Recently I attended the funeral of a distant relative. Reading the obituary I learned that this individual as a young teen memorized 500 Bible verses in order to earn a Bible camp scholarship. Mentioning this to another friend I learned that that individual had been able to accomplish the same thing. Wow!!! What an accomplishment.

     As a child in my country church back home it was expected that we would memorize Scripture verses in Sunday School and the week long Bible School that was held each summer. In my first Sunday School class as a 4 year old each Sunday, my Sunday School teacher, Clara DeBoer would give my classmates and myself a little card upon was printed a short Bible verse or part of a verse. We would take these cards home and when we had collected 4 or 5 (I can’t remember which) we would turn them in for a larger verse card which was ours to keep.

     Each Sunday we had a weekly memory verse that went along with our Sunday School lesson that we were encouraged to memorize. Heavy emphasis was placed on memorization during Daily Vacation Bible School and at the end of the week we had memorized 10 verses revolving around the theme of the week.

     Unfortunately, through the years I have forgotten many of those verses, and yet some will come to mind when triggered by a thought or situation. Like cassette tapes, party lines, and flash cameras I fear that Scripture memorization may have gone by the wayside.

     Thus the question WHY? Do we no longer value Scripture as an important part of life? Have we convinced ourselves that we aren’t capable of memorizing Scripture even though we can quote sport statistics or share a favorite recipe in a matter of seconds? Is it because we can look up a verse on goggle in a second or two, if we need to? Do we have a mindset that Scripture memory work is too time consuming or too rigorous of a mental exercise considering our age and all the other things we are expected to remember?

     May I suggest that when you can’t sleep see how many memory verses you can recall from memory.  I doubt if my number would be very high. (After all I am old by some standards.) Why not let your personal score serve as a means of motivation to begin to memorize Scripture. Neither age, nor time available, nor apprehension should keep us from placing the Word of God within our hearts. Begin with a goal of memorizing a verse a week. Maybe a Scripture memorization support group would be helpful.  Any takers?

     God’s Blessings to you all, Pastor Walt