Hide His Word in your Heart

Psalms 119:11 says, "I will hide Your Word in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee."

This is a verse I learned as a young girl.  I was blessed to attend a Christian elementary school where scripture memory was required curriculum.  But once I left that school for a public school, my scripture memory efforts will down the toilet.  Just like exercise, it takes discipline.  And sadly, it has taken a backseat to other disciplines in my life.  It was at the bottom of a long list of things I need to do, but I never seemed to work my way that far down the list.

Wanda is next to me.  Her daughter, Jenni is behind her and next to my Mom

At a recent lunch with some lifelong friends, Wanda was telling us about a friend of hers.  This friend was evidently often forgetting things.  Her kids were concerned for her.  So she decided to sharpen her memory by memorizing one verse a week.  It has now been 5 years and she has hundreds of verses memorized.  I was impressed and inspired.  One verse a week.  That seems doable.  This particular woman has so many verses memorized that it takes her a good 30 minutes just to review half of them.  It's never too late to hide God's Word in my heart.

I committed to giving this my all.  And last week I memorized my first verse.  I should pause here to tell you that I have a stack of index cards and as I am doing my daily Bible readings, when a particular verse jumps out at me I jot it down.  This way I am memorize Scripture that spoke to me, rather than arbitrarily just pointing to a verse and memorizing it.

My first verse is Luke 8:17 and says "For everything that is hidden will be revealed and everything that has been concealed will be made known and brought out into the open." (Woot- wrote that from memory!)

nothing fancy...just a notecard

My hope for these memory verses is that God will allow me the opportunity to share encouragement with others as a teaching tool for my children.  God is faithful and gave me that opportunity within days and I must admit.  I missed the mark big time.  As I caught one of my children in a lie, instead of reminding them what God's Word had to say about half truths and dishonesty, I blew up.  I guess the plus side is that hours later I had my ah-ha moment.  I really don't want to memorize just for the sake of memorization but I want to know these Scriptures and be able to apply them.  I am a work in progress and am so glad God's Word is active and alive and still applicable to 2016.