What Memorizing the Bible Means to Me

Genesis 1:1, John 1:1, Acts 4:12 and John 3:16 were some of the first Bible verses I was given to memorize in Sunday school, four and a half decades ago. Ever since then Bible memorization has been my favorite spiritual discipline.

Through the years of memorizing Scripture, I have experienced my share of spiritual highs and lows. Usually the lows were caused by some kind of sin issue. The most difficult of these spiritual lows was about four years ago when my wife suffered a stroke, and in an instant she lost all of her short term memory, and a lot of her long term memory. Pretty much every Bible verse she had memorized was gone in the blink of an eye. God wiped her hard drive.

At that time, I thought, “what’s the point.” I too lost most of the Bible verses I had memorized, but by choice. Slowly day after day, this period lasted about two years. By God’s grace he drew me back to memorizing his word again when I was driving back home alone from Texas to New Mexico. As I drove down the road I asked God to help me to start re-memorizing the book of Colossians and he did. God led us to start a Bible memory group at our church, for accountability and to encourage other believers to memorize the Bible. Since then I have memorized the book of Romans, and am currently re-memorizing 1 Peter, and memorizing Psalm 119.

God showed me through my wife’s stroke that the most important part of memorizing Scripture is the process. It’s the seconds, the minutes, and the hours of each day that I spend in fellowship with him, delighting in his word. As I run the words of each verse into my mind, God’s truths seep into my heart, transforming me by renewing my mind, and making my thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ.

I am able to think God-breathed thoughts from his word instead of my own sinful thoughts. I thank God for the gift of desiring to memorize the Bible. There is nothing like the feeling of being able to drive down the road, or sit in a waiting room or lay in bed on a sleepless night and commune with God by meditating on his word. I pray all believers will experience the joy of hiding God’s word in their heart.