Scripture Memorization

I have been doing everything but writing lately so that explains the lack of posts for a while. One of the big projects has been to finally move the cows here to my place. Unfortunately we got 11 inches of snow the night before I moved them so getting around here with the loaded stock trailer was interesting, usually the pickup does extremely well in snow but this time I had to pull it with the tractor and then kept spinning all across the yard and backing up to the barn was impossible even in four wheel drive. I finally realized that something more than snow was holding things up and found a flat tire on the trailer, which explained everything. The barn has become a multi use building, storage for all of those things that are junk but could never be thrown away because “I’ll use it for something someday!” a place to park cars (I have more than my fair share of them) home to 5 cows and one pony, feed storage and is probably North Dakota’s biggest freezer. Not too many people park cars in their freezer! Not having electricity makes for some innovative solutions for some things such as storing perishable food items and in this case an area of the barn works great.
On Friday morning a pickup pulled into my yard and the driver gave me the message that the pastor from church wanted me to call him back. Nice messenger service! I don’t need a phone, the neighbors will do just fine! I walked over to Kyle and Jenifer’s place which is about 3 miles away and called, finding that the regular pianist was going to be gone and could I take over for church? I tried talking Kyle into taking the job because he is so much better at piano than I am but he would have nothing to do with it so we picked a few songs and then I had to go notify the song leader what was going on since she would have had no clue. The problem was I had no idea who she is other than her face so I asked a neighbor who has lived here forever and he said she lived “just over there” so I drove that direction until I saw a house, stopped in and sure enough it was the right one! I sure like North Dakota! Couldn’t do that just anywhere. Saturday I met with the Hendersons over at Kyle and Jenifer’s place for the day just to visit, I always enjoy the conversations that happen when we get together with those guys, this time it was everything from speaking in tongues to how Wal-Mart is wrecking small businesses and communities. The speaking in tongues discussion caused a lot of good laughs when personal stories came out and I am sure we could have talked for another day but we all packed up and drove over to where we all get together every Saturday evening to attend a Basic Life Skills seminar, which we all seem to be enjoying (I can’t speak particularly for everyone but I know I am getting a lot of good from it) At this point we are learning about dealing with bitterness and anger from a Biblical perspective. I have dealt with anger in the past so that is not a new thing for me but the bitterness subject has really opened a lot of doors and windows for me! I always thought I was pretty decent about that but after just taking a careful and honest look at myself I found that I had been drowning in bitterness and didn’t even know it! It’s been a huge relief to give that up, though God keeps bringing little roots of bitterness to mind that I have to deal with. I am glad of that because it seems to be like quack grass, which will grow and totally take over a field if you leave one microscopic part of a root in the ground, well, not quite that bad but those of you that have dealt with quack grass know what I mean.
Something that was pointed out in last nights video session, and then again today at church was scripture memorization. I have no doubt in my mind that God is telling me, and I hope telling others, that now is the time to memorize His word. It’s been interesting because for about a week now that seems to be the message that is being pounded into me from every direction. Memorize scripture! From the books I have read to the message at church (He had another all done and ready but felt that God wanted him to put it aside and give this one instead) it’s all been the same thing, memorize!
