Thursday, April 26, 2012

Why We Do It

Good day to you on this windy afternoon. The old timers, that is those who wrote down their thoughts in the 18th or 19th centuries, often told us things they did to get by in their walk with the Lord. Journalling or keeping a diary, singing hymns, reading the Psalms, and other things may seem quaint at times. One of the things that might cause a thought or two of rebellion in any of us is the memorizing of scripture. With many Bibles available in most of our homes, we might wonder why we should make the effort. Is not the entire Bible better to have than just a few verses? Nearer to hand we can find the answer to that question.

In the Vietnam War, many pilots and air crew fell into the hands of the North Vietnamese government. Like the prisoners now being held by our government at the Marine base in Guantanamo, the imprisonment for some of the POW's was rather lengthy. Do you suppose that a few of those men wished they had memorized a lot more scripture? We may not always have access to a Bible. Life can change very quickly. That is only one reason. There is certainly a good chance that you and I will live out our lives without facing a lengthy incarceration. Memorizing the scripture, especially short passages of 1-4 verses, allows us to go over that scripture in our minds while doing other things such as loading up a washer, or vacuuming the living room. By going over a verse or two many times, we may find new insights that did not occur to our minds before. Call this an intense study, if you will. Pray and go over the scripture with God in this manner for several hours. You may be surprised at what He reveals.

Sorry to break this to you, but the work you do at your job may not be along the lines of, oh, mathematically proving or disproving the existence of subatomic particles. Your job might even be called mechanical or repetitive, perhaps even downright boring. When I started at Cabela's in 1989, I stood by a moving conveyor and sorted boxes and sacks by size. Sacks and small boxes went one way, larger boxes the other, not exactly rocket science, mate. In a job like that, God has provided a great time to deeply ponder a short passage of scripture. You might even work up to entire chapters of the Bible. Fanny Crosby memorized entire books of the Bible during her lifetime. In case you just thought of books like 3 John, the Psalms was just one of the books she memorized. I got a long way to go to match a feat like that. Imagine what a comfort it would be to have the book of Psalms memorized while stranded on that deserted island.

God is great!
Bucky

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