I know you. I know you because I am one of you. I know that you have memories of being in Sunday school and saying that Bible verse over and over to try to remember it. I know that you were at one time, that little AWANA kid. The kid who wanted to earn more patches, or points, or jewels, or just the signature at the bottom of that page that meant you never had to see that verse again. You were probably the AWANA wanna be. The kid who wanted to be like those star kids. The ones who memorized three verses a week, did the review AND that extra credit stuff. But you weren't. You weren't that star kid. Instead, you were the kid that your mother had to remind a hundred times to go over their verses. You were the kid that dreaded having to remember all those fancy words just to get a badge. You were the kid who sat down five minutes before you had to leave and learned that verse just well enough to say it and get it marked off. I know because I was that kid too!
Or maybe you were that star kid, but only because your parents worked it into your scheadule to go over verses. Maybe you were that star kid because you wanted to beat all the other youngins. Maybe you were that star kid just because you wanted to be. But you aren't anymore. You don't have time, right? And there are no points to be made for memorizing a bunch of words like justified or begotten.
We all have probably gone downhill since we finished AWANA. And the "M" word terrifies us. We have all kinds of excuses. "I hated memorizing all those Biology words, but at least they were used in regular English sentences. The Bible is even worse!" or maybe it looks more like, "I can't memorize things. My brain's just not cut out for it!"
Well, probably to your dismay, I'm here to tell you that the excuses are over. Memorizing scripture is an essential part of the christian life. Just as important as reading your Bible or praying. There are many reasons for this.
The first is that we need to store God's words in our brains so that when we need them, He can bring them to our minds. When you're having that hard day where you just want to give up, He can't tell you "My yoke is easy and my burden is light" unless those are words you've committed to memory.
God also uses those verses to help us when we are tempted. This is something I've experienced within this past week, even! I've been working on keeping Hebrews 4:14-16 in my long term memory for several weeks. And when I was tempted, God's door out was just running that verse through my mind,
"Therefore since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."Pretty cool, huh? God could only do that because I had memorized that verse.
Another great reason to memorize verses is because we may not always have our Bible with us. Within this point, I can think of two scenarios. The first is, imagine that you are having a spiritual conversation with your unsaved friend. You say God is a loving God, but he asks you to prove it. He has only seen many natural disasters with little signs of God's love. You know it's in the Bible somewhere, but since you don't have a Bible with you, you are left unable to back up the truth. If you had memorized a verse like that, you could've said it then and there and kept the conversation going.
A second scenario I think of is one that may at some point be true in America. Throughout history, Christians have been persecuted for their faith. Situations would range from Bibles being confiscated, to the Christian being put in prison. If this ever happens, your only access to the Bible would be through verses and passages you had put to memory.
These reasons for memorizing are only scratching the surface to be sure. But before you get too discouraged that you are a horrible Christian with no hope because you can't memorize, let me present a new idea to you.
Maybe the dreaded "M" word we've been using is actually the wrong word entirely. Maybe the reason you've had such a hard time memorizing is because you weren't called to memorize; you were called to use a different 'M' word: Meditate. Now before you freak out because that sounds an awful lot like weird monk dudes sitting Indian style and chanting "OM", let me explain.
Meditating is more than memorizing. It's not just going over words until you remember them. It's so much more! It's taking a verse or passage and thinking about what it means. It's digging deeper and taking it a step further. When meditating on a verse, you don't just recite words until you can say them without looking. You look at the passage as a whole. Look for the context. Look at all the little parts. You look at all the word pictures and think of what they truly mean. You look up words like 'justified' so that you know what they mean, and aren't just saying an empty word. You pray the verse, you wrestle with the verse, and there's something else. Something important. One huge difference with meditating is that it's not just a sit down and say the verse over and over one time. When meditating, you look at that verse when you wake up, you take it throughout your day and are thinking about it as you go about your life, you go through it at night. Meditating is so much more than memorizing.
And I wanna pause right here for a few seconds for you to take some deep breaths. Don't freak out. This is not a major time commitment. The thing is, when you meditate, you remember. You remember the concept of the verse, what it means for your life, and eventually you know it word for word. It enables you to know the verse long term and be able to remember it when you need it. Because the verse now means something to you. And you can share it with others.
So to put you at even more ease that memorizing and meditating is something you CAN do, let me share a couple tips and a story.
1. The easiest way to meditate on a verse--like, I'm telling you, SUPER easy--is to put it somewhere within your boring routines. I have started taping verses to my shower door. (which is glass, and I know not many of you have glass shower doors) That way when I get into the shower, and wash my hair (which takes no thought process whatsoever) I can actually use my time efficiently and go through a verse or two while I'm at it. Proof that this works is actually right above! I wrote Hebrews 4:14-16 by memory, and it was a verse that I first memorized a few months ago! Some other easy places to put it is: a) By your bed. This works especially well if you are in a bunk bed, cause you can tape it above you and still be able to read it cause it's pretty close. If you don't sleep in a bunk, you could write it big and tape it to the ceiling, or put it on your nightstand. b)Write it on your mirror. You can do this with a dry erase or vis-a-vis marker. I do this all the time with reminders or my to-do list too. It's an easy way to remember things because you use your mirror several times a day and most of the time it's while doing things that take no thought process. Let me just say, without any intention of memorizing the verses when I put them up, every single verse that I have taped to my wall, I could say from memory now. It truly works, people!
2. I want to tell you, I never really believed I was the memorizing "type" until I got bored and challenged myself. I ended up, to my astonishment, memorizing Philippians 2:1-11, which I can still (probably imperfectly) quote for you today! "HOW?!?!?," you ask. Well, basically I went over one verse per night. I learned one verse, or even just a phrase, and I went through what it meant, I thought of scenes and pictures in my mind, I thought of how I could live that part out in my own life, I prayed the verse. And then the next night, I went over that verse and learned the next. Until I had learned eleven verses with not much effort at all!
Now, Christian, I could probably keep going for a while on this topic, but I don't want to keep you too much since I have already written a small book. There are, however, a few things I want to leave you with.
There IS hope! You CAN memorize! The trick is to change your 'M' word to Meditate! Meditate on those verses, read them day and night, think about them when you shower and when you brush your teeth. And if you do that, you can easily learn verses that God can use to enrich your Christian walk so much! It IS worth it. And always remember, now that you've read this, you know how to do it. And you CAN do it!
Now go! Pick a verse and start working. You won't be sorry!
***NOTE: Any part of this post stating that God can't bring unlearned passages to memory is purely to emphasize my point. Of course God can do anything, but in most cases He doesn't unless its a verse you've memorized***
