By Peter Kennedy
“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” – Joshua 1:8
In 1977, at the height of the Cold War, Anatoly Shcharansky, a brilliant young Russian mathematician and chess player, was arrested by the KGB for his repeated attempts to immigrate to Israel. He spent thirteen years inside the Soviet Gulag. From morning to evening Shcharansky read and studied all 150 psalms in Hebrew. “What does this give me?” he asked in a letter:
“Gradually, my feeling of great loss and sorrow changes to one of bright hopes.” Anatoly so cherished his book of Psalms, in fact, that when guards took it away from him, he lay in the snow, refusing to move, until they returned it. During those thirteen years, his wife traveled around the world campaigning for his release. Accepting an honorary degree on his behalf, she told the university audience, “In a lonely cell in Chistopol prison, locked alone with the Psalms of David, Anatoly found expression for his innermost feelings in the outpourings of the King of Israel thousands of years ago.”
Anatoly was released in a prisoner exchange with the West on 11 February 1986 and settled in Israel.
Everyone needs to be a student of the Word of God, no matter what age. Today in prayer, read through your favorite Bible verses and ask the Lord to help you commit them to memory.
“I am convinced that one of the greatest things we can do is to memorize Scripture.” – Billy Graham
God’s Word: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” – 2 Timothy 2:15
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