Recently, I have been pondering what it really means to be hungry for God and His word. This lingering thought came after reading part of the book The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun and Paul Hattaway. This is the remarkable story of one man's journey of being a radical Christian at the start of the intense Christian persecution in China.
Near the begining of this mans story Brother Yun talks about how he was DESEPERATE for the word of God when he first came to know the Lord but Bibles were illeagle and incrediblly hard to come by. Brother Yun tells of how he heard of a rumor of another man who had a Bible in a village near his and how he begged this man even to just see the Bible for confirmation that Gods Word still exisits. Because of the risks associated with haveing abible the man said no, but if Yun wanted a Bible he should fast, pray, and cry out to God and the Lord would give one to him.
Anyway, long story short he fasts 2 meals a day and prays for the Lord to give him a bible every day for 100 days. One night in the middle of the night Brother Yun had a vivid dream of two men pushing a cart of bread. The two men asked him if he was hungry for a piece of bread. In the dream Brother Yun says yes, and the men give him a fresh piece of bread in a red bag. Right as he puts the fresh bread in his mouth the loaf turns into a Bible and Yun praises the Lord!
Waking up from his dream he became even more hungry for the Lord's word and frantically searched his house top to bottom to find one. His parents, who he lived with, (for he was only 16 years of age at the time) woke up and were concerned for thier son's sanity. In the middle of the night, in a remote village in China the three of them began to weep and cry to the Lord for Yun to get a Bible.
As they were shouting out thier desperate, end of rope cry, a knock came on thier door. Yun ran to the door and through it asked "Are you bringing the bread to me?"
A voice replied "Yes, we have a bread feast to give you." Recognizing the voice Yun opened the door and on the other side were the two men from his dream and they passed him a red bag with a Bible inside and quickly disappeared into the night. In the book Yun says "I always held that Bible. Even when I slept I lid it on my chest. I devoured it's teachings like a hungry child."
I can't stop thinking about this story. I think as Americans we are so used to having our needs met right away and we are so used to a surface "knowing" of God that the deep desire to go directly into the Heart of God gets lost in all the materialism, TV, Food, and power. We take our and our freedom to worship, pray, and read the Word of God for granted.
After reading this real account of hunger for God I realize how numb and "satisified" my daily life can be. Fake satisfaction it seems now. What am I doing? I want this overwhelming desire that Yun posessed, right? I want to only be filled by the God's Spirit and Word, right. I want to chase after and pursue Jesus with ALL my heart, right? I guess the real question now is...what is stopping me? More to come on this later.
