Abide Bonus: 5 Tips for Scripture Memory Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily Jensen: Well, hey there, friends. Emily here. Today, Laura is going to share a quick bonus episode with five tips on Scripture memory. After last week's episode on the benefits and rewards of Scripture memory, we wanted to come back with a little more practical information on how you can get started in this practice today. If you haven't listened to the last episode, be sure to hop back one show and listen to that first. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. We are so thrilled that you're here.
We hope that you'll go back to the beginning of this series and listen through the whole thing or that you'll head to our website—risenmotherhood.com—to see the huge archive of podcasts, articles, and resources we have for motherhood. We even have a new mom page that we'll link on our show notes so you can start right at the beginning, or you can search our website by topic to find a resource that meets you right where you're at. Just so you know, we typically take a podcast break over the summer, but we will be back really soon with a whole new series. Okay. Let's jump into Laura's five tips.
Laura Wifler: I'll be honest. I have always wanted to be better at memorizing Scripture. I have spent my entire life memorizing Scripture on and off, even since I was a little kid, and I know deeply in my heart how important it is, but it's something that I feel like, continually over the course of my life, I've had to start and restart and sometimes I can get really discouraged by the progress that I'm making or just the fact that I keep falling off the wagon and I stop doing it. Or even this idea that I've tucked and hidden a lot of Scripture away in my heart, but sometimes it can be really hard to recall to mind because I don't do a great job of reviewing.
If you are with me in all of this, or maybe you've never memorized Scripture before and you just want to get a head start or get going on this after listening to our last episode, I just want to share five quick tips that have helped me over the years with memorizing Scripture, even as I fail and as I experience times of drought. Overall, these things have been helpful for getting me into regular practice of Scripture memory.
The first thing is a no-brainer: get a plan, right? There are great programs out there that you can actually purchase; we'll link a few in our show notes. I tend to like to just pick what I'm interested in at the moment. Maybe it's something that I'm studying in my quiet times, or maybe it's a topic that I want to learn more about. You could even use the Scripture shows that we did in this mini-series. Go back a couple of episodes and there are transcripts that we have on our website, and you could even pick some verses out of there. Maybe you're struggling with anger or with doubt. You can memorize some verses off of a topic.
I do tend to prefer longer passages of Scripture. An easy one is Psalm 23. It's a whole chapter, or I know I have—I have not attempted this yet, but—who have memorized whole books of the Bible. One nice part about that is that you don't have to memorize as many references. I think for me personally, I can get really, really tripped up on references. I do like to tend to pick something like 5-10 verses and work on it over the course of a few months, rather than a verse here, a verse there, a verse in different spots, but it just depends on what you like. Don't be afraid to try out a couple of different ways of doing Scripture memory and you'll find what works better for your brain and your lifestyle.
A second idea is: put the verse in places that you will see it. I know this, again, sounds like a no-brainer, but put it all over the place. What I will do is I will take the Scripture I want to memorize. I will put it on a Word document, print it out, but I will put it several times on that Word document, and then I will cut it up into strips of paper and I will tuck it into my Bible. I will put it in my car. I will put it in my bathroom. You can laminate it and put it in your shower, put it by a baby changing table, put it by your kitchen sink. Don't just put it in one spot.
For me, I want to be, again, meditating on this verse all throughout my days. It's really helpful when I've already got it all sorts of places. Put one in your purse or maybe put it as your phone background so that if you're waiting for something, instead of hopping on social media, you can go and memorize that verse. I need lots of reminders that ''Hey, you're supposed to memorize this verse.'' That's really helpful when I put it everywhere.
Another one. Number three is: write the first letter of every word of the verse you're trying to memorize and put it somewhere you'll see it often.
You guys have probably seen this on Instagram. It's a trendy thing to do where you see all of these letters on someone's wrist. They write it in pen on their wrists or on the top of their hand or on a coffee cup—all sorts of things that look very cool. It's the first letter of either—sometimes it's every verse if it's maybe a longer passage that you're trying to refresh yourself on or of every word in a verse—and that can just help trigger your memory, but that's something that I think has been really helpful for me as I've worked on getting those memory verses down word perfect.
Number four is: memorize with someone else. It is always easier when you have an accountability partner, in your husband or with a friend or people at church. This one is just, again, pretty simple and straightforward, but don't try to do this alone. Try to get somebody to help you out.
For me, those people are my kids, which leads me to number five: involve your children. This is a podcast for mothers, and so I am speaking to moms who have kiddos. As much as you can, if your kids are old enough, involve your kiddos. One easy thing is: make it a song or a rhythm.
