The courage to die for their beliefs is given only to those who have had the courage to live for them. The final victory over their terror of pain and physical death is the last of a thousand victories and defeats in the war which is fought daily and hourly in the human mind and soul: the war in the overcoming of self. Dissected and examined in detail this is a most unglamorous battle and to the outsider seems absurd; but it is the constant denying of the natural human urge to stay in bed longer than necessary, to eat or drink more than is justifiable, to be intolerant of the stupid, and to accumulate more than a fair share of this world’s goods, that makes possible the gradual freeing of the human spirit.

Source: Audacity to Believe

Was John Allen Chau a spiritual hero or misguided when he died trying to bring the gospel to unreached people?