Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hello, Welcome to the Praying Christian Woman podcast.
Speaker 1: I am Alana here with Jamie.
Speaker 2: How are you doing great? How about you good?
Speaker 1: I am so excited we get to keep on talking
Speaker 1: about Bible memorization. And I don't feel like people need
Speaker 1: to go back and you must listen to part one
Speaker 1: before we go here. But we've just been chatting about
Speaker 1: the benefits of Bible memorization, tips and tricks for memorization,
Speaker 1: some of my testimony that hopefully I want to share
Speaker 1: some more about that with you, about Bible memory and
Speaker 1: continuing to have that talk. So what's been in your
Speaker 1: mind since we last talked, which is only a couple
Speaker 1: days ago when we recorded the first part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've just been thinking a lot about how little
Speaker 3: I've been committing scripture to memory, and so as I've
Speaker 3: been trying to memorize this verse that we talked about
Speaker 3: we're going to memorize the verse, my brain isn't It
Speaker 3: doesn't work the same, I think because I haven't been
Speaker 3: memorizing scripture. My brain is different, and so I can
Speaker 3: feel the gears start to gradually start, you know, moving,
Speaker 3: and I know and I can tell that the more
Speaker 3: I work on it, the more it's going to help.
Speaker 3: So this scripture memory is going to help not only
Speaker 3: with memorizing scripture, which is going to be good, but
Speaker 3: probably with my brain in general and just like you know,
Speaker 3: elasticity and neuroplasticity and all of that stuff. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I've been thinking back to the days when I began
Speaker 3: memorizing scripture, which was very cool because it was kind
Speaker 3: of a time in my life where I sort of
Speaker 3: rededicated my life to Christ, when I started praying in
Speaker 3: ways where I saw God starting to move like I
Speaker 3: never had before because and I was looking at prayer
Speaker 3: in a different way. It was it was just it's
Speaker 3: kind of stoked the flames of my faith a little
Speaker 3: bit to remember back to that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one thing that I did because you and I
Speaker 1: in the last episode decided that we would both choose
Speaker 1: a passage to memorize and that would be our worst
Speaker 1: of the day. And like I said, we've only had
Speaker 1: two days, so either of us probably have a full
Speaker 1: passage memorize, but well, we'll do what we can. But
Speaker 1: what I did is, while I was working on it,
Speaker 1: I had a post it. You know how much I
Speaker 1: love my post it, and I would jot down all
Speaker 1: of the blocks that popped into my head while I
Speaker 1: was doing it, and one of them was kind of
Speaker 1: like what you said, Like if it's not as easy
Speaker 1: as it was when I was twenty, why bother right?
Speaker 1: And it's just this idea of when you look at
Speaker 1: it in a certain way, and I can't explain how
Speaker 1: nonsensical was, Like what in the world does anything about
Speaker 1: when you were twenty have to do with anything?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Like mo cares that that has no bearing on today.
Speaker 1: So it might be like saying, you know, when I
Speaker 1: wrote my first few books, I could write six thousand
Speaker 1: words a day, and I can't write six thousand words
Speaker 1: a day anymore, so I'm not gonna write like that's
Speaker 1: not really like it's a dumb metric. It means nothing.
Speaker 1: The fact that I'm not writing six thousand words a
Speaker 1: day certainly doesn't mean I can't write two thousand words
Speaker 1: a day. And just because I can write two thousand
Speaker 1: words a day today doesn't mean that if I'm eighty
Speaker 1: and can only write two hundred words a day that
Speaker 1: I still won't like writing, you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: they're just it's so arbitrary, it's to me, it sounds
Speaker 1: like it makes sense, but when you look at it,
Speaker 1: it's like saying, well, I can't go be the bridesmaid
Speaker 1: in your wedding even though we're best friends and no
Speaker 1: Jamie's not getting remarried or anything. Jamie and our husband
Speaker 1: are still happily together and happily married. I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to pull out like the dumbest hypothetical I can, like, sorry,
Speaker 1: I can't be your bridesmaid because when I was twelve,
Speaker 1: I went to a junior high dance and wore red
Speaker 1: shoes right like to me, And it would be like
Speaker 1: as if in my brain that made perfect sense to me.
Speaker 1: That's what it sounds like by saying well, since it
Speaker 1: was easier to memorize when I was this age, who cares,
Speaker 1: you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, totally agreed.
Speaker 3: We're different people and we have different things in our lives,
Speaker 3: and thank God for our brains that adapt to our
Speaker 3: place in life, Like our needs for our brains are
Speaker 3: very different from when we were twenty and had no, like,
Speaker 3: let's face it, super responsibilities other than making it to
Speaker 3: class and memorizing scripture. I mean, that's maybe simplifying it
Speaker 3: too much, because schools demandle it.
Speaker 2: But it is.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean there was studying, but our minds
Speaker 3: were primed to memorize things we were studying. We had
Speaker 3: just come out of high school, we're in college, you know.
Speaker 3: So anyway, all of that to say, thank you God,
Speaker 3: that's what where I'm going to land. I'm going to
Speaker 3: take what you said totally resonate with it and say,
Speaker 3: I'm going to thank God for the ways that He's
Speaker 3: transformed my brain to deal with the things that I'm
Speaker 3: dealing with on a day to day basis now. And
Speaker 3: I'm also going to thank him that I have a
Speaker 3: brain that is able to get back into scripture memory
Speaker 3: and that I can work at it and it can
Speaker 3: probably become easier as I go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Another big block that came up for me.
Speaker 1: I think this might be one of my biggest blocks
Speaker 1: that I encountered was because I've memorized in the past.
Speaker 1: I know how much work it takes to keep what
Speaker 1: you've memorized in your brain. Right, So my block is, well,
Speaker 1: I'm memorizing this now, but in two weeks I'm not
Speaker 1: going to have it memorized. And so what I have
Speaker 1: had to combat that block with is. It's not about
Speaker 1: keeping it memorized for the rest of my life. It's
Speaker 1: about absorbing it in the act of memorizing it, almost
Speaker 1: like in fifty first States, Right, it's like I might
Speaker 1: forget who you are every single day, so then I
Speaker 1: get the joy and the privilege of falling in love
Speaker 1: with you every single day, right, as opposed to I'm
Speaker 1: not going to remember you tomorrow, so why should I
Speaker 1: even go on a date with you today?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: You can, you can flip it, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: it's not about am I going to know this in
Speaker 1: a year, It's about right now. The act of slowing
Speaker 1: down and memorizing this passage has allowed it to absorb
Speaker 1: in my spirit in a way that nothing else does.
