Memorizing Scripture, as most of you have already seen in my profile, is one of my favorite ways to spend time. I’ve blogged about it on several occasions in the past, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever given you the full story of how I began hiding God’s Word in my heart in the first place. Contrary to what you would suspect, I wasn’t forced to memorize by my parents, asked to by my Sunday School teacher, or even preached at by my pastor. In all reality, my love for memorizing Scripture began a little less than three years ago when I sat down to read the book  A Call to Die by David Nasser. Let me tell you about it:

Having grown up in church, I was more than familiar with verses like Psalm 119:11 and Hebrews 4:12. I knew those words were undeniably referring to the power of God’s Word and the importance of memorizing it, but I still never recognized the necessity of doing so myself. Whenever the subject was brought up by a friend or family member, I would say what everybody else who wants to avoid memorizing Scripture says and rattle off something like, “Oh, I just don’t have a good memory like you do. I can’t memorize Scripture; it’s too hard.” What didn’t make sense about this excuse is that I’d never actually tried to memorize in the first place, and yet somehow knew I would be unable to. I guess because I couldn’t recite from memory the Scriptures I’d read during my devotions that night, I assumed I had a bad memory and shouldn’t try to burden it too heavily with something as “archaic” as the Bible.

Anyway, one night I sat down to read the first devotional in A Call to Die and my safe-haven of excuses began to slowly crumble. He wrote,

“I hear people whine, “I can’t memorize verses from the Bible. It’s too hard!” That’s ridiculous. These same people know every song on their favorite CD, and I know a couple of guys who can recite the entire dialogue from The Three Amigos word for word! The first thing I want you to realize is: yes, you can memorize verses from the Bible!”

These words helped me to realize that I actually had a much better memory than I was willing to admit; I simply wasn’t willing to utilize it for the glory of God. Not only did I know every word of every song on my favorite CD, but I knew the lyrics to pretty much every Third Day song ever recorded. This realization helped me to see that, if I could devote so much time and energy to memorizing song lyrics about God, I could at least memorize the words of God which were far more significant and far more eternal than anything else on this earth.

David Nasser then outlined a list of ways to strategically hide the Word of God in your heart and mind. Amazingly enough, the list he made bears a striking resemblance to the list of ways a student might study for a test, or even simply memorize a phone number or address. The items included reading the material multiple times; writing it down; reciting with a partner, and meditating on the Scripture throughout your day. Compare these activities with the way you memorize the lyrics to your favorite song:

• First of all, you pressed the rewind button on your stereo several times.

• You looked up the lyrics on google, or repeated step one until this was unnecessary. In extreme cases, you may have even purchased a T-shirt to express your love for the artist who wrote it.

• Most importantly, you sung your new favorite song in the car, in the shower, and any other time you were a safe distance from any listening ears.

Basically, my point is that it doesn’t matter how much you love or hate the material, memorization requires genuine hard work. Obviously it helps if we are passionate about what we’re memorizing, and I think that’s why we rarely give a second thought to memorizing our best friends phone number or new song lyrics: we see the benefits of it, and thus pay the price and devote the time necessary to to do just that.

In Joshua 1:8, the Lord commanded Israel’s new leader to meditate in the law of the Lord continually. Memorizing Scripture allows us to do that and, what’s more, will bring a peace beyond comparison (Isaiah 26:3). It takes work, for sure, but is more than worth the benefits it brings us. We’re robbing ourselves of a great treasure if we allow the excuse of a having a poor memory to keep us from hiding God’s word in our heart. The fact is, even if your mind is like a sieve, the Scriptures will keep it pure as they flow through.