The Little Red Chair

Robert J. Morgan in his book, “100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know By Heart”, relates the power of memorizing Scripture. He tells about an attorney and his wife who did not consider themselves as having any religious background. One evening a friend invited them to a plane ride, and all went well. Until on landing when the nose wheel caught a power line. His wife was thrown out with severe injuries, while he was left suspended by his seatbelt. The next thing he recalled was all the beeping and clicking that goes with an ICU. As he lay in his hospital bed in the days that followed, little snippets of Bible verses came to him and he wondered how they had gotten into his mind. Finally he remembered attending a Sunday School class as a 5-year-old boy and sitting in a little red chair. The teacher was an advocate of Bible memorization, but the attorney never made an effort to learn the verses. So, apparently unlearned and forgotten, these verses had been left latent in his brain until they were needed. At the time of need he was given vital words of encouragement.

The story has a happy ending. Both he and his wife healed and went on to accept Christ. In this, the learning was almost a passive act. Imagine the power of actively learning Bible verses! We are told in Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is alive and active”. Just as that attorney and his wife did not know what was ahead for them when they set off on that nocturnal flight, we don’t know either what lies ahead. Certainly there will be times when we don’t have access to electronic devices, but we always have access to what’s in our head-let’s put some good things up there!