Glorifying God where we are
Richard Wurmbrand
Armando Valladares
I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you…
A paperback book titled Tortured for Christ arrived in the mail a few days ago. Its author was Richard Wurmbrand, a Christian preacher who spent 14 years in solitary confinement for preaching the faith in Romania. On my bookshelf are two copies of Armando Valladares’ prison memoirs, Against All Hope. In both memoirs, an ordinary man withstands unimaginable torture for the sake of his principles and emerges vested with God’s grace.
Valladares was imprisoned for his opposition to Cuba’s Communist regime, but his Christian faith bouyed him during his lowest moments. In prison, he meets evangelicals whose crime was preaching the Gospel in an atheistic nation. Valladares’ 22 years in prison included time in solitary in the worst of Castro’s gulag institutions.
Wurmbrand and Valladares were physically tortured, but they emerged from prison with a stronger faith they shared with the rest of us. As we read of their trials, we can think of the excuses we hear from those around us who call themselves Christians and yet don’t do the least of their brothers. When giving God an hour in His house one day a week is too much, how little are we giving? When we consider that some of us give all and others give nothing, who is accomplishing the work that God gave us to do?
These two men glorified God on Earth. Wurmbrand passed away in 2001, but Valladares is still actively speaking out for human rights. We glorify God when we speak out for peace, human rights and justice, just as these two men did. In prisons all over the world, there are Wurmbrands and Valladareses who are being refined through suffering to emerge as examples for us to follow.
Pray for all who are suffering for the sake of the Gospel today. May we all learn how to glorify God no matter where we are.