A couple of nights ago I re read Corrie Ten Boom’s book The Hiding Place (which I am sure everyone has read, and if you haven’t I would suggest doing so) Reading about the invasion, and the slow but sure restriction on so many things, then the concentration camp life where even a page ripped out of a Bible was more precious than anything (the next most precious thing seemed to be the vitamins she was able to smuggle in, then God made last.) It is a shame that here in America the Bible is treated like such an every day thing and has little value to most people. What happens if we have some calamity here and are no longer able to get Bibles? Or what if they become illegal? We say that that could never happen here but that’s just what they said back in WW2 six hours before the Germans invaded! The dumb Prime Minister proclaiming peace and safety and then BOOM, it’s all done. What makes us think we are so immune? I am not saying that we are for sure going to loose our Bibles and that they will become illegal, but we are just as vulnerable as anyone so we shouldn’t have such a take it for granted attitude about scripture. I have a strategy. In the unlikely occasion that we are no longer able to get Bibles or that they take them away I’ll have mine in my head because they can’t take that away from me unless they shoot me and then I won’t need it will I? Besides, if that scenario never happens there is another reason to memorize scripture. From personal experience the scriptures that I have memorized have been one of the biggest blessings to me that I can think of, especially the scriptures that are put to music. I used to have the entire Psalm 119 memorized because each section was put to music. I haven’t sung it for a while so I am going to see how much of it I can remember. Another chapter that I highly recommend that everyone memorize is Psalm 91. I remember when I was pretty little and still scared of the dark (yes, that long ago) but if I had to go out in the dark (usually to milk the cow) I would just say the entire chapter and suddenly I wasn’t the slightest bit scared. I haven’t done much memorizing in the past few years, I don’t know if it is just old age or if it is that I am getting senile but I can’t seem to remember a thing anymore. Maybe it is because I have not been exercising my brain in the memorizing area enough and it has gotten lazy or something. The task I have given myself today is to memorize Psalm 15. Short and easy and it seems to be a good one to recite to myself on a regular basis. “Lord, who shall dwell in thy Tabernacle? Who shall rest in thy holy mountain? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness, and speaketh truth in his heart…” and the list goes on and on to finish, “…he that doeth these things shall never be moved.”
A guy I know has a remarkable memory, part of which I think is due to his having done so much memorizing when he was younger. He must have been about 15 or 16 when he started building his house and since he was doing it alone he had a lot of quiet time so instead of listening to the radio (an immense time waster I think) he played the Bible on CD and by the time he had his house half done he had a good portion of the New Testament memorized word for word. I don’t remember exactly but I think it was Romans through Jude. You could surprise him anywhere and say book, chapter and verse and he would start there and go as long as you wanted him to just like a tape. It was disgusting sometimes when I couldn’t remember my own birthday and he could do that!
Wouldn’t that be a valuable thing to have! I think of how many hours I had to work in order to buy one thing or another and I have to think of how much more lasting benefit I might have gotten from those same hours if I had spent them memorizing scripture.
A year or so ago I asked the guy who had done all of that memorizing how he had done it and one thing he pointed out to me was that most people train their minds to need entertainment and when we entertain our minds instead of making them work hard they get lazy and also that entertainment takes up time and energy that would otherwise be good for useful things. The specific mind entertainments that he mentioned were most insidious to him were listening to music and watching television. Listening to music means CD’s or tapes for entertainment purposes, not singing together with others or making music yourself. After hearing that, a friend of mine made a deal with me that we would both abstain from mental entertainment in TV and music for 6 months and talk after that time to see what improvements we noticed. This was about the same time we had a similar deal going where we ate no sugar. After a short time of doing it I noticed a great deal of change.
The nice thing about the challenge to each other was that I had someone that I was accountable to so I couldn’t just listen to a CD and pretend I hadn’t done it or fool myself into thinking it was just one and didn’t matter much. I haven’t made any challenges like that for a while but I am thinking I should for scripture memorization, like getting a list of scriptures and memorizing them by a certain date or something like that. I’ll have to put scriptures to music in order to memorize these days I suppose, since I remember music no problem. Then I’ll just need to figure out how to get a piano over here so I can play the music. Kyle told me there was no way I was going to fit my great big old piano in this tiny little shack I’ve got so that means I have to get it in here and make it fit no matter what just because he said I couldn’t do it. I figure I managed to get the heavy woodstove in here so I ought to be able to figure out a way to move the piano in here by myself. It only weighs 500 pounds more than the stove does!
One of the songs from Psalm 119 that is not only one of my favorites but is also one that I remember well is the second section, “How shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee, oh let me not wander from thy commandments.” And the chorus, “Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.” (twice) That is a key. Hiding His word in our hearts, that we might not sin against Him.