A Panting Deer (A Reaction Paper to the docu film: A lamp in the Dark)

A Panting Deer (Disciple)

I remember the days when I lie still on my bed, thinking of the tasks ahead of me. Instead of hurrying up to get to my ‘daily bread’, I lie motionless, idle and unable to reach the book lying next at my desktop counter. I would think of the days when I wasted precious moments soaking on viewing photos of facebook friends rather than finishing my journal. The memory of countless mornings when I crave for a cup of coffee rather than ache for God’s word is very vivid…and they are tearing my heart. How many times have I not valued the Word of God, in the same way that our Christian forerunners have valued IT with their lives? They were unafraid of paying the price, even if it means paying it with their own blood. They were burned at the stakes, stoned to death, allowed to decay in prison. They were denied of their future, of their very lives, yet they were willing to go through the entire ordeal so that the future generations may have a grip of the truth. And yet, right now I am faced with the truth that the very book to which many harbingers have risked their lives, I have so often neglected.

It is not that I do not read it or take heed to what it says. I do read it, scan it and love its content. But I guess I did not read, scanned and loved it they way it should be. Never did it dawn on me how difficult it was to actually put it into one piece, handing it down from one passionate man to the other, surviving one cruel generation to the other. The film opened my eyes to what is supposedly obvious to me, to value the Bible as it should be. It wonderfully oriented me to the tireless pursuit of Christian heroes to transcend God’s message across ages, tribes and countries.

My reading experience was never the same again. Every time I turn the pages, I would remember scenes from the documentary and I can’t help but marvel at the determination and passion of the men and women who painstakingly brought them all together. It also edified the truth I already know, that if God wills it to happen, it will really happen. Like putting the bible altogether, there were many oppositions have tried to go against it but the purposes of our Lord still prevailed.

In ending, it is my prayer that this realization will not be a dust in the wind. I pray the Psalmist prayer:

“As the deer pants for streams of water,
    so my soul pants for you (and your Word), my God. “
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?  -Psalm 45:2

Emphasis mine 