Skip to main content

Memorising scripture

Our home group has been memorising Psalm 91. This is a step up from Psalm 23. My memorisation app says there are 273 words in Psalm 91.  I can now recite all of it! That's a lot of words to remember in precisely the order they appear! What has struck me as I have been memorising these psalms is two things :

First, words come alive. I have found that the words I struggle to memorise are words that I miss easily when reading the passage. Words that unlock the mean of passages or even the entire psalm. For example as I have read psalm 91 I kept missing a key word in these two verses :
"Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place— the Most High, who is my refuge— no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent" (v9, 10 ESV).
The word I missed repeatedly was "allowed". It speaks to the sovereignty of God over all that comes near him! And once you focus on that word the entire psalm fits into place. For example, because God is the one that permits or allows things to happen, he is already victorious even against the lion and the serpent!

Secondly, prayer comes alive. I have found that when I now have a moment to pray, I am not lost where to start. I don't always want to just pray me, me and me prayers. Of course God is interested in me, but what I really want is to pray according to his words. With memorising scripture I have now found myself praying a variety of prayers.

Recently when I was commuting to work, rather than read, I felt like being lost in prayer. And immediately the words of Psalm 23 appeared and I was able to pray through them expositionally. It allowed me to digest the words again and own the words. At the same time as I pray, I preach to myself! This is particularly so when I am driving. I now increasingly switch off the music and recite a psalm! In short not only is my prayer life growing fuelled by memorisation, but living in the word is growing!

Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2013
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I am what I am by Gloria Gaynor

Beverly Knight closed the opening ceremony of the Paralympics with what has been dubbed the signature tune of the Paralympics. I had no idea Ms Knight is still in the singing business. And clearly going by the raving reviews she will continue to be around. One media source says her performance was so electric that "there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as she sang the lyrics to the song and people even watching at home felt the passion in her words" . The song was Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am . Clearly not written by Gloria Gaynor but certainly musically owned and popularized by her. It opens triumphantly: I am what I am / I am my own special creation / So come take a look / Give me the hook or the ovation / It's my world that I want to have a little pride in / My world and it's not a place I have to hide in / Life's not worth a damn till you can say I am what I am The words “I am what I am” echo over ten times in the song. A bold declaration that she
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

Inconsistency of Moral Progress

If morality, if our ideas of right and wrong, are purely subjective, we should have to abandon any idea of moral progress (or regress), not only in the history of nations, but in the lifetime of each individual. The very concept of moral progress implies an external moral standard by which not only to measure that a present moral state is different from an earlier one but also to pronounce that it is "better" than the earlier one.  Without such a standard, how could one say that the moral state of a culture in which cannibalism is regarded as an abhorrent crime is any "better" than a society in which it is an acceptable culinary practice? Naturalism denies this. For instance, Yuval Harari asserts: "Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in th
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

The Shame of Worldly Joy

Only a Christian can be joyful and wise at the same time, because all other people either rejoice about things that they should be ashamed of (Philippians 3:19) or things that will disappear. A Christian is not ashamed of his joy, because he is not joyful about something shameful. That is why the Apostle Paul in [2 Corinthians 1:12] defends his joy. He says, I don’t care if everyone knows what makes me happy, because it is the ‘testimony of my conscience.’ He means, let other people can be happy about base pleasures that they are afraid to admit; let other people rejoice in riches, fame, or popularity; they can be happy about whatever they want, but my joy is different. ‘I rejoice because of my conscience.’ A Christian has a happiness that he can stand by and prove. No one else can do that. They will feel embarrassed and guilty if their happiness is found in something that is outside of themselves. They cannot say, ‘this is what makes me happy’. But a Christian has the approval of his
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →