Hungering for the Word

Liu Zhenying is an exiled house church planter from China. I recently read part his autobiography. He is known by friends as Broter Yun. Brother Yun accepted Christ after hearing his mother tell him the gospel story. He had never seen a Bible. After his conversion, he began to pray for a copy of God's word. Here's what happened in his words:

"I went home, and every morning and afternoon I ate and drank nothing. Every evening I ate just one small bowl of steamed rice. I cried like a hungry child to his heavenly Father, wanting to be filled with his word. For the next one hundred days I prayed for a Bible, until I could bear it no more. My parents were sure I was losing my mind." (The Heavenly Man, page 28)

He goes on to describe how there was another man who owned a Bible but out of fear of persecution, had buried it in his back yard. God put it on this person's heart to dig it up and send it to Liu's home and thus, his prayer was answered.

I can't help but be challenged by the thought of a man fasting for one hundred days, praying for a copy of the Bible, when most American Christians own several copies and never read them. May our hunger for God's Word be just as great as Brother Yun's!