Richard Wurmbrand was orphaned early in life. He was brought up in a family with no religious background. He was raised in poverty during the days of WWI and at the age of 14 was a devout atheist. It was not just "that I did not believe in God or Christ---I hated these notions, considering them harmful for the human mind. So I grew up in bitterness toward religion."
Although he was an atheist, something always drew him to churches! He could scarcely pass a church without entering, even though he never understood what was going on or what was being said within.
Richard was sure there was no God, yet was very sad there wasn't. "I would have liked very much to know that a loving heart existed somewhere in the center of the universe" since he had very little happiness as a child. Something in him seemed to yearn for what those within the church had. One day, though still an atheist he prayed a prayer something like this,
"God, I know surely you do not exist. But...if perchance you exist, which I contest, it is not my duty to believe in You; it is YOUR duty to reveal Yourself to me".
According to Wurmbrand:
"During this time of inner turmoil, an old carpenter in a village high up in the mountains of Romania prayed like this :
'My God, I have served you on earth and wish to have my reward on earth as well as in heaven. And my reward should be that I should not die before I bring a Jew to Christ, because Jesus was from the Jewish people. But I am poor, old and sick and I cannot go around and seek a Jew. In my village there are none. Bring a Jew into my village and I will do my best to bring him to Christ.'
Something irresistible drew me to that village. I had no reason to go there. Romania has 12,000 villages, but I went to that one. Seeing I was a Jew, the carpenter courted me as never a beautiful girl had been courted. He saw in me the answer to his prayer and gave me a Bible to read. I had read the Bible out of cultural interest many times before. But the Bible he gave me was another kind of Bible. As he told me some time later, he and his wife prayed together for hours for my conversion and that of my wife. The Bible he gave me was written not so much in words, but in flames of love fired by his prayers. I could barely read it. I could only weep over it, comparing my bad life with the life of Jesus; my impurity with His righteousness, my hatred with His love...and He accepted me as His own."
I was moved beyond words as I read his story. Moved at God's amazing love for us. Moved at how He pursues us!!!!!!!!!!!!
When a heart yearns for God, He will move Heaven and earth to respond. It may be immediately, it may be days or months or years before we SEE Him move, but...make no mistake He will move! God will take those threads of His tapestry and begin the weaving process and one day the various threads of that life will come together with the threads of other lives and together they will create a magnificent piece of the Kingdom Tapestry!
Oh today, my dear friend, if things seem to be a knotted mess in your life, know this. The Master Weaver is working out a beautiful design and your life is just one of the many threads that it will take to complete it.
Bill and Gloria Gaither wrote a little song that so wonderfully expresses this:
SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL
Something beautiful
Something good
All my confusion
He understood
All I had to offer Him
was brokenness and pain
But He made something
Beautiful of my life.
Whatever your needs are today, cry out to God. He will hear you and He will respond. He will take your brokenness, your pain, your heartache and He will weave them into something beautiful that will honor and glorify Him. And know this...if you do not know Him as your Lord and Savior, just take one step toward Him and He will move Heaven and earth to reveal Himself to you.
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