Deuteronomy 17:19-20

The past couple years we have had a memory program at our church. We pick memorization partners at the beginning of the time period (I think we started last August or September?) and have one verse due every two weeks. It's a lot of fun, and just about everyone who started last year has followed through. Sunday, August 8th was the date the final verse had to be said, so it's been interesting to watch everyone huddle around after church and try to get their last few verses caught up.

My partner and I were no exception, as we had several verses to be caught up on that Sunday. When I was in Botswana from October to mid-January, it obviously messed up our schedule. So we would cram several verses into one week, then take several weeks off, then cram, etc. But I'm happy to report that we both finished all our verses before they took the charts down. :)

When I was in school, we were always memorizing Scripture. We had passages to learn each month, we had verses to learn in each section of each subject, and of course, we had verses to learn for Bible class. Young minds grasp so much more, so quickly! I'm thankful that my teachers made me memorize all that Scripture then, because I still remember much of it. Since being out of school, however, it has been hard to memorize Scripture, mostly because I'm not required to and don't have the opportunity of constant repetition. (You'd be amazed - just by reading the same chapter aloud every morning for an entire month, you would have it down without hardly even trying!) So I'm thankful for the opportunity and accountability provided to memorize Scripture at church.

The last verse that I said was a difficult one. It wasn't very familiar when I started learning it... in fact, I didn't say it when it was supposed to be said, but saved it until the very end. Here it is... quite a verse (actually two)!

"And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in the kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel." Deuteronomy 17:19-20

(And yes, I typed it from memory... I just went back and adjusted the punctuation to match my Bible. :) Okay, so now it doesn't seem all that long. Considering I can still quote a good portion of the book of 1 Peter (memorized in 3rd grade), two verses don't seem like quite so much. BUT, all those little phrases and prepositions kept turning themselves over and tripping me up.

But what a promise! It just blessed me so much as I memorized and thought over this verse. What value the Word of God should hold in our lives - to read it (every day!), to know it, to keep it, to do it.