Many years ago Jewish physician, Dr. Boris Kornfield, was snatched from his family and medical practice and incarcerated in prison in a Soviet Union prison in Siberia. In Siberia he was no longer among the people he knew and who needed him, but he had been trained to provide medical help to anyone who needed it. So, even though a prisoner in Siberia, he worked in surgery, helping both the prison staff and prisoners. One of the prisoners was a Christian whose name is unknown to us, but whose quiet faith and frequent reciting of the Lord’s Prayer made such an impression on Dr. Kornfield that he also became a Christian.
Several months later Dr. Kornfield was asked to suture the slashed artery of one of the prison guards. He seriously considered suturing the artery in such a way that the guard would slowly die of internal bleeding. The violence he recognized in his own heart appalled him, and he found himself saying, “Lord, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Afterward, when he had endured about as much as any man can stand, he refused to obey various, inhumane, immoral, prison-camp rules. He knew that the prison guards would consider this to be unacceptable rebellion, and that his life would be in danger.
One afternoon Dr. Kornfield performed an operation on a fellow prisoner to remove a cancerous tumor from his body. He saw in the man’s eyes a depth of spiritual misery he had not seen in any other prisoner. He was so moved by compassion for the man that he felt free to tell him the story of his own life, including the time he had accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord.
That very night Dr. Kornfield was murdered as he slept. The patient on whom he had performed surgery became a Christian as a result of having heard his testimony. In fact, he survived the prison camp and went on to tell the world about life in a communist gulag. His name was Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who became one of the leading Russian writers of the twentieth century. Except for his writings the world would not know the full story of the horrors of the Siberian prison camps and the perils of Russian communism.
What if Dr. Kornfield had not shared his faith with this sick prisoner? What if he had thought, “This man is too sick to listen to anything I have to say? He is probably going to die tonight.” The world would be without the brilliant writing of Solzhenitsyn, and that would be a tragedy of immense proportions.
What can we learn as Christians from this true story? The first thing we should learn is that, even should we not know it, or even accept it, each of us can make a difference in our world. God places in our path on a regular basis persons who do not know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord. The fact that we know them gives us an opportunity to share the story of what God has done in our lives.
We know other individuals who are lonely, or depressed, or hungry, or in trouble, or who just need a friend. This gives us the opportunity to make a difference. We may never know the full impact of the seeds we sow when we share our faith with others, but God could begin a chain of influence that lasts for generations.
Whether you believe it or not, you can make a difference. You can change the environment in which you live. You can make a positive impact – on your family, on people where you work, on a neighbor, on your classmates, or on your circle of friends. Jesus said to His disciples: “You are the light of the world.” There is a song many of us learned when we were children: “This little light of mine . . . I’m gonna let it shine!”
Dr. Kornfield let his light shine! Think of the difference he made. You and I can make a difference also! Believe it! And do it! You can decide to let your light shine every day until the Lord calls you home. In other words, you can aspire to inspire until you expire. You will not have lived in vain.
The Paper Pulpit 