Speaker 1: So that in itself is the spiritual discipline. And if
Speaker 1: I happen to remember it two weeks from now, that's
Speaker 1: the almost the bonus. And then I also absolutely recognize
Speaker 1: that if this verse, I'm going to say that I
Speaker 1: am eighty percent comfortable in my memory of this verse,
Speaker 1: and so another block might be, you know, unless I
Speaker 1: know it one hundred percent and can guarantee that in
Speaker 1: six months i'll know it one hundred percent, then it
Speaker 1: wasn't worth the time spent doing it. I'm choosing to
Speaker 1: trust that when the recall is going to be required,
Speaker 1: that the Lord will give it to me. I have
Speaker 1: a friend who runs marathons, and basically what she told
Speaker 1: me once was, if you can run about fifteenish miles
Speaker 1: on your own, then you can almost definitely run a marathon.
Speaker 1: So it's not like you go from fifteen and then
Speaker 1: you work sixteen, then you go from sixteen, then you
Speaker 1: go to seventeen. It's almost like, if you get to
Speaker 1: a certain point, then by the time you get into
Speaker 1: marathon mode where there's adrenaline and there's positive peer pressure
Speaker 1: and motivation, like you don't muster up when you're running solo,
Speaker 1: you're going to be able to do it. And I
Speaker 1: kind of think of it like that. Like so again,
Speaker 1: if we want to go really, really dramatic, I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in the jail cell and have no Bible, I probably
Speaker 1: can trust that if I needed this exact passage that
Speaker 1: I've been working on and right now I have eighty
Speaker 1: percent accurate, that either eighty percent accurate is going to
Speaker 1: be good enough for me in that moment, or God's
Speaker 1: going to give it to me with better accuracy, right,
Speaker 1: So it's I have it good enough, and good enough
Speaker 1: can be good enough. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I think about it as putting scripture in
Speaker 3: the well of your brain so that the Holy Spirit
Speaker 3: can bring it to mind if you absolutely need it.
Speaker 3: It's there, your unconscious subconscious mind retains it, even if
Speaker 3: your short term memory might discard it in favor of
Speaker 3: something more vital to survival at the given moments. But
Speaker 3: it's there and the Holy Spirit can take it and
Speaker 3: bring it to the forefront. I mean, realistically, I guess
Speaker 3: the Holy Spirit could just plant it in there in
Speaker 3: the first place. But I do believe that God wants
Speaker 3: us to partner with him in some way. So that's
Speaker 3: that's how I look at it as. Even if it's
Speaker 3: not one hundred percent the act of going through the
Speaker 3: process of getting it so that it's memorized, it's going
Speaker 3: to be there for the Holy Spirit to more easily
Speaker 3: bring it to your mind when you really really need it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'm choosing to go into this phase of
Speaker 1: scripture memorization with even if I don't even remember a
Speaker 1: single word tomorrow, what I'm doing today is still worth it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: So with that, what have you chosen to start memorizing?
Speaker 2: So I'm going to tell you my process.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to memorize the passage where Steven kind
Speaker 3: of gives like this gospel recap it's long though, it's
Speaker 3: so long long, and so I'm going to begin at
Speaker 3: some point. But at some point in my looking into
Speaker 3: like passages that kind of do like the Gospel in
Speaker 3: a nutshell. Yeah, one passage came through that really isn't
Speaker 3: what I was looking for, but it has a story.
Speaker 3: So this is Matthew twenty six, sixty three and sixty four.
Speaker 3: I haven't memorized all of it. But when our oldest
Speaker 3: son was like maybe in middle school, maybe twelve thirteen
Speaker 3: and thirteen fourteen, he was kind of wrestling with I
Speaker 3: believe there's a God.
Speaker 2: I know the stories of the Bible.
Speaker 3: I know about Jesus, and I want to believe in Jesus,
Speaker 3: but I have a kernel of doubt that Christianity is
Speaker 3: the true religion. And I just he's always been kind
Speaker 3: of analytical, and I was like, well, you know what,
Speaker 3: just ask God to help you. Just tell him that
Speaker 3: and see what happens. And so at one point in
Speaker 3: that sort of general timeframe. I came into the room
Speaker 3: in the morning to wake him up, and he said
Speaker 3: as soon as he woke up, he didn't say a word.
Speaker 3: He was just like, Mom, get my bible, get or
Speaker 3: get a Bible and look up Matthew twenty six sixty four.
Speaker 3: I think this is the passage, because I just remember
Speaker 3: that when he said sixty four, I was thinking, I
Speaker 3: don't know if it goes that high, you know, I
Speaker 3: must don't. And I was thinking, what are you doing God,
Speaker 3: Like this is scary, And I got kind of panicky,
Speaker 3: because of course we want to make it, you know.
Speaker 3: And so anyway, if this is in fact the verse,
Speaker 3: which I think it is, I opened up the Bible
Speaker 3: and sure enough it was there. And we hadn't talked
Speaker 3: about this particular thing in a long time, like this
Speaker 3: in a while, and so I just read it and
Speaker 3: I said, you have said so, Jesus replied, but I
Speaker 3: say to all of you, from now on you will
Speaker 3: see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand
Speaker 3: of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.
Speaker 3: And I said, okay. And He's like, WHOA, Like that's
Speaker 3: that's really cool. I said, well, why and he said, well,
Speaker 3: last night I did what you said.
Speaker 2: I prayed and I asked God.
Speaker 3: I told him I didn't know, and I said, can
Speaker 3: you just give me a sign that Jesus is real
Speaker 3: and that he's really your son and that Christianity is
Speaker 3: actually true? And he said, I woke up And so
Speaker 3: he didn't have the scripture in mind. He had the
Speaker 3: numbers like Matthew twenty six sixty four, and so to him,
Speaker 3: that was God's answer. It was, okay, Jesus is the
Speaker 3: son of Man. He sits at the right hand of
Speaker 3: God and he's real, you know, And so that is
Speaker 3: he's kind of stood on that as he's had doubts
Speaker 3: and things as something where he felt God really spoke
Speaker 3: to him. So anyway, this popped up in my and
Speaker 3: so I was like, well, I might as.
Speaker 2: Well memorize this one.
Speaker 1: So yeah, great, do you want to try it or
Speaker 1: do you Okay? I haven't. We want everyone to know.
Speaker 1: Jamie and I committed to this, but we thought that
Speaker 1: we were going to record in a week and we're
Speaker 1: recording two days later.
