Scripture Memory Made Eas(ier)

I am continually amazed by how relevant and timely God’s Word is. There are many in our world who believe that it is outdated. Or that it is a nice book to read, but they don’t go so far as to apply it’s principles to their living. I know many Christians who truly believe that the Bible is God’s inspired Word to us, and yet they don’t spend much time reading it, and less time committing it to memory. I can only speak for myself, but I know the difference following Scripture has made in my life. It is never, ever wrong, and when I follow it and allow it to dictate my actions and responses, it never fails me. The blessings to this kind of obedience go far beyond what I might expect, and surely beyond what I deserve. I wish I could boast that I follow the Bible’s teaching everytime, in every situation, but if you know me, you know that I am a very imperfect person. But I am covered by the King’s grace.

I struggled for a long time with wanting to know God’s will for my life, as if His will was some big unanswered question that He would one day ceremoniously reveal to me. But in my Christian growth, I have come to realize that His Will is less about what I do (although He does have a plan for me), and more about how I act toward others and respond to situations. While I was waiting for His big revelation to hit, I decided His real will was for me to display the fruit of the Spirit, to act in love, to worship Him alone, to tear down idols (and I have many), and to walk humbly with Him. As HUGE part of this walk was to commit His Word to memory. It only makes sense. How can I make decisions using His wisdom, if I haven’t studied the Guidebook He has given us? And it is too immature of me to have to look up verses everytime I needed His wisdom. I needed to commit it to memory so that it could become part of my very being. I needed to have it be a part of me so that it was my natural response. I knew I needed to have His Word in my mind, but how in the world do I do that and where do I start?

Furtunately for me, I have godly parents who required my attendance at church when I was growing up. It was at church that I had the opportunity to participate in Bible drill. I have found that many churches no longer participate in Bible drill, as it is seen as something that has “run its course.” However, I adamently defend Bible drill as one of the best programs in which I participated as a child. It is because of Bible drill that I know any scripture at all. In fact, by far most of the Scripture I have committed to memory today, I learned during this time. It is important to learn Scripture as a child because that is the time of life that our memories are most suited to rote memorization. I’ll do a post on classical education one day, and you can see that this is so. Scripture memory is MUCH easier when done as a child, but this does not mean that as adults, we have no responsibility to store up God’s Word in our hearts. In fact, I have found that as an adult, my dependence on Scripture necessitates spending greater time memorizing it than I did even as a child. We needed a way to approach Scripture that was organized, do-able, and worked for us.

As I was scanning the internet one day, I came across the website for the approach to education made known by Charlotte Mason. Charlotte Mason was an educator in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s who employed a learning style that many homeschoolers follow today. On her website, I found a fabulous organized method to learn Scripture. Want to know more? This post is getting too long, so I’ll share the method in another post. I like to keep you coming back like that!