WILLIAM McPHERSON – HUNGRY FOR THE WORD OF GOD

Have you heard about William McPherson’s indefatigable determination to read the Bible, and his insatiable hunger for the Word of God? It is an amazing true story, as recorded by the American Bible Society, in their Annual Report, Volume 97. I am sure it will move each of us, and also, will make us feel “ashamed” of ourselves. Very rarely do we come across such people and their inspirational story.

William McPherson, a Scottish quarry worker, came to America in 1893, and settled outside Denver, Colorado. He earned himself the job of a superintendent for a stone quarry, when a blast seriously and severely injures him. He loses his eyesight, his both hands, and the sense of touch in the explosion. Life became terribly difficult for him and his family. So he was joined in a home for the disabled, where he could be properly cared for. 

William, in his darkest hour of his life, begins to look to God seriously for the very first time. He makes a firm commitment to follow the LORD Jesus Christ. He has a deep and insatiable desire to read the Bible. But because of his debilitating disability, is unable to read on his own, but someone had to read it for him. He was a dogged man, and was determined to read the Bible on his own. Bible in braille was the only way out for him.

William has a huge problem. He was blind, without hands and no sense of touch anywhere in whatever was left of his body. As he was languishing in darkness, he held on tenaciously to His God to somehow help him read God’s Word on his own. He lived that way for five long years, when God sent a blind girl named Anna Johnson to work with the blind patients, in the home for the disabled people, where he was a resident.

William tried every possible way to feel the braille letters with Anna help, but was unable to feel them because of the loss of his sense of touch. William tries to feel the letters through his lips. This was his last hope. It fails as did other attempts. Then he prays to God seeking and begging His help to enable him read the Bible. As William tried one more time to read the Bible in braille through his lips, his tongue accidentally touches the raised braille letters. To his amazement, he feels them. William McPherson was thrilled beyond words to read the Bible on his own, after more than five years since the tragic accident.

William McPherson then begins his journey of reading the Bible on his own with his tongue, with Anna’s help. In the following 65 years of his “dark” and “disabled” life, William reads the illuminating and uplifting Bible four times, from cover to cover, despite much bleeding and soreness of his tongue.

Dear brothers and sisters, what about us? Are we like what Billy Graham observes?
– “…many Christians are spiritually starved and weak because they ignore the spiritual “food” God has provided in the Bible. The Bible is not an option; it is a necessity. You cannot grow spiritually strong without it.” – Billy Graham

A word for the Pastor’s and the Ministers of God, from G. Campbell Morgan…
– “Nothing is more needed among preachers today than that we should have the courage to shake ourselves free from the thousand and one trivialities in which we are asked to waste our time and strength, and resolutely return to the apostolic ideal which made necessary the office of the pastorate. (We must resolve that) we will continue steadfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the Word.”  – G. Campbell Morgan

A word for modern reason driven Christian from Oswald Chambers…
– “Beware of reasoning about God’s Word. Obey it.” – Oswald Chambers

May we always desire and determinedly read the Bible, which is the written Word of God, with passion and persistence as William McPherson, who despite his his dark situation and his disability, passionately persisted to read the Bible, and God honoured his desire and helped him. Even so, the LORD Jesus help us.