As he slowly came around, his eyes adjusted to the smoke. He cried out for his pastor, but no one answered. Horrified, he quickly began digging his way out of the pile of flesh and rubble.

That morning, he had been among a group of 190 North Korean believers when the police stormed in, rounded them up, and harshly marched them to the town center.

Their nation’s leader, Kim Il Sung, stood before them. The heartless dictator walked to the center of the square and drew a line in the dirt, ordering those who wanted to live to deny Christ and cross the line.

Not one stepped forward. Infuriated, Kim Il Sung ordered the group thrown into a mining tunnel with sticks of dynamite.

The last thing the surviving believer remembered was his pastor, consoling and encouraging the group. Realizing he was the lone survivor, he cried, “Why God? Why didn’t you let me die with the others?”

God immediately filled his heart with peace, and he knew that someone must remain and be a witness to their faith. This was the first of many brutal attacks by Kim Il Sung’s form of Communism and worship, called Juche. News of the heroic event spread rapidly among the Christians and is still told today in North Korea.

Like the believer in this story, the firefighters who survived the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center are not silent witnesses. Though they cannot explain why they survived and their comrades did not, they are outspoken patriots who know that someone must remain to tell the stories of those who died saving others so that they could live. As a Christian, you have an even greater survivor story to tell. Jesus did not survive the Cross. He conquered it. He did not merely survive his ordeal; he triumphed. He returned in his resurrected body to deliver the news to his disciples who would soon tell the world. Jesus died saving others so that they could live. Yet he is now alive, back from the dead, offering salvation to the world.

If you enjoyed this devotion, you may buy the book Extreme Devotion and read one daily.