You Can Do It

By Jennifer Slattery –

Last year a seminary professor came to our church and recited 2nd Timothy. All of it, from 2 Timothy 1:1 to 2 Timothy 4:22. Sound amazing? Perhaps even impossible?

And yet, pause now and think about all the songs you sing to on the radio–those you know word for word. Add to them the commercial slogans and theme songs you know.

When my daughter was seven or eight, the church we attended had a contest. The child who could memorize the most verses won an American Girl doll. My daughter memorized 51 verses in four weeks. Sound unbelievable? Like she’s a super child? Nope. She just wanted the doll.
It’s not that we can’t memorize. We memorize all the time. The question is what are we filling our brains with?

Think back to your favorite song. There was a time when it was new to you, but the more you listened to it and tried to sing along, the more familiar it became until familiarization turned to memorization.

I believe we can do the same with Scripture, which leads me to my next question—Why don’t we?

I think there are a few reasons.

First, we lack confidence. I don’t think we realize how truly phenomenal the human brain is.

Second, we lack follow through. I’m talking to myself now. Where I tend to pray, I have slips of paper with verses written on them–verses I wanted to memorize. Yet five months later, I’ve hardly given those verses a second glance. Think back to my song analogy. We don’t learn the songs we don’t listen regularly to, right?

Third, I think we lack focus. Again, talking to myself about those verses in my basement. I started with one that seemed to pop out at me one morning while reading Scripture. Soon, another verse spoke to me, so I wrote it down. Now I have a stack of verses to memorize with no clear plan as to how I’m going to do it. I need focus.

Now imagine what we might do, how we might grow, if we approached verse memorization with confidence, followed through, and operated with a clear focus. I imagine our faith would grow, peace would ensue, and Satan would start running for cover.