The Man Who Stayed

In July 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz. As punishment, SS guards selected ten men from the block to die by starvation. When Franciszek Gajowniczek was chosen and cried out for his wife and children, a Polish Franciscan priest named Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward. "I would like to take his place," he said quietly. The guards, stunned, agreed.

For two weeks, Kolbe led the condemned men in prayer and hymns inside that starvation bunker. Guards later reported that the cell, which usually echoed with screaming and despair, sounded more like a chapel. Kolbe was the last to die, killed by lethal injection on August 14, 1941.

Gajowniczek survived the war. He lived to ninety-three, spending the rest of his life telling anyone who would listen about the priest who chose death so that he could live.

In Acts 16, an earthquake shattered the chains and flung open every prison door in Philippi. Paul and Silas could have run. Freedom was right there. But Paul stayed — not for himself, but for the jailer whose life hung in the balance. That night, because one man refused to walk through an open door, another man walked through the door of faith. The jailer and his entire household were baptized before dawn.

Sometimes the most powerful act of freedom is choosing to stay.