It’s not that serious.
I mean, okay, it IS that serious because we’re talking about your walk with the Lord.
But.
We make specific parts of our Christian faith way more serious than it needs to be.
Example!
Memorizing scripture.
Yes, memorizing Scripture is something we need to be doing as Christians. When you hear a scary noise at 3am, reciting dialogue from The Office won’t comfort you, but reciting [Bible verse] will. (I also recommend singing “God is Bigger Than the Boogie Man” from the musical geniuses Veggie Tales when this happens.)
Memorizing Scripture, being able to recite it, recall it, bring it up as a cool party trick is good for us and our spirit because it’s the LIVING WORD OF GOD. It’s a pretty big dea and an important spiritual discipline alongside prayer and worship.
“Okay, Toni, you said it wasn’t that serious.”
Memorizing scripture IS serious, but memorizing it word for word?
Verbatim?
Not so much.
Say you wanted to memorize Daniel 3:17-18 (like my Sissie and I did which may or may not have inspired this story.) And say you kind of forgot you were supposed to be memorizing those verses so you were trying real hard the night before you were supposed to text it to your sister. And say that when it was time for you to text it to her, you got it mostly right. Not verbatim, but the idea was there AND you know the book, chapter, and verse.
You didn’t fail the assignment.
Transparency: It was me. I didn’t fail the assignment.
And I didn’t. Because I knew the general message of the verse, knew where to find it, and feel confident that if I ever need to call on an “even if” kind of faith from my spirit, I can bring those verses to mind for peace.
The point of memorizing Scripture isn’t to pass a test or show off. It’s so those verses are available to you, written on your heart, when you need them OR when someone else needs them.
If I’m comforting someone, and I need to remind them that God works all things for good for those who love Him, that person is NOT going to care if I miss a few words or mess up a bit. They’re going to care that I knew the gist of the verse and was able to communicate it to them AND show them where it was in the Bible (Romans 8:8.)
So if you want to start memorizing Scripture as one of your spiritual disciplines – do it!
But don’t stress about getting it 100% correct.
Because it’s not that serious.
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