As the deer pants after the water brooks, so my soul pants after You, O God.

— Psalms 42:1

Several years ago, around the time that the Soviet Union was imploding, American Christian booksellers were invited for the first time to show their wares at the Moscow Book Fair. One of those booksellers brought 50,000 Bibles to give away to the people there. After several hours, the police stopped the give-away for the simple reason that there was such a mob of people clamoring for Bibles that every aisle of the Book Fair was jammed and traffic was gridlocked. So they were required to stop giving the Bibles away for two hours, then they were allowed to resume for another hour, then another break, then resume for another hour. The police weren’t trying to prevent them from distributing Bibles—they were simply trying to keep the Moscow Book Fair open.

Further down the same aisle of the Book Fair, Madalyn Murray O’Hair was at the American Atheist Society booth displaying their wares. Someone who was there told me that virtually no one even stopped to see what she had to offer. They knew about it all too well. They had had atheism for seventy years and they wanted nothing more to do with it.

What a privilege it is to have the Bible. Let us never take it for granted.

Question to ponder:
Do you feel a longing for the Word of God?