I have believed for many years
that I was hopeless at memorising verses from the Bible. No matter how many times I would repeat a
verse I just couldn’t seem to remember all the words or the reference. In fact, I still remember how disheartened I
was in Girls Brigade to watch the other girls getting their rewards for
remembering the weekly memory verse while I froze and stumbled over the few
words I could recall.
Isn’t it curious how we often
label ourselves from the beliefs we form during childhood.
Sometimes I spend so much time
focusing on what I can’t do that I don’t stop to think about how far I have
come. The reality is I am no longer a
child, I have a wonderful job that requires me to remember details about federal
and state legislation that changes regularly, I can remember hundreds of songs,
I (most of the time) remember all of my friends children’s names and I can
remember the road rules. Just because I struggled when I was young over certain
things doesn’t mean that is who I am now.
This realisation came to me at
Church last Sunday as I was listening to our Senior Pastor read God’s
word. He began “In the beginning……” whoop
there it is! The words came flowing back to me “In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God and the Word was God” John 1:1. It didn’t matter that I needed the first
three words for the verse to come flooding back - It was a precious verse
stored in the filing cabinets called “my memory” which was recalled at the
right time. I can no longer say that I
can’t memorise verses because I just proved myself wrong!
In fact, given the right environment,
there are many things I am capable of doing now that I have stated I am
hopeless at doing in the past. The Bible has a great verse to meditate
on in this regard:-
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Phillipians
4:13
Lysa Terkeurst the author of “The
Best Yes” has a helpful way of memorising this verse, it is the ten finger method
– one word for every finger. What a great verse to remember every time we look
at our hands!
You see, while it may take me
longer than others to memorise God’s word, while I may have to use a
concordance (or “google”) to help me find the book and verse reference, the
wonderful fact is that any verse that I recall and can quote is God’s truth. Looking back on all the years I had believed
that I couldn’t learn verses off by heart, I can now see that all along God had
been writing them on my heart and
bringing them to mind when the time was right.
I pray that when you face a
challenge or have to make a decision this week that you look at your hands and
use your “ten fingers” to remember that you can do all things through Christ
who strengthens you.
References: Image: https://laurencaroll.wordpress.com