Speaker 3: I know, and I just started memorizing it today. But
Speaker 3: I can do I think verse sixty three, so verse
Speaker 3: sixty threas starts out, but Jesus remained silent, which doesn't
Speaker 3: really go along with the rest of it. But so
Speaker 3: the rest of it is okay, the High Priest said
Speaker 3: to him, I charge you under oath by the Living God.
Speaker 3: Tell us, if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.
Speaker 3: You have said it was, you have said it is so,
Speaker 3: Jesus replied, You have said so, Jesus replied, So that's
Speaker 3: as far as I got. Sorry, it's not very kind
Speaker 3: of anti climactic, that is. And then he goes on
Speaker 3: to actually say, but I say, from now on, but
Speaker 3: I haven't gotten to that part yet, how about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I also started today because, like I said,
Speaker 1: we committed for a week, and to be fair, I
Speaker 1: had a couple of those.
Speaker 3: Blocks to have to get over, which is in itself informative.
Speaker 3: So that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it was really useful to have that post
Speaker 1: it and just john him down because I knew that
Speaker 1: you and I were going to be talking about scripture memories.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, here's all the blocks that had come up.
Speaker 1: Let me see if there were any more on my
Speaker 1: posts that I forgot to mention for me accuracy was
Speaker 1: a big one. It was like, if I practice it
Speaker 1: just to my but I say a word wrong, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to know, and then I'm just going to
Speaker 1: be reinforcing the wrong word.
Speaker 3: I had that too, because I kept looking back instead
Speaker 3: of trying to memorize it myself. I kept looking back
Speaker 3: at the thing because I didn't trust myself and I
Speaker 3: didn't want to say it wrong because I didn't want
Speaker 3: my brain to like imprint that yeah ession.
Speaker 1: And I think that just again becomes where good enough
Speaker 1: is good enough, Like you say it is so, or
Speaker 1: you say that it is so, they mean the same thing,
Speaker 1: and so it doesn't matter like which you use. You know,
Speaker 1: the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want versus
Speaker 1: the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in
Speaker 1: one like, hey, that one's just which shepherd translation you've
Speaker 1: decided to go through, But b it means the same thing,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't really matter. So yeah, I have learned
Speaker 1: to accept the fact that like, yeah, percent, that's a
Speaker 1: bee getting a B and Bible memory is going to
Speaker 1: be good, Like I'm okay with my eighty percent, and
Speaker 1: if feeling like I need to get one hundred percent
Speaker 1: is actually what's keeping me from doing it at all?
Speaker 1: That I would way rather be a B student and
Speaker 1: get eighty percent of a big chunk of scripture memorized
Speaker 1: and never opening up my Bible because I'm afraid I'm
Speaker 1: not going to get a hundred.
Speaker 3: Well, and you have to think, if you're in that
Speaker 3: prison cell with no Internet and no Bible, will you
Speaker 3: get the point across missing a couple of words. And
Speaker 3: I am not in any way saying that we should
Speaker 3: paraphrase scripture, but the bottom line is if you get
Speaker 3: the idea of what it's saying, then that is, you know,
Speaker 3: at some point, it's absolutely better than not having access
Speaker 3: to it at all.
Speaker 1: Absolutely right. Like memorizing the Beatitudes, for example, it's more
Speaker 1: important to know that God has called the Peacemaker's blessed
Speaker 1: than to know the exact threeason why, because like when
Speaker 1: you read the Beatitudes, there's like, you know, eight or
Speaker 1: ten different virtues and then eight or ten different reasons
Speaker 1: why they're blessed. But they're all fairly enterchangedabolans, you know.
Speaker 1: Not that again, not that we want to mistreat scripture,
Speaker 1: but it's not a sin for me to say, blessed
Speaker 1: are the peacemakers for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Speaker 1: if like if actually the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to
Speaker 1: the meek, and I, you know, and I mess them
Speaker 1: up right, like I think God is gonna give me
Speaker 1: some grace there. And all right, so I had chosen
Speaker 1: to go to Romans eight, and I'm gonna be starting
Speaker 1: at twenty eight, and I am I've just decided I
Speaker 1: found one of my really old, like old school nibs,
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna stick with that. So all right,
Speaker 1: let me get myself started. I'm to where like I
Speaker 1: need to look at it to get myself started. It's
Speaker 1: almost like the training meals you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and then I can and then they like, okay. And
Speaker 1: we know that in all things God works for the
Speaker 1: good of those who love Him, who have been called
Speaker 1: according to his purpose. For those he fore knew, he
Speaker 1: also called to be conformed to the likeness of his son,
Speaker 1: and those he fore knew he also called. I got
Speaker 1: some of those wrong, okay. If he foreknew them, he
Speaker 1: predestined them. And then for those God for knew he
Speaker 1: also called. Those he called he also justified. And as
Speaker 1: he justified, he also glorified, And that's kind of what
Speaker 1: I mean. It's like they all sort of mean the
Speaker 1: same thing. So if I like I switched up in
Speaker 1: my brain the order between being called and predestined, is
Speaker 1: God going to be mad at me for that? No?
Speaker 1: Am I going to sacrifice somebody's eternal soul if I
Speaker 1: am witnessing to someone in a jail cell where there's
Speaker 1: no Bible and I say called before predestined, when really
Speaker 1: it was predestined before called no. Right, So and that's
Speaker 1: a pretty big step for me to learn to be
Speaker 1: okay with Okay. Yeah, So that's that's kind of been
Speaker 1: my journey. So now that we've done our versus the day,
Speaker 1: I guess it's time to open up in a worder.
Speaker 3: All right, God, we just thank you for your word,
Speaker 3: and we just thank you for the ability to let
Speaker 3: go of perfectionism for the sake of just loving your
Speaker 3: word and being open and excited about committing it to memory.
Speaker 3: And we just pray that today we would just be
Speaker 3: able to appreciate even more the gift of scripture.
Speaker 2: And for those of us that have a hard time.
Speaker 3: Getting back into memorizing things, I just pray for the
Speaker 3: supernatural ability to open ourselves up to learning something new
Speaker 3: or to relearning something that's gotten difficult over the years,
Speaker 3: so that we can not just to check something off
Speaker 3: of a list, but to seriously just for the process
Speaker 3: of getting to know you more deeply and and actually
Speaker 3: incorporating scripture into our being in a way that just
Speaker 3: makes us love you more.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 1: So interestingly, one of the blocks that I thought I
Speaker 1: would come against that I really didn't is this question
Speaker 1: of like, how do I choose what to memorize first?
