Memorizing Scripture

Hey, everyone!  Was today a little rough for anyone else?  I'm on the Make-the-Monday-after-the-Super-Bowl-a-Holiday bandwagon, because it was a struggle to get out of bed this morning!  Joe and I went to some of his classmates' condominium, where they rented out the projector room for our party.

What a SWEET set-up!  We all had our own individual recliners with plenty of cup holders.  There was also a lot of food and drink, as always.  I brought quinoa pizza bites, which I will definitely share the recipe for in the near future!

One of the guys set up betting squares for the game, which added a little bit of excitement.

You start with a 10x10 grid, and people pay a certain amount per square.  You pick which squares you want and write in your name.  After all the squares are filled, someone randomly assigns a digit 0-9 to each row and column.  The rows represent the score of one team, and the columns represent the score of the other team.  At the end of each corner, you take the last digit of each team's score, and the person in that square wins some money!  It adds a little fun to the game, especially if you aren't really cheering for a particular team.  Joe wound up winning the 4th quarter score (43-8, he had the Seattle 3 and Denver 8), which was pretty exciting.

I was very happy with the outcome!  I was pulling for Seattle since Kristie and Joe live other there.  Also, one of their defensive players went to Virginia Tech (Kam Chancellor...had a great game!) and their quarterback Russell Wilson is from the county where I grew up!  Glad they wound up winning.

Ok, enough about our Super Bowl party!  We haven't had a faith-related post here in a while, so I think it's time we talk about something I've been doing recently: memorizing Scripture!

In the Bible study I'm doing, James MacDonald chooses a Scripture verse for us to memorize each week.  They usually come from the passage for the week or deal with the characteristic of God we are focusing on.  I have not done much Scripture memorization before (even though it has been an element of other studies I've done), so I wanted to focus on that particularly during this study.

First off, you might be asking, "Why do I need to memorize Scripture?"  Well, here are a few reasons that my Bible study group came up with during our discussion

• You never know when you will be without a Bible and need a Word of God.  One example: POWs in Vietnam used memorized Scriptures and hymns to help them rediscover and rely on their faith while imprisoned for many, many years.
• A memory verse can help you resist temptation or battle an unwanted feeling or emotion. For example, whenever I start to worry, I repeat Matthew 6:34 in my head.  It helps ward off that worry and gives me time to refocus my energy on something else.
• Good in, good out.  We talked about how your mind will reproduce what you put in it.  If you've got good stuff in your brain, your words and actions will reflect that.

After realizing all of the benefits, I started thinking about how I could help myself memorize the week's Scriptures AND retain it over time.  Well, I start out by reading the verse out loud a few times.  Repeating it helps me to being memorizing it, and I also hear the sounds of the verse.

Next, I write it down on an index card.  I've made a card for each week's verse and use a pretty color when writing.

It's fun for me to go back and look at the different cards, and I actually remember the colors they are written in, as well!

You can always rewrite the verse a few times on a piece of paper (or type it on the computer), much like you may have done in school if you got in trouble.  It really does help ingrain it in your brain!

Another thing that helps memorize a verse is repeating it to yourself a few times throughout the day.  This is one of the reasons I made index cards, so that I can reference them if needed.

Some other suggestions from my Bible study group: think about the meaning behind each word, read the context of the verse (before and after), putting it on your mirror to read/reflect on while getting ready in the morning, and saying the verse to yourself first thing when you wake up and last thing before you go to bed.

Question for you: Are you good at memorizing?  What's one of your favorite verses you know by heart?  Any tips you have for memorizing?