This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth but meditate day and night in it. Then you will make your way prosperous and have good success. Joshua 1:8
(see also Psalm 1, 19 and 119))
How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes!
With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.
In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. Psalm 119
I read once that Hebrew mothers would read some Scripture to their little ones while giving them some honey or sweet tasting treat (associating pleasant memory with learning God’s word). Jewish people usually have a ornate small box with Scripture in it attached to the door frames of their houses. Priests wore similar little “Bible boxes” around their foreheads in reference to Deut 6:9.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
Deut 11:21 adds this promise to the command that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are
above the earth.”
Memorization has become harder for me – probably reflective of short term memory problems of getting older. Other hindrances are stress, mind-clutter of anxieties, discouragements, weariness and temptations. These all take their toll in my concentration. This has disappointed me for years because when I was a new Christ-follower, in my busy college years, I always carried memory cards and memorized hundreds of verses. The more often I pulled them our of my pocket, the more I committed to memory, the easier it seemed to be to absorb even more. I genuinely loved doing it and sometimes even made up little jingles or wrote songs which I can still sing today.
In fact, in the 1970’s we sang Scripture songs as part of our corporate worship and could learn much of God’s Word that way.
Some things have helped me:
1. Writing them down, keeping them handy and reading them aloud so I am using eye, hand, voice, ear, and mind to get them into my heart.
2. Intoning or chanting them or singing Scripture in my heart and to one another heart (Eph 5:19).
3. Associating specific words with images like a story board.
4. Repeating a phrase slowly, emphasizing a different word each time.
5. I’m told that slow, deliberate, going over and over style of memorizing tends to work it into long-term memory, rather than short-term.
6. Dallas Willard wrote that the fundamental thing is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to God. The first thing is to keep God before our eyes, as David said. (Psalms 16:8-9)
In this way we can break old habits and replace them so that God becomes the “polestar” of our inward beings. Jesus is the door, life, and way. Receive him, open to him, and direct our attention to him. This is done best by memorizing and meditating on the Gospels.
It’s best to concentrate on memorizing great passages. It’s actually more important than a “quiet time” because meditation on the Scriptures can fill the day. The law gets in our mouth by memorization and dwelling on it through meditation.
The Hebrew Word for meditation is used in various word pictures:
Strongs #1965: haghah coo, growl, murmer; speak, roar, chirp…
These are incoherent sounds like mumbling, sighing in delight while eating something delicious or being full of anticipation (like a dog delightfully gnawing a bone). It is used of quiet and calm reflection like the gentle cooing of a dove, or like the slow and imperceptible melting of a lozenge in our mouth. Meditation can involve feeling strong emotion like a lion growling over its prey.
So, be a lion or a cow, because meditation can vary by engaging strong emotion and passion with noisy sounds or it may be peaceful repetition: chew the cud-swallow-regurgitate-repeat-until it passes through all seven stomachs in order to become sweet milk.
(I am indebted to Pastor Steve Humble who testified recently: “I’m no expert, but I am seeing a difference in my thinking and sometimes in my behavior these days.”)