Speaker 1: Did you have that or were you just kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the one I'm going to.
Speaker 2: Do it sort of?
Speaker 3: I mean, it took me a little bit of time because,
Speaker 3: like I said, I had in my head, Okay, I
Speaker 3: want to memorize something where I can just present the
Speaker 3: Gospel in a nutshell to somebody in I'm picturing the
Speaker 3: prison cell. That's my goal, is what are my wants
Speaker 3: and go tos if I'm on a deserted island with
Speaker 3: twenty people. And so my block was that it's long
Speaker 3: the one that I thought I wanted to start memorizing.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to And then I realized about myself,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm going to start small and so it wasn't
Speaker 3: that bad, but it was a little bit of a process.
Speaker 1: Huh yeah, I I figure that that would be one
Speaker 1: of my biggest blocks because it's almost like, by choosing
Speaker 1: Romans eight, I'm saying that Romans eight is better than
Speaker 1: Isaiah Forte. Who am I to say that? But it
Speaker 1: sort of did, like, Okay, I think it was just
Speaker 1: God being like, here's where you should start. So if
Speaker 1: people do have that as one of your blocks, I
Speaker 1: would just prabay and ask God to show you. And
Speaker 1: for me, it was just kind of really natural where
Speaker 1: to begin with that. Another option could be think about
Speaker 1: times where you wish Bible recall would come to you.
Speaker 1: So maybe it's at night and you feel anxious, so
Speaker 1: then maybe you could just google good Bible versus for anxiety.
Speaker 1: You know, you could do it kind of topically or
Speaker 1: issue based, or maybe you have a hard time with
Speaker 1: a specific sin. Maybe you are hot tempered and you
Speaker 1: can just look up what are some verses that speak
Speaker 1: about anger and make that one that you do. But
Speaker 1: by choosing, you're not saying that that verse is more
Speaker 1: important than another. It's just what God is bringing to moments,
Speaker 1: you know, just like if I eat spaghetti for dinner tonight.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that spaghetti is inherently better than lasagna.
Speaker 1: You know, they're just two different meals.
Speaker 2: They just are. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, where I started when I first started memorizing scripture
Speaker 3: in college was the Navigator's Topical Memory System. And we're
Speaker 3: not like promoting it in terms of like we don't
Speaker 3: get a kickback. I think it's a free resource. But
Speaker 3: it's the topical memory system. And they actually have categories.
Speaker 3: So if you have something that you want like living
Speaker 3: the New Life, they have you know, Christ, the Center,
Speaker 3: Obedience to Christ, the Word, prayer, fellowship, witnessing like they have.
Speaker 3: They have it topically organized so you can choose like
Speaker 3: which ones, and they do have kind of a method
Speaker 3: to what you memorize, kind of to equip you to
Speaker 3: share the Gospel more fully, more easily. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's a pretty Oh I guess you do have
Speaker 3: to buy it, so but I think you probably you
Speaker 3: can buy the cards that you can tear apart, but
Speaker 3: they have all of them listed so you can create
Speaker 3: your own cards based on their resource. So all of
Speaker 3: that to say, if you need to use something, it's
Speaker 3: that's a really easy one to use. But there are
Speaker 3: tons of them.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we have Google now, we even have chat GPT.
Speaker 1: So you could even say, I'm the fifty year old
Speaker 1: woman trying to get back into Bible memory, and I
Speaker 1: like this translation and I want a passage it's not
Speaker 1: too long that talks about this, and it'll give you
Speaker 1: a bunch of options, and you could pick one right
Speaker 1: from there. Maybe double check that I have not had
Speaker 1: chat GPT. Ever, give me a Bible verse. It's not
Speaker 1: a Bible verse, but I have had chat GPT, just
Speaker 1: like make up facts that are true.
Speaker 3: Me too, Oh my gosh. And it'll always say, oh,
Speaker 3: you caught me.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm just.
Speaker 1: Like what, So double check it before you do it.
Speaker 1: But that is an option as well. So when you
Speaker 1: memorized the one that you started working on, did you
Speaker 1: just start looking at it and learning it or did
Speaker 1: you have any other systems for how to do the
Speaker 1: act of memorizing.
Speaker 3: I did just basically. I would do the first few words,
Speaker 3: cover it up, say them, and then I did the
Speaker 3: first few words plus a few more. Now, though as
Speaker 3: you say that, I remembered what you said about memorizing.
Speaker 3: The large amounts of scripture, it might be beneficial to
Speaker 3: memorize the first few words, then memorize the next few words,
Speaker 3: and then put the two together.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking for my brain because when I just keep
Speaker 2: adding and adding and adding, one.
Speaker 3: Of my blocks is ooh, that's too long, like when
Speaker 3: I start to see the string getting longer and longer.
Speaker 3: So I think, maybe, like you what you did, only
Speaker 3: I do it on a micro scale of like, okay,
Speaker 3: first few words, then the next phrase, just memorize that
Speaker 3: phrase and then put the two together. So I think
Speaker 3: that's what I'm going to do for the remainder. But
Speaker 3: what I had been doing was reading a little bit,
Speaker 3: then adding a little bit more, adding a little bit more,
Speaker 3: and it was challenging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, eventually you know what your brain capacity is and
Speaker 1: you need to basically make it into a smaller chunk
Speaker 1: than what max is out your brain capacity.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the I don't think this is a block,
Speaker 1: This is just a logistic problem that I come across
Speaker 1: when I memorize, is how do I know if I'm
Speaker 1: getting it right? Because if I'm just here doing it right,
Speaker 1: Like we think of Bible memory as something that a
Speaker 1: kid does in Sunday school and there's a teacher there
Speaker 1: and you're chanting it with the group, and all of
Speaker 1: those things are so good for memory, right, like speaking
Speaker 1: of it out loud, doing it kind of more chanty,
Speaker 1: doing it in a group, so there's reinforcement. But if
Speaker 1: you're just sitting there with your Bible, most of those
Speaker 1: aren't available to you. You I would come up with
Speaker 1: a chant. I think that's actually very beneficial, but I'm
Speaker 1: too self conscious to do that out loud, even if
Speaker 1: I'm home alone, which you know, there's another block that
Speaker 1: I could eventually get over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well one thing if you're not if you're open
Speaker 3: to it, I remember it was for a Wana. There's
Speaker 3: a CD that you can get and if you are
Speaker 3: not opposed to singing little kids songs, it was so effective.
