It began as a challenge from Beth to memorize Scripture in 2009. Just two verses each month.
The moment the challenge was offered I knew I had to take it.
I had always wanted to memorize Scripture. I even tried a few times in the past. But my feeble attempts always fizzled and left me feeling like a failure. Perhaps this time would be different. Perhaps this time I would succeed in planting God’s Word deep into the recesses of my brain.
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This time was different! By His grace, I met the challenge. By year-end I had memorized those verses. All twenty-four of them.
Truthfully, I was a little surprised. Back in my school days, I was always a bit of an over-achiever, but now…not so much. Most of the year, I hobbled along with spits and spurts of progress, often not making any effort at memorizing for weeks at a time. Even up until early December, I would have been happy to attend the SMT Celebration with only the minimum required ten verses.
But something changed in me as the old year waned and gave way to the new. Memorizing Scripture went from something that I always thought I should do to something that I wanted to do. Half-hearted effort gave way to passionate pursuit.
And that pursuit led me to a new memory challenge for 2010.
I’m going to memorize the book of Colossians. Yep, the whole book. {Lord willing!}
Some of you may be thinking, “No big deal. I’ve been doing that much memory work for years.” Others are thinking I’m crazy. Here’s the inside scoop…
It’s not really that much
My 24 verses for 2009 actually totaled 45 since most entries were longer than one verse. Colossians has 95 verses – just over double what I memorized last year. With my new-found passion, it’s not as big a leap as it may appear.
Why I chose Colossians
There are two reasons. First, it’s a shorter book than some and a length that I thought I could reasonably tackle for my first big memory project. And second, in choosing verses for last year, I found myself drawn to Colossians time and again. There are still so many nuggets that I want to commit to memory. And since I already know several verses in Colossians, I have a head start.
Plotting my course
I made the decision to commit to this new memory challenge late in December, but decided to hold off starting until after I returned home from the SMT Celebration. I was still polishing up my verses and didn’t want to muddle up my mind with new ones. I memorized two verses each week for the past two weeks. This week marks my third week and I am working on verses 5-6. I may work on more verses some weeks depending on the flow of the text. I don’t like to stop mid-sentence so that may necessitate additional verses at times. But all in all, I am not pushing myself too hard at this point. My goal is to complete the entire book by year-end. Two verses per week is a very doable pace and I have just enough time at that rate to finish by my goal date.
So now that you know what I’m up to, I can’t wait to share with you how I went from a sense of duty to passionately pursuing Scripture Memory. Perhaps you’ll be inspired, too.
In hope,
Shelli
About Shelli Bourque