancé while awaiting execution: “It is as though in solitude the soul develops senses which we hardly know in everyday life. Therefore I have not felt lonely or abandoned for one moment. You must not think that I am unhappy. What is happiness, what is unhappiness? It depends so little on the circumstances; it depends only on that which happens inside a person.” (by German pastor and author Dietrich Bonhoeffer, jailed by the Nazi’s for conspiring to assassinate Hitler, 1944; to learn more about his experience there, read his book, Letters and Papers from Prison).
“In one day, I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and after dark nearly as many again, even while I remained in the woods or on a mountain. I would wake and pray before daybreak, through snow, frost, and rain.” (St. Patrick, who was kidnapped in his homeland in Britain as a teenager and brought to Ireland, where he was sold as a slave to an Irish chieftain. After six years of slavery out in the brutal elements as a shepherd, he escaped, and returned later to remain for 30 years, becoming Ireland’s most famous missionary).
“My story is one of brokenness. I was actually very weak in prison and broken, and then God rebuilt me. I said in prison, ‘God, if you ever let me out of here, if I have a chance to speak, I will be open and honest about my brokenness. I’m hoping my story will be an encouragement to other weak people… I see God as the grandmaster chess player. Behind all the political intrigue it took to get me released, actually God was really in charge.” (Andrew Brunson, an American missionary in Turkey who was imprisoned there unjustly for two years, 2016-2018. His book about that experience is “God’s Hostage”.)
“All I did every day in prison camp was pray every day. I promised God that I would serve Him if He could get me out alive. When I became a Christian, I knew that I’d instantly forgiven my very cruel prison guards in Japan. When you hate somebody, you don’t hurt them in the least. All you’re doing is hurting yourself. If you hate somebody, it’s like a boomerang that misses its target and comes back and hits you in the head. The one who hates is the one who hurts. Like Mark Twain said, ‘Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” (Louis Zamperini, whose incredible story is told in the book Unbroken. Louis survived two months lost at sea in a little life raft, and then two years in a torturous, abusive Prisoner-of-War camp in Japan. Soon after he left the Air Force, he returned to Japan to be a missionary and proceeded to forgive every one of his prison guards).
“I wish to make a request. I wish to take this man’s place in those being executed.” (Rev. Maxamillian Kolbe made the request of the Nazi commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The sadistic commander said, ‘Your request is granted.” And so Fr. Kolbe volunteered to take the place of another man he didn’t even know. He was executed by the Nazi’s in 1941).