Speaker 3: And it's not like great music. It's not great tunes.
Speaker 3: It's very repetitive and generic sounding. But you would be
Speaker 3: amazed if you haven't already learned things through Auana music.
Speaker 2: Or no no, no, no, I'm sorry. Was it a Wana?
Speaker 2: Or was it Good News Club?
Speaker 1: There's tons of resources and most of them.
Speaker 2: Are both Good News Club.
Speaker 3: But yeah, even the most sing songy generic tunes stick
Speaker 3: in your head better stick in my head absolutely well.
Speaker 1: And there are some albums for Bible memorization that are
Speaker 1: more geared toward adults. So honestly, for me, if I
Speaker 1: were to do it, I'd be like, give me the
Speaker 1: kid stuff. It's more fun, it's more catchy. But there
Speaker 1: was definitely a time in my life where I would
Speaker 1: have been almost insulted by that and it just wouldn't
Speaker 1: have resonated with me. And so I do know that
Speaker 1: there are lots of people who make scripture memory versus
Speaker 1: set to music, and sometimes they're more paraphrase and sometimes
Speaker 1: they are definitely like verbatim to the word, And you
Speaker 1: just have to decide what you're most comfortable with. Do
Speaker 1: you know the band Shane and Shane, So they have
Speaker 1: an entire album. It's just an acoustic album called Psalms,
Speaker 1: and it's beautiful and they're all inspired. All the lyrics
Speaker 1: are inspired by Psalms, but they're not like verbatim from Psalms.
Speaker 1: But I know there are also people who for adults
Speaker 1: take John three sixteen and set it to music. But
Speaker 1: like I said, to be fair, the kid's stuff is
Speaker 1: catch here, it's going to be in your head more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to me, I'm at the stage of my life where
Speaker 1: it's more fun anyway. So yeah, the one thing that
Speaker 1: I could definitely see myself wanting to add that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be self conscious about doing home alone is signing.
Speaker 1: So the whole thing that I came across it was
Speaker 1: like called predestined, justified, glorified, and like it's like, what
Speaker 1: order do those go in? I think I could definitely
Speaker 1: if I learned the sign language for those, or even
Speaker 1: just some kind of hand q that helps me do
Speaker 1: it in order, I think I would memorize it more,
Speaker 1: or if I really wanted to, I could come up
Speaker 1: with a mnemonic, right, so I could be Okay, first
Speaker 1: it's called then it's predestined, so CP. So now I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about cerebral palsy, which is kind of a sad
Speaker 1: thing to be thinking about, but that's what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1: So you know, I can I can tell myself it's
Speaker 1: a three were palsy verse. So okay, those he called
Speaker 1: he predestined because see has to come first, right, There
Speaker 1: are lots of mnemonics there. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I find for when you get logistically to just if
Speaker 1: you're learning a passage by yourself, and you don't have
Speaker 1: a great way to test yourself. There are apps that
Speaker 1: will do this, or I like to do it in paper.
Speaker 1: What I like is to write down the first letter
Speaker 1: of each word and then just put it on a
Speaker 1: note card and look at the note card and see
Speaker 1: if I can do it all of that way. It's
Speaker 1: basically the equivalent I know a lot of Sunday school teachers.
Speaker 1: You'll write the entire verse on the board yep, and
Speaker 1: everyone will say it out loud, and then you'll just
Speaker 1: erase one word at a time, and when you're with
Speaker 1: a group, and when you're doing it in a kind
Speaker 1: of sing songy tone, by the time every word's been erased,
Speaker 1: you can do the whole thing. So I like having
Speaker 1: the first letter of each word as a cue. And
Speaker 1: then what you can do is, once you get comfortable
Speaker 1: with that as you can turn it into the first
Speaker 1: letter of a phrase and then like the first letter
Speaker 1: of averse or the first letter of a paragraph, just
Speaker 1: kind of to keep you on track. But right now,
Speaker 1: if your only options, like for me, my only option
Speaker 1: is to have it in my head or to have
Speaker 1: the whole thing in front of me in the Bible right,
Speaker 1: and so there's there's not an imagery, but I know
Speaker 1: there are apps that will do this as well, and
Speaker 1: so it can be specifically a Bible memory app. I
Speaker 1: don't have any to recommend, but I know there exist,
Speaker 1: or I know there are apps designed to help people memorize,
Speaker 1: you know, like a speech or something. There are some
Speaker 1: where you can if you're an auditory learner, you can
Speaker 1: record yourself saying it and then what it will do
Speaker 1: is it will read it back to you but leave
Speaker 1: out certain words, and then in your brain you're filling
Speaker 1: them in. So basically you're doing the same thing that
Speaker 1: Sunday school teacher is doing by erasing one word at
Speaker 1: a time. Another way you could do it. Another kind
Speaker 1: of logistic hurdle I come across in this is if
Speaker 1: if it's just me, I don't know if I'm saying
Speaker 1: it right or wrong right, so I might think I
Speaker 1: have it totally right, but I might be forgetting an
Speaker 1: entire middle section. So I know there were apps where
Speaker 1: you can record yourself and it will tell you, or
Speaker 1: you know, you could even just there are so many
Speaker 1: voice memo apps. You could just record it as a
Speaker 1: voice memo and then go back and check it against scripture.
Speaker 3: And one of my favorite ways to memorize scripture was
Speaker 3: with a partner, Like I had a friend and we
Speaker 3: would get together once a week and so she would
Speaker 3: have it in front of her and I would say
Speaker 3: it and she would, you know, go like this, and
Speaker 3: if I made a mistake, and that would.
Speaker 2: Cue me to try again.
Speaker 3: It was you know, you can get a live human
Speaker 3: to just kind of bounce back. I had forgotten the
Speaker 3: whiteboard thing when I was a Sunday school teacher, and
Speaker 3: that was my favorite way because it was so really
Speaker 3: so easy for me because I would just yeah, and
Speaker 3: that way, like you're not just reading all or nothing.
Speaker 3: You're taking away and you're practicing and reinforcing.
Speaker 2: That was my favorite way.
Speaker 3: I think I'm actually I have a whiteboard that we
Speaker 3: haven't used forever. I saw it in my son's room
Speaker 3: the other day. I think I'm going to actually do
Speaker 3: that and use it for my Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that one's a useful one. Or when I did
Speaker 1: Sunday school, I think we even did this sometimes in
Speaker 1: middle school youth group in order to incorporate more motion.
