Cry More

I was praying recently for more of God's power in my life.  I was crying out in the midst of this prayer time with a slightly more intense cry than I normally do.  As I was praying, a story I read in the book The Heavenly Man came to mind, and I immediately saw the correlation from that story to my current request before God.  This is the story.

The Heavenly Man is an insight into the house church movement in China.  The house church movement is an underground church movement that must meet secretly because of government mandates against all but the most uncontroversial teachings of Christianity.  The book is about one of the underground house church movement's leaders named Brother Yun.  He has become known as the Heavenly Man because of a nickname that stuck after his involvement in so many dramatic miraculous workings of God in and around his life. 

When he was early on in his faith, he desperately wanted a Bible so he could study and read for himself about this God who had so changed his life, but they were illegal at the time in China.  He prayed and cried out to God requesting some sort of intervention to attain a Bible.  He heard of a man in a nearby village that was rumored to have a Bible hidden away, and he walked to meet him and ask for his help and counsel.  I cannot remember the exact words that the man said, but one very basic idea was communicated to Brother Yun.  "If you wish to have a Bible, you must cry more."  This may seem harsh or unhelpful to us, but Brother Yun took it to heart.  He intesified his cries as his prayed.  He begged.  He pleaded.   This went on for quite some time.  His family was beginning to become concerned, but finally, as Brother Yun was sleeping, he dreamed about a man with bread coming to see him.  When he awakened, that very man had come to his house and brought him a Bible because he said God had spoken to him to do so.

This is such an amazing story and seems to hold powerful truths.  Here in the U.S., we have no lack of Bibles or churches or freedom, but, in my opinion, we are sorely lacking in the power of God in our lives.  I intend, by the grace of God, to cry more.