The Courage to Be Known

In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Jean Valjean has done what most of us dream of — he has completely reinvented himself. The former convict is now Monsieur Madeleine, a respected mayor, a factory owner, a man of standing. His past is buried. His future is secure.

Then he learns that a stranger named Champmathieu has been arrested and mistakenly identified as the escaped convict Jean Valjean. An innocent man will go to prison for life — unless the real Valjean speaks up.

Hugo takes us inside the agonizing night Valjean spends alone, wrestling with the cost of truth. If he stays silent, no one will ever know. His comfortable life will continue undisturbed. But an innocent man will suffer in his place.

At dawn, Valjean rides to the courtroom and speaks three words that dismantle everything he has built: "I am he."

That is courage — not the absence of fear, but the willingness to lose what you have gained because righteousness demands it. Valjean understood what the Almighty has always asked of His people: that we choose what is right over what is safe.

Scripture tells us to "act with courage" (1 Corinthians 16:13). Sometimes courage looks like charging into battle. But often it looks like Valjean — standing up in a quiet room and telling the truth that costs you everything, because you know that the God who sees you is worth more than the life you have built for yourself.