Speaker 1: You would all stand in a circle. We'd have a
Speaker 1: ball like a beach ball, and you would throw the
Speaker 1: ball and say a word, oh yeah, and that person
Speaker 1: would catch it and say the next word and throw
Speaker 1: it to someone else. Because I am such a firm
Speaker 1: below and I know it works two varying degrees. It
Speaker 1: works for me so much better when there's a physical component,
Speaker 1: and for some people that's less important. But I don't
Speaker 1: think in most I don't think it's ever detrimental to
Speaker 1: add the physical component. It's just some people it helps
Speaker 1: them like a bajillion times like me, and some people
Speaker 1: it might help you a little bit extra. But so yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be I would say, if I really wanted
Speaker 1: to add one more component for myself, it would probably
Speaker 1: be in the tricky parts where I get caught up
Speaker 1: learning some of the sign language or some kind of
Speaker 1: hand motion to help me run through that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as long as you're consistent, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 3: the hand motion is. You can make up whatever you
Speaker 3: want as long as you do it the same every time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: although it would be very cool to learn sign language, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, it'd be a nice way to learn some signed vocabulary,
Speaker 1: so I may as well do it that way. Unless
Speaker 1: there's a huge reason to make it a different way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So well, I want.
Speaker 2: To hear your testimony.
Speaker 3: I want to hear the part where you found yourself
Speaker 3: unable to memorize scripture.
Speaker 2: I've never heard this story.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until we started talking about Bible memory that
Speaker 1: I even like considered this part of my testimony. And
Speaker 1: I got super emotional even thinking about it, because it's
Speaker 1: slight losing a sense, Like that's how significant it was.
Speaker 1: So in our previous episode about Bible memory, I did
Speaker 1: talk a lot about like growing up with a lot
Speaker 1: of Bible memory, incorporated into our family life and incorporated
Speaker 1: into my spiritual disciplines, and so it was definitely just
Speaker 1: part of me and of like being someone who likes
Speaker 1: to listen to music is just part of me. And
Speaker 1: then I went to college and for a couple of
Speaker 1: years I didn't have a church, and I was also
Speaker 1: just really intellectually bombarded with so much outside questions, like
Speaker 1: the questions that your son had. But it wasn't it
Speaker 1: was never like is God true? That was never it,
Speaker 1: but it was you know, think about every single like
Speaker 1: liberal college campus and all of the questions that would
Speaker 1: come at you. And if you've come from a pretty
Speaker 1: sheltered Christian life, like you're just ready for all of
Speaker 1: those questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, taking like a New Testament and Old Testament
Speaker 3: literature classes, and one of the professors was an atheist
Speaker 3: and he wanted us to be shaken. He saw all
Speaker 3: these young, wide eyed Christians and he's like, hey, guys,
Speaker 3: this isn't a Bible study. This is a class. And
Speaker 3: it was paradigm shifting for me.
Speaker 1: Even to learn how non Christians would view the things
Speaker 1: that I just never even thought about. Yes, it was like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean that your God told his closest
Speaker 1: follower to slaughter his son on a mountain? Like we
Speaker 1: learned that as a cute story of God's provision and all,
Speaker 1: wasn't Abraham so faithful?
Speaker 3: We don't realize the actual act and what it would
Speaker 3: have happened, And.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, and so yeah, it was just intellectually such
Speaker 1: a difficult time for me. Plus I was so absorbed
Speaker 1: in my studies because I needed to get the A
Speaker 1: plus and everything. I wasn't okay with being a B
Speaker 1: student at that point, and so like my brain was
Speaker 1: just so tired, and I really think that's what it was.
Speaker 1: Like I went years without reading a novel, which I'll
Speaker 1: look back be like that is so sad, and because
Speaker 1: like my brain, Like I did take some literature classes,
Speaker 1: but after I graduated, like I went two years without
Speaker 1: picking up a single book other than the Bible. It
Speaker 1: was just my brain was tired. And so I think
Speaker 1: those were some of the things, Like if I had
Speaker 1: to go back and be like, you know, how did
Speaker 1: this happen? A I wasn't being regularly fed the Word
Speaker 1: because some of my Bible memorization, I was fortunate enough.
Speaker 1: And I think this is just like genetically in personality,
Speaker 1: like I could pick it up just by hearing it,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I didn't always have to sit
Speaker 1: down and force myself to memorize. I did that as
Speaker 1: a practice, but like there were a lot of verses
Speaker 1: that I knew just because I heard them in sermons
Speaker 1: and stuff. And since at that point I'm going back
Speaker 1: on my rant, I was hearing them all in the
Speaker 1: same version of the Bible, and I didn't have twelve
Speaker 1: conflicting versions on my head.
Speaker 2: The versions just or the passage just stuck.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't getting fed a regular input of scripture.
Speaker 1: I was still reading the Bible myself, and I would
Speaker 1: still for a bunch of it, like there was still
Speaker 1: like a dorm Bible study. I would ATTENDANTU. But there
Speaker 1: wasn't like a church community where I was sitting and
Speaker 1: listening to a sermon. So I don't know if that
Speaker 1: had to do with it. I'm sure some of it
Speaker 1: had to do with one hundred percent of my mental
Speaker 1: energy was focused on schoolwork, and so maybe my brain
Speaker 1: was even trying to protect me. It was like, you
Speaker 1: don't have room to keep these memory versus in your
Speaker 1: head and learn all of these nomenclature rules for organic chemistry,
Speaker 1: so let's just put these aside, kind of like the
Speaker 1: cleanup crew in Inside Out, where they're just cleaning her
Speaker 1: brain from memories she doesn't need anymore. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: my brain, Yes, I think my brain was probably like, okay,
Speaker 1: if getting an A is her primary goal, which at
Speaker 1: that point it was, and I have to choose between
Speaker 1: remembering this random fact about Raskalnikov in Crime and Punishment
Speaker 1: versus what does Romans six say? Okay by Roman six,
Speaker 1: And then I think we add on to that just
Speaker 1: you know, stress, emotional stress from being away from home,
Speaker 1: physical stress. I ate really poorly. I tried to I
Speaker 1: decided that I wanted to try to be vegetarian, but
Speaker 1: basically that just meant I ate like pasta, like for
Speaker 1: a semester, so like, you know, no veggies, no protein.
