Joshua 1:8:
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”
It is said that memorization of scripture is easier when we are very young and I can attest to the fact that in my older years I have a harder time of it. Children are introduced to their ABCs and numbers at an early age and, in my case, in early grade school I learned patriotic songs, the Preamble to the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address with no problem. The more familiar Bible verses like Psalm 23 and the Lord’s Prayer were planted deep in my heart when I was a youngster and have been treasured throughout my adult life.
In Howard Rutledge’s book, In the Presence of Mine Enemies*, the former prisoner of war relates his seven-year experience in the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp in North Vietnam, enduring unspeakable treatment at the hands of his brutal captors. He gives powerful testimony to the importance of Scripture memory. It took prison, torture, hunger and often solitary confinement for him to realize he had neglected the spiritual dimension of his life and how empty life is without God. Without a “pastor, Sunday School teacher, Bible, hymnbook or a community of believers to guide and sustain him,” his mind went back to his early days in a church to try to remember and rebuild what was hidden deep in his heart. He began to recall snippets of songs, humming them quietly but just loud enough for his cell neighbor to hear. The two soon added prayers, Bible stories, and verses, helping each other fill in the blank spaces. Their renewed enthusiasm for scripture was contagious and spread to many of the other prisoners.
“How I struggled to recall those Scriptures and hymns! I had spent my first eighteen years in a Southern Baptist Sunday school, and I was amazed at how much I could recall. Regrettably, I had not seen then the importance of memorizing verses from the Bible or learning gospel songs…I never dreamed that I would spend almost seven years (five of them in solitary confinement) in a prison in North Vietnam or that thinking about one memorized verse could have made the whole day bearable. One portion of a verse I did remember was, ‘Thy word have I hid in my heart.’ How often I wished I had really worked to hide God’s Word in my heart… All this talk of Scripture and hymns may seem boring to some, but it was the way we conquered our enemy and overcame the power of death around us.”
By thinking about Scripture—meditating on His Word, prayers and spiritual songs—it logically follows that the words will be fused into our memory and we will experience these benefits:
• We will experience His grace and blessings in our lives as scripture draws us closer to Him.
• We will take on God’s perspective on life and eternity.
• We will live in obedience to God’s Word.
• We will have the weapon of scripture to fight against the temptation to sin.
• We may have people brought into our lives who need to hear the words from scripture.
How lovely are His Laws; how rich His precepts! May we be inspired by the Psalmist who said, “I have stored up your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Ps. 119:11.
Holy God, we praise You for Your Word that benefits our mind, body, and spirit. Thank you for the teaching from Psalm 1, that says when we meditate on Your Word, we will be “like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.” Remind us that we need your Word every day, but even more so if the day comes when all we have are the truths of Your Word. Plant them so deeply, we pray, that our hungry and thirsty hearts are fed and quenched, being fully nourished and satisfied until we meet You in heaven. With gratitude and praise, we pray in Your name, Amen.
*In the Presence of Mine Enemies, by Howard Rutledge, 1973, Revell
~ photo via David and Carol Kelly
