Anyone who knows me in real life knows I'm super forgetful. I don't know what the deal is. Obviously I can be thoughtful at times but there's a whole other side of me that is absolutely out to lunch. I mean it.
So, when I decided to start up a Wednesday Bible study group and commit to memorizing the book of James (Yes, you read that right, THE ENTIRE BOOK of James) for the purpose of hiding the word in our hearts and developing a new discipline, I was excited but lacked confidence that I could, in fact, pull it off.
As you might suspect I didn't have many takers joining my group. But, 3 brave, beautiful souls signed up to take the crazy challenge along with me.
We're a no guilt group. That means we have a rough outline of the number of verses we'd like to have memorized each week, but life happens and if something gets in the way and we don't have everything memorized for the week we press on guilt free. No looking back. Only looking forward.
One tool we've used to keep each other going while reinforcing what we're learning is to type emails to each other from memory going as far as we can. Then we either self check our work and underline the parts we need to work on or send it off for others to check. It's been immensely helpful for me.
To this day everyone in our group has done an amazing job memorizing and has made major progress!
For my personal progress I am pleased to announce that for the first time in my life I have enjoyed real success in my attempt to memorize Scripture. I have now officially committed to memory the first chapter of James and I was able to do it within two weeks. Thanks, in large part, to our group's emailing system.
Now the real feat will be in securing it there and seeing to it that nothing goes running off!
Never Lose Hope
7 years ago
6 comments:
great job! I memorized the book of James for a college class.
Memorizing has brought such encouragement to my life. This year, I went through the alphabet and assigned a verse or passage to each week. Since there are 26 letters in the alphabet, it worked perfectly to make it twice through the alphabet in a year.
This week is "R is for Redeemed" Exodus 15:13 "In Your lovingkindness, You have led the people whom you have redeemed. In Your strength, You have guided them to Your holy habitation."
Next year, I'm going to try for the book of Colossians, because for some reason I have a hard time memorizing any verses from Colossians...so I know there must be something in there that I need to struggle to learn.
That is great Jen! I didn't realize you had actually started up the group. I thought you said something about waiting until the end of October. Guess you're not the only one having a hard time :o)
Emaye, I have found that memorizing has unlocked more of the Word for me. My study time is more fruitful. All of us agree that the convenience of being able to recall Scraipture at any point during the day has been priceless. I can meditate anytime, anywhere! Love it! I'm not sure which book will be next but I don't want to stop!!
Awesome! The cool thing about asking God to help you memorize Scripture is that you already know it's a request that's in His will (He commanded us to hide His word in our hearts, after all!), so you already know He will answer you affirmatively!
haha... I hadn't realized I'd written such a novel here. Sorry about that! I have a hard time finding people excited about scripture memorization. I found one (you!) and blabbed on and on...
this seems so scary to me... I think I would be be too chicken to even start! But I'll start praying about it. Having all that good wisdom memorized would be so WONDERFUL!
Post a Comment