Speaker 1: So I think I think there were so many things
Speaker 1: that went into it. And then in addition, using my
Speaker 1: brain and my faith together heightened this sense of unease
Speaker 1: that I felt being in that environment. So again, I
Speaker 1: think my brain was kind of like, Okay, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about faith when we're not talking about intellectual stuff, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk about intellectual stuff. You know. I think my
Speaker 1: brain was trying to do me a favor by really
Speaker 1: compartmentalizing the two. And so like I believed in God,
Speaker 1: still followed the Bible, still acted like, you know, an obedient,
Speaker 1: moral Christian girl, but I could not recall a Bible verse,
Speaker 1: like it would have been hard for me to tell
Speaker 1: you what John three sixteen said, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's one of the ones that's just you know,
Speaker 1: from being three years old and up. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: as if I knew that I had lost it. It
Speaker 1: was more like so it's hard to explain. Like again,
Speaker 1: I think my brain got so compartmentalized that it probably
Speaker 1: just didn't think about the fact that I didn't have
Speaker 1: Bible recall, and it came out. It came to a
Speaker 1: huge head this summer before my senior year of college.
Speaker 1: So for people who have followed this story on Christian
Speaker 1: true crime junkies, I told my whole testimony of joining
Speaker 1: a really abusive, authoritarian cultish church. This is the summer
Speaker 1: before that happened, and so this is where it all
Speaker 1: kind of came to a head. So what happened was
Speaker 1: I went on a mission trip that summer. It was
Speaker 1: a first mission trip, actually the only mission trip I've
Speaker 1: ever been on, and I went to Russia. And at
Speaker 1: the time, I had just taken the MCATs, I was
Speaker 1: waiting to get my MCAT scores, or I think I
Speaker 1: had just gotten my MCAT scores before I left, and
Speaker 1: I had at least started the process of applying to
Speaker 1: medical schools, and this mission trip to Russia was kind
Speaker 1: of going to be like the one the one thing
Speaker 1: I did before. I just like jumped right back into
Speaker 1: the grind of a really growling school year and finished
Speaker 1: up my senior year. And while I was there, I
Speaker 1: was lying in bed. It was kind of like first
Speaker 1: thing in the morning, I was probably jet lagged or something,
Speaker 1: so like I was lying in bed but not asleep,
Speaker 1: and the verse came to me and it said, do
Speaker 1: nothing out of selfish ambition or rain conceit. And it
Speaker 1: was the first time that God had allowed Bible recalled
Speaker 1: to come to me in years, like maybe since I
Speaker 1: left for college, like after high school. And it was
Speaker 1: so convicting because I knew, like simultaneously what God was
Speaker 1: telling me, and what God was telling me was that
Speaker 1: my medical school plans were just selfish ambition. It was
Speaker 1: just because I wanted to prove that I was the
Speaker 1: best student. And in the early two thousands, what did
Speaker 1: you do if you wanted to prove you were the
Speaker 1: best student? You got into medical my doctor. Yes, And
Speaker 1: it was so convicting. It was also difficult, like it
Speaker 1: was it was a bagi things. Simultaneously, it was the conviction.
Speaker 1: It was one of the heaviest senses of conviction. I've
Speaker 1: ever experienced. It was also oh, no, my parents are
Speaker 1: going to be really mad, So there was fear there.
Speaker 1: And also I was worried about what the other people
Speaker 1: that we were on this mission trip would say because
Speaker 1: in all of the pre mission trip stuff. It was like,
Speaker 1: now this is the caricature of what I was told,
Speaker 1: So this is more extreme. Now you're going to get
Speaker 1: there and this is going to be so new for you,
Speaker 1: and you're going to get so excited about serving the
Speaker 1: Lord that you're going to think he wants you to
Speaker 1: be a missionary. But it's okay, it's just the emotions.
Speaker 1: You're going to get caught up in emotions. Just know
Speaker 1: that it's going to pass. It's just a face, sweetie.
Speaker 1: That's really what they wear into cancers. I get is
Speaker 1: an important warning. You don't want people to make rash,
Speaker 1: life altering decisions from a heat of the moment emotional level. Right,
Speaker 1: Just like I can't tell you how many people I've
Speaker 1: met who when you ask them how they got to Alaska,
Speaker 1: they say, well, I went on vacation here once and
Speaker 1: either never.
Speaker 3: Lever came back or yeah, never never went back home,
Speaker 3: or yeah, or like went home, packed up and knew
Speaker 3: that I had to live here forever.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. It's kind of a trope.
Speaker 2: I mean it is.
Speaker 1: And there was that trope of being on the mission
Speaker 1: field and thinking that God was calling you to be
Speaker 1: a full time missionary. But oh, that's just your emotions.
Speaker 1: And so I was afraid of getting pooh pooed if
Speaker 1: I were to go and tell the people that I
Speaker 1: was with that I had had this extremely convicting moment
Speaker 1: because basically I knew it. I had wanted to be
Speaker 1: a missionary from the time I was very, very little,
Speaker 1: and the medical school was the nope, you got to
Speaker 1: have an actual career. And so basically, as it was
Speaker 1: getting downloaded into my brain to do nothing out of
Speaker 1: selfless ambition, it was don't go to medical school, disappoint
Speaker 1: your family, pooh pooed by the people on your mission trip. Oh,
Speaker 1: and by the way, you're going to become a missionary.
Speaker 1: And that side of it never happened. That's a whole
Speaker 1: other story that had more to do with medical stuff.
Speaker 1: But it was, like I said, the very first time
Speaker 1: that a Bible verse came to me in years. And
Speaker 1: so then I got home, I did have that renewed
Speaker 1: thing that they warned me against and that everybody poo
Speaker 1: pooed of, like I got to read my Bible, I
Speaker 1: gotta do all this stuff. And in the same way,
Speaker 1: I hate when people make fun of or belittle like
Speaker 1: teenage crushes. I hate when people make fun of or
Speaker 1: belittle like a spiritual high after a retreat or after
Speaker 1: an experience like this. Okay, is that the way I'm
Speaker 1: going to feel for my entire life about the Lord? No?
