Meditating and Memorizing
The above verse is my life calling. It's the reason I get up every morning to have an hour of quiet Bible Study before my kids wake up. It's why I spend hour upon hour studying, poring, reflecting, and praying over every single blog. It's why I teach Sunday school, why I speak, and why I write: So that you can have understanding to know CHRIST! And it thrills me to NO END to hear all of you talk about how deeply you're digging into Scripture and how vibrant your walk is right now. (If you missed the last two blogs, PLEASE read them now!)
So today we're going to look at a few more steps: Meditating and memorizing.
You have the wrong idea about meditation if you picture a man sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce, thumb and middle fingers lightly touching , humming and trying to clear his mind. Biblical meditation does not have the goal of clearing your mind; it's of focusing it. Joshua was commanded to mediate on God's Word day and night (Joshua 1:8), and the idea of meditating is mentioned twelve times in the psalms.
The Hebrew word for meditate can be defined in these ways: "to muse, meditate upon, study, ponder; to talk, sing, speak; to meditate, consider, put forth thoughts." Strong's defines it this way: "to ponder, i.e. (by implication) converse (with oneself, and hence, aloud) or (transitively) utter."
Meditation means that God's Word--the Word you spent time walking, not running through this morning--stays in your mouth and in your heart ALL DAY. You think about it. You ponder it. You say it and sing it and roll it around in your brain. And here's the most amazing thing: as you think about and mull over God's Word, His Spirit reveals it to you even more fully. John 14:26 promises us that the Spirit would teach us everything, and He uses the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts (Psalm 19:14) to understand the Bible even more. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?!?!
Several of the psalms (4:4, 63:6, 119:48) specifically mention meditating on God's Word in bed at night. (Seriously--look those verses up. They are so rich!) I can think of no better way to frame a day: digging into God's Word first thing, pondering it through all you do, and ending it in bed still dwelling on the living, breathing Word of God.
Memorizing, on the other hand, is not a "today" focus; it's a long-term goal of hiding God's Word in our hearts (Psalm 119:11). I've spent over ten years systematically memorizing as much Scripture as I feel God is leading, and here's what I'd say about it:
- Don't try a verse a day. You can handle it for about a week but you'll be in over your head very soon.
- Don't dare google "scriptures every Christian should memorize." Choose to memorize THE VERSES CHRIST LEADS YOU TO MEMORIZE. You'll know them! They will be in a verse or a sermon or a Bible Study or even something you see on a word art in a store. You'll hear the Holy Spirit whisper in your ear: "That verse is for you! Hide it in your heart!"
- No excuses when it comes to memorizing. Don't tell me you're not good at it. Don't tell me you never learned how to memorize. THIS IS THE WORD OF GOD! Don't be lazy! Get SERIOUS about knowing it.
Here are a few general guidelines:
- GIVE THIS TO GOD! Ask Him to make these verses real in your life and to give you the honor of using them in making decisions. Know He wants you to know scripture so that it changes your life (Deuteronomy 30:14).
- Set aside a time and place to do it every day, or at least every week day.
- Break long passages up into separate verses. Focus on one verse at a time.
- Say your scriptures out loud whenever possible. (There’s a big difference between saying it to yourself and saying it aloud.)
- Don’t get stressed out if it takes you a while. (I’ve been working on some verses for years and still don’t get them perfect every time.)
- Find the strategy that works for you. God made us all different, and the way He designed for you to memorize is not the same as everyone else. Consider trying a variety of strategies to determine the one that works best.
Specifically, here's what I do:
I use a scripture box. Buy a $0.99 index card box and some index cards at Wal-Mart, Target, or any office supply store. Write the scriptures you want to memorize on the cards: text on one side, reference (book, chapter, and verse) on the other side. Label twelve dividers like this: Daily, M-W-F, Tu-Th-S, M-Th, Tu-Fri, W-S, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Put the dividers in the box. Put all new scriptures in the “Daily” spot. Say these scriptures every day. As you get to where you are comfortable saying a verse daily from memory, move it back to one of the slots where you say it three times a week (M-W-F or Tu-Th-S). As that becomes easy, move it back to the twice a week slot (M-Th, Tu-Fri, W-Sat) and so forth. So each day you sit down to study your memorization verses (Monday through Saturday) you’ll do the cards that apply to that day. For instance, on Monday you’ll do the “Daily,” the “M-W-F”, the “M-Th,” and the “Monday” dividers. That way you are doing the new ones every day, the ones you know a little two or three times a week, and the ones you are comfortable with once a week. (If this gets easy, you can make more dividers to where you say them three, two, or one times a month. But I’d never say them less than once a month.)
That's what I personally do. And I can tell you that, if you're committed to it, IT WORKS. But here are a few more ideas for ways to get a jump-start on memorizing your verses. (I'd still do them as I described above, but try these, too):
Sing it! Take one verse and say it several times until it reminds you of a song. (The simpler the better. Think TV theme shows, kids songs, or goofy commercial jingles.) Practice looking at the verse as you sing it to the tune several times a day. After a few days, try it without looking.
Draw it! Write the scripture on a piece of paper, very spread out. Draw something that reminds you of each phrase. Practice saying the scripture as you look at the drawings. Then try looking at the drawings only without the words. You’ll eventually get to where you don’t even need the drawings.
Fill in the Blanks. Write your verse in dry-erase marker on your mirror. Practice saying the scriptures as you do your hair, put on makeup, pluck your eyebrows, or simply admire yourself. After a few days, erase one of the words, and try to keep saying it all. Keep erasing one word at a time until it’s all gone from the mirror and lodged in your head.
Keep it in front of you. Write the verse on a Post-It note and put it somewhere you look often: on your wallet, a notebook, the dashboard of your car, phone, computer, on the remote, or something like that. Say the verse every time you look at it. Move it around regularly so that you don’t get too used to it being in one place.
Get a friend to help. Find someone creative to help you make up hand motions to the verse. Or practice saying it one word at a time, going back and forth between people.
Write it. It’s that simple: write it over and over. (Remember write-offs in school? Remember Harry Potter and Delores Umbridge?) Write it in cursive, then in print, then with your not-dominant hand. Say it as you write.
Make it simple. Write only the main words from each verse and try to remember the lesser words around it. (For example, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29) could be “Unwholesome-mouth-helpful-building-needs-benefit-listen”.) Do this until you don’t need the main words any more. OR you could do it backwards and leave out the nouns and verbs, writing only "Do not let any____ _________ come out of your __________, but only what is _______ for _________ __________ up, _________ to their ________, that it may ________ those who ___________."
You'll never be sorry that you made time to hide God's Word in your heart through meditation and memorization. When it's in your heart and on your mind, it will change your life.
LOVE!
@leslienotebook
myleslienotebook@gmail.com
Also, I have quite a few new followers. If we don't personally know each other, I'd love to meet you :) Please send me an email or a pm on twitter!
If you haven't subscribed, please do! Put your email address in the box at the top right. You'll need to respond to that email to confirm it. But you'll never miss another post!
Comments
Post a Comment