Scripture Memorization

This is kind of a repeat of what I have said before, but I think it is very important. In the last post, I talked about Psalm 119:11 (to see this post, go to our January 2011 archives). One part of Psalm 119:11 is hiding God's Word in our hearts. One way to do this is to memorize certain verses that talk about things you are struggling with. For example, some areas I struggle with are my tongue and worrying. So, I wrote down Ephesians 4:29 for the tongue and Philippians 4:6-7 for worrying. I memorized these verses so that they will (hopefully) come to mind at times when I struggle with these things.
One thing about memorizing verses, though, is that it can get legalistic. If you focus just on memorizing them but don't do it for the right reasons, it won't help. I will confess, I won an award in my 5th and 6th grade for memorizing all the verses I was supposed to (I don't remember how many it was, but it was a lot. I memorized enough verses/passages to do one every week for two years.). Unfortunately, I don't remember all of them. Actually, I probably forgot most of them. It's not enough to memorize them and forget them. We must meditate on them day and night (Psalm 119:97).
I am trying to get better at focusing on God's Word, because it really gives us everything we ever need. It tells us how to live, gives us God's message to us, etc. We never need anything else. When I think about, I think of how poorly I have done at meditating on it. We spend plenty of time studying our literature for English class, but not near enough reading God's Word. I hope this post encourages and helps you!