Johannes Tauler, the renowned priest and theologian whom the reformer Martin Luther called his teacher, felt that he did not have the real thing””intimacy with Christ””and prayed for years for an encounter with somebody who did. There was nobody among his colleagues.
One day, he heard a voice: "Go to that church and you will find the one whom you seek."
He went. At the porch was a beggar in rags. Tauler said, "Good day."
" I don't remember ever having had a bad day," the beggar responded.
"Well, may you have a happy life."
The beggar said, " I was never unhappy. All my days were good. I praised God when I am hungry, when it rained and snowed, and when I am homeless. When I am despised or encounter any other evil, I don't cease to give thanks to God. I am always happy, because I will, without any reservation, all that God wills for me. I receive with joy from God whatever He gives me, be it sweet or bitter. This makes me happy."
Tauler asked him, "What would you do if you were damned for eternity?"
" I have two arms: humility and love. With these I would embrace Him so mightily that if I had to enter hell, He would have to enter with me. It would be sweeter for me to be with Him in hell than without Him in heaven."
"When did you find God?"
"When I forsook attachment to any creature."
"But who are you?"
" I am a king."
"Where is your kingdom?"
"It is right in my heart. Christ gave it to me when He shed His blood for me."
The churches that have passed through persecution have such saints. The Lutheran pastor Traugott Hahn, who was killed by the Communists in Latvia in 1919, was one. He once wrote:
"Higher Christianity starts only where martyrdom and sacrifice start. Without sacrifice, there is no salvation. It is foolishness to wish happiness on earth. Life is self-denial. To put everything at stake for God and His Church, to follow Him to the very end, is more than happiness. It is bliss”.
Richard Wurmbrand