One practical way of fueling faith is through reading Christian biographies. The above books have stoked the fire in my soul this week, especially "God's Smuggler". I picked it up and read it all today. I could not put it down. Here is one excerpt Brother Andrew shares of an experience while visiting a Czechoslovakian church behind the Iron Curtain. He watched as some strolled in with notebooks, an occasional hymnal, and rarely a Bible and wondered how a church could function without Bibles...
"The service began. I took a seat in the back and immediately had a surprise. Almost everyone seemed farsighted! The owners of the hymn books held them out at arm's length, high in the air. Those with looseleaf notebooks did the same. And then I realized: the people with books were sharing them with those who had none. In the notebooks were copied, note by note and word by word, the favorite hymns of the congregation.
It was the same with the Bibles. When a preacher announced the text, every Bible owner in the congregation found the reference and held his book high so that friends nearby could follow the reading. As I watched those men and women struggling literally to get close to the Word, my hand closed over the Dutch Bible in my coat jacket. How much for granted I had always taken my right to own this Book. I thought that I would never reach for it again without remembering the old granny in front of me now, standing almost on tiptoe, squinting as she strained to see the words in the Bible her son held aloft." (pp.94-95)
O Lord, cultivate within us a fiery faith... may we treasure Christ more than life... may we value Your Word and Your Ways more than the things of this world... may Your Name and Your Renown be the desire of our souls! (Isaiah 26:8)
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