I Know It By Heart
Note: If you’d like to be a part of my “cyber sisters”; a group designed to pray for specific requests for my ministry and women with whom I’ll test-drive new ideas and material, please send an email to [email protected] and I’ll add you to the group. If you already signed up but did not get the first email that went out yesterday, please resend your address. I had three emails bounce back to me and have no way to get a hold of you.
Also—stop back by on Friday when I’ll have a P31 and Crosswalk.com devotion running. There will be a giveaway involved :-)
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I love watching old movies.
Give me The Wizard of Oz or The Sound of Music any old day over the action-packed, computer-generated sort we see currently.
Even though they’ve danced across my TV screen dozens of times, I never tire of viewing them.
I tap my toes to the music.
I laugh at the funny portions and still cry when the tone turns sorrowful.
But most of all, I move my lips along to much of the dialog going on.
Yep, I know many of the lines by heart.
This is true also when it comes to oldies tunes.
Whenever a song from the late 70’s or decade of the 80’s emits from my car radio, I know all the lyrics. I can sing away, just like I did as a teen alone in my bedroom with my pink hairbrush in hand.
Kansas.
The Eagles.
ABBA.
Queen. (Mercy! I show my age!)
I also have a drama background; entire chunks of musicals and plays hidden in my head. I can recite a 14 minute monologue by heart. I’ve done it dozens of times.
Why then, when I seem to know so many trivial words from my past, do I fail to memorize important words?
Life-giving words.
Words packed with power and pregnant with change.
I’m talking about scripture.
Bible verses.
The very words of God written to us.
Shame on me! I’ve memorized more songs than scripture?
I know! What if I set Bible verses to 70’s & 80’s tunes? Now there’s a new product. It could be called “Quotin’ to the Oldies!” :-)
This past summer I admitted to 608 women at our Proverbs 31 She Speaks conference that, although I love to read and study the Bible, I have not made a concerted attempt to memorize scripture.
Oh its not that I don’t have ANY verses memorized. I got out my Bible last summer and attempted to highlight all the verses I knew by heart. Sad to say, I have loved God and followed Jesus for 30 years now this fall, and I barely knew 30 verses!
One verse a year committed to memory? Not exactly break-neck speed!
Oh, don’t get me wrong! I know TONS of what I call “sorta scriptures”; those more commonly known passages where, if you started the verse for me, I could “sorta’ finish it; not word for word and I couldn’t tell you where it was found in the Bible. But I could give you the main gist of the verse getting most of the words right.
While thinking through this reality, before I got too hard on myself, I also remembered I had a few Psalms memorized–Psalm 1 & 23.
Okay…not too shabby…
Oh, and once I tried memorizing an entire chapter. Colossians 3 to be exact.
So I got out my Bible and brushed up. After a few weeks I was able to recite that entire chapter by heart. (I did it for my She Speaks roomie Whitney Capps to keep me honest!)
Hmmmm…30 verses, two Psalms and an entire chapter? Well…that’s not so horrible is it?
Why, put me up next to any other gal in a Bible drill and I’d do allright.
I’ve memorized as much scripture as the average Christian.
Well last summer it hit me….
Since when did I sign up to be an average Christian???????
God then whispered to my heart a challenge. I sensed Him telling me to get out my Bible and time myself reading the entire book of James.
It took me 11 minutes.
I already told you I can recite a 14 minute monologue.
So, I made a goal to memorize the entire 5 chapters of the book of James by Christmas. (I’m about through the end of chapter 2.)
Then, Christmas morning, with an audience only of One, I want to perform my 11 minute monologue.
It will be this oldies-lovin’ girl’s present to Jesus.
Would you care to join me?
Oh, not in committing the same scripture or amount of scripture to memory. But in memorizing some of the Bible.
A verse.
Or two.
Or ten.
A chunk.
A Psalm.
A few pithy proverbs.
We could do it together.
You could pray for me and I will pray for you.
And then..
When I get all the words to the entire book of James……
All set…….
To the tune of Hotel California…..
Why, I’ll post it here as an MP3 download and we can all sing along!!!
Are you in?
If so, what do you want to memorize?
I’d love to know.
Know it by Heart blessings,
