Our Desire

"I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."  Psalm 40:8

Is it?  Is His precious law within my heart?  It's getting better.  You know, I have a fabulous short-term memory.  I can look at a verse or two, sear it into my brain and recite it perfectly within a couple of hours.  But ask me a few days later, and then I get forgetful.  When I was a kid in Sunday School class, I always had my verses memorized- but it was a result of memorizing just before class started.  I would recite, and then promptly forget.

Every once in a while I would come across someone who could recite scripture like you wouldn't believe.  They knew the verses, where they were found, and it seemed like they knew hundreds of them.  I determined that these people learned their scripture so well because they purposed to spend time in His Word.  That has helped a lot, that's for sure.  I do know more and more verses, and actually, a lot of those verses that I thought I forgot from my youth?  I still remember them after all.  I may not remember where they are, but I will find myself, in situations, trilling familiar words in my head, and it will be one of those long-lost verses.  The mind is an incredible thing!

But what we take into it is what comes out.  Have you ever known someone who can quote movies or songs like there's no tomorrow?  Ask them to recite some scripture... the mouth is very telling.   I know I talk a lot about making sure we are spending time reading our Bibles, it's just so incredibly important! Imagine living in a house with someone.  You see each other every day, spend hours in the same room, you eat together, go to bed at the same time at night, but you never actually communicate with each other.  You never talk to each other to find out what the other person has to say to you.  It's the same thing with God.  When we don't spend time reading our Bibles, we're not giving Him opportunity to pour something special into our lives. 

Memorization is another tool to help take that Word into our hearts, and trap it- or keep it there.  My kids learn incredibly when they memorize to song- I actually imagine most people memorize easily that way.  Every day, at the beginning of our school day, we listen to scripture set to music.  One verse, every day for a few weeks, and they know that verse incredibly well.  It can be a great tool- and I mention it hear for anyone who may be struggling to memorize scripture.  Find one of the many CD's out there that is simply that- scripture verse set to song.

Another way to help memorize a verse is to put a verse on paper, and put it somewhere where you see it every day.  I have a verse that I've stuck to the fridge.  It's been there for months, and every time I go to the fridge (which is a lot in a day) I see that verse and read it again.  I most definitely have it memorized, and should probably put another one up, but I've become so fond of seeing THAT verse throughout my day.

And that's one of the points of memorization.  When you have God's Word locked and hidden inside your heart, you can bring it forth in a time of need.  When you're really struggling with whether God has the best intentions for you, you can recite Jeremiah 29:11 to yourself, and bolster your soul by telling yourself that God has plans for you- plans to prosper and not harm you.  Even better, when you have these words hidden in your heart, and you come upon someone who needs to know how much God loves them, you can just share God's Word with them- from the depths of your own heart and mind.  I don't know about you, but I don't carry a Bible with me everywhere I go.

Scripture memorization has such a wonderful place in helping us to become more like Christ.  I think that all too often it is dismissed as something for school-children or Sunday School classes.  It's not.  It's very much for you and I, so that the more of God's Word we take into our minds, the more Christ-like our minds become.  And when the devil comes a-calling, trying to mess us up, we can spit scripture right at him and make him disappear and leave us alone.

When we have God's law within our hearts, it's much easier to do His Will.  It should be our desire to want to take as much of His Word into us and make it a part of us, so that we can call upon the name of the Lord whenever we need it.

"I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."  Psalm 40:8