We always memorize or remember songs a little bit easier than we remember things that are just spoken. Lots of people out there are already doing the work on this. We will link a few different CDs or bands or albums out there that are doing it. We also have our friend Hunter Beless over at Journeywoman who does a lot of work with Scripture memory and kids. Go to our show notes and you're going to find some resources there. Another thing that I do is—just with older kids who are now at public school, we utilize car time discipleship quite heavily.
This isn't going to work for all of you, but I take our kids to school each morning and I cannot tell you how much I love this time. We actually spend this time memorizing Scripture together. We also pray every morning. We just rotate who's going to pray that morning, and then we all work on the Scripture and it's just a routine. It's not questioned because we do it nearly every day, and it's just a part of our lifestyle. Everybody just works on the verses together. Sometimes we'll go around and have one person say one word and then the next person say the next word and the next person say the next word.
They love that round-robin style, or we'll each go, and they help correct me. They can both read now. I have little slips of paper for them as well so that we can all work together on the Scripture, but it has really led to some great questions. They just ask a lot of things about—again, taking Psalm 23. What does it mean that your cup overflows? Your cup is overflowing with what? It's been fun because with each verse that we memorize or each passage, I try to take some time out and study that passage prior to introducing it to my kids and then helping to explain it to them as we go of, like, ''Hey, this is what this means.''
It's not just, again, that rote learning, but there is some ability for them to say, ''Oh, I understand this meaning and why the Lord would say it this way or why God's Word has it phrased that way.'' It's been really, really fun. Another idea—and this is a funny one—but I will never forget the time—I was a grown adult, but my pastor from when I was a child—he and I were talking. He was actually talking to a large group of people, but he talked to all of us about saying, ''Hey, you should pay your kids to memorize Scripture.'' I think he paid something like a dollar a verse for his kids.
He encouraged the group that we were with to do the same. He was like, ''This is the best investment I ever made in my kids' education.'' Paying real money—hard-earned cash—really does show your kids, ''Hey, this is really, really valuable to mom and dad.'' Now, my husband and I are not at a point where we feel like we need to do that. Our kids are very willing to still memorize Scripture. If we're having an off day or if stuff isn't going well, I don't push it. I never try to make memorizing Scripture like ''You have to do this no matter what,''—like ''We're going to get through this and give me a happy heart''—like do it, do it, do it. We don't really do that.
If we have a hard day, we're okay taking a pause. In general, with this whole payment type idea, if that's something that you feel could be helpful for your kids, I just wanted to toss it out there. I think everyone's going to have to figure out where their own conscience lands on that one, but I can't deny the fact that I'm like, ''That really does show to a child this is so important to me. I am willing to pay you money in order to memorize verses.''
Last idea with your kids is: give them a goal. We often do this with our kids where we say, ''Okay, once we have these passages memorized or this longer section memorized, we're going to perform it for grandparents, or we're going to go up for ice cream, or maybe you fill up like a joy jar with those little fuzzies, those little balls that are fuzzies that you can get at the craft store.'' You fill up some kind of a jar and say, ''Okay, once that's full with all of our verses, then we get to go to a water park,'' or something like that. You can certainly bring some reward system into it if you feel like that's something that's needed for your family.
Again, in our family, it's become just such an expectation that we don't have to do that. I know that seasons will change and sometimes you need to switch things up. Hopefully, those are helpful for you. In terms of where to start with kids, I feel like that's something a lot of parents ask. I've mentioned Psalm 23. I think that one is a really good one. My kids memorized that when they were very young. You'd just be so surprised how much their little brains are soaking up. You can do Galatians 5:22 if you're looking for something shorter. That's the fruit of the Spirit—a really common one to start with. Another idea would be something like The Shema which is Deuteronomy 6:4-9. There's lots of places to start. Really just any verse that you feel like has been helpful and encouraging to you will probably be encouraging and helpful to your kiddos. Those are my tips, my friends. I hope that those are helpful. My last encouragement to all of you guys would be to say, ''Hey, try it for one week.'' I think sometimes with Scripture memory we can feel like, ''Oh man, my whole life is ahead of me, and somehow, I have to make a daily habit of this, and I've got to do it for fifty years.''
It just feels incredibly overwhelming, but something that my husband and I have been working on with any new habit that we want to start is we've just said—let's just try it for one week. Let's reevaluate one week from now and say, ''How did we do?'' Just taking a bite-sized goal towards it and it has really made things feel more achievable for me. Try it for a week. Just sit down, print off some verses, cut them up into strips, put them where you need them, and try it for a week and see where you get in a week, and I almost promise you that you will be so amazed by how far you can get in memorizing something in a week.
Hopefully, it's enough to encourage you and inspire you to continue doing it and to truly make a lifetime practice out of it.