Speaker 1: Is it a gift that I felt that way when
Speaker 1: I got home from Russia. Yes, and so I was
Speaker 1: spending a lot more time in the world. Now. What
Speaker 1: I was terrified of was that I was going to
Speaker 1: have to go and rememorize every single Bible verse that
Speaker 1: I had ever known. But I think, really, when I
Speaker 1: look at it, I don't think it was that the
Speaker 1: versus left my brain. I think that they were just
Speaker 1: trapped and sealed, and so the act of getting them
Speaker 1: back it was scary and daunting. But once that safe
Speaker 1: got opened, it first slowly came back and then it
Speaker 1: was just there again. So it happened faster than I
Speaker 1: expected it too for it to come back. But it
Speaker 1: absolutely made me realize what a gift it is, because
Speaker 1: I had just taken it for granted in the same
Speaker 1: me that I don't look at my hand and be like,
Speaker 1: I'm so thankful I have a hand to day right right,
Speaker 1: Like that's kind of how having scripture just you know,
Speaker 1: I used like people used to joke that, you know,
Speaker 1: that I was kind of a walking concordance because if
Speaker 1: they would be like, what's that one verse about that
Speaker 1: one thing? And this is pre google and I could
Speaker 1: be like, I could either tell them it was or
Speaker 1: I could flip into my Bible and find it pretty quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And to me, it didn't enter my head that that
Speaker 1: was like the Lord give it and the Lord taketh away.
Speaker 1: It didn't enter my head that that was something that
Speaker 1: I could.
Speaker 3: Have lost and might have been like, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: you even were just like, yeah, this is something that
Speaker 3: I made happen, as opposed it's probably to make this happen.
Speaker 1: And so I deserve to have these verses at my
Speaker 1: fingertips because I worked to memorize them, and I did
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time in the Bible in my teens,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, there was a sense of well, you know,
Speaker 1: I hate to attribute this to myself, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: there was some you know, if you worked hard, you
Speaker 1: could have this too, you know, But then to have
Speaker 1: it just taken away and then given back with a
Speaker 1: snap of the fingers was very humbling.
Speaker 3: That's very cool, that's really neat to see. And I
Speaker 3: think we can apply that to a lot of things
Speaker 3: in our life lives that you know, you and I
Speaker 3: talk a lot about the dangers of focusing so much
Speaker 3: on the strengths of others that we don't recognize the
Speaker 3: strengths and ourselves. And I think for you that was
Speaker 3: a huge strength and a huge thing that you just
Speaker 3: like you said, it's like, you know, writing with your hand.
Speaker 3: You don't think about that hand being a gift? Do
Speaker 3: you think about it as just how things are?
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's a reminder to be able to kind of without
Speaker 3: having things taken away. If we could take a moment
Speaker 3: and just reflect, like what are the gifts God has
Speaker 3: given you?
Speaker 2: What are the things that you're using well now for
Speaker 2: His kingdom.
Speaker 3: Or otherwise for you know, your creative process, your gifts,
Speaker 3: your talents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think a good kind of listener holmework
Speaker 1: could be ask yourself a Christian who knew you well,
Speaker 1: what would they say, like, Oh, that comes so easy
Speaker 1: for you, and you're like, doesn't it for you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like Elwood's what like it's hard, Like ask
Speaker 1: yourself what is that thing for you, and then assume
Speaker 1: that that is a gift from the Lord, So a
Speaker 1: drop any pretense of pride about it, but be realize
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of responsibility. There was a long
Speaker 1: time where I thought that God withheld that from me
Speaker 1: as punishment because I wasn't walking with him like he
Speaker 1: wanted me to be. And I think that there is
Speaker 1: a sense of whoever has will be given much and
Speaker 1: whoever doesn't use what they have, what even what they
Speaker 1: think they have, is going to be taken from them.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's Jesus's version of what Uncle Ben
Speaker 1: tells Peter Parker. With a great gift comes a great
Speaker 1: sense of responsibility. So think about the one or two
Speaker 1: things that are easy to you or at your worst,
Speaker 1: what you might be judging about others for like, this
Speaker 1: is so easy for me, why can't why can't you
Speaker 1: do this? And then recognize, Okay, that actually is probably
Speaker 1: a gift. That's probably not something I've fostered in myself,
Speaker 1: because yes, I foster your Bible memory work. But I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have done that if God hadn't made it easy
Speaker 1: for me. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yes, No, I totally get it, and I feel like
Speaker 3: it just makes me realize that there are things that
Speaker 3: we might just be thinking like it's this isn't really
Speaker 3: work of the Lord.
Speaker 2: This is this is cheating because it seems so easy.
Speaker 3: Of course, in order to serve God or to you know,
Speaker 3: use my talents, I should have to put some skin
Speaker 3: in the game. I should have to be like, work
Speaker 3: hard and sacrifice and be a little bit miserable for
Speaker 3: it to count right, right? And I think, while, yes,
Speaker 3: we don't need to just be only focusing on things
Speaker 3: that come easily, but I don't know to appreciate like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is how God made me. And if I love
Speaker 3: doing this thing all the better, you know, let me
Speaker 3: just keep doing it and doing it well and keep
Speaker 3: working at things I love.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, yes, And if my story might be
Speaker 1: you know me, I'm not a fearmongerer, but I would
Speaker 1: not mind my story being used as a tiny bit
Speaker 1: of And what would you do if God took that away?
Speaker 1: You know? Or is there a chance that if you're
Speaker 1: not using the gifts God has given you that he
Speaker 1: might take them away?
Speaker 2: There absolutely is.
Speaker 1: I don't think that he does it capriciously. But if
Speaker 1: you know, let's say, if doing hospitality is something you
Speaker 1: love and just comes so natural and you're so good
Speaker 1: at it, and maybe you're even tempted to look down
Speaker 1: your nose at people that it doesn't come as easily too,
Speaker 1: And then you go four years or that ever inviting
Speaker 1: anybody into your home because of this, that or the
Speaker 1: other thing. Don't be so brash to assume that the
Speaker 1: minute you decide to pick it back up again, that
Speaker 1: it's going to be there for you. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: of it almost like how the ancient Greeks would think
Speaker 1: of a muse, like the creative muse. They were seen
Speaker 1: as extremely capricious. It was like here one day, gone
Speaker 1: the next, and you never know, so you're always thankful
Speaker 1: when it shows up. And I don't say that we
Speaker 1: think of God that way, but I think there should
Speaker 1: be a tiny bit of healthy humility when we think
Speaker 1: about the gifts that we've been given. Just because God
Speaker 1: gave you a gift today doesn't mean he can't take
Speaker 1: it away. And that means that we do needs to
Speaker 1: be good stewards of it, and we shouldn't be prideful
Speaker 1: of it. And if you're not using it. There might
Speaker 1: need to be a tiny bit of healthy fear and
Speaker 1: just that uneasy feeling in your gut. Ooh, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not living up to God's expectations for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, anything else do you want to add regarding
Speaker 1: either just kind of spiritual gifts or back to the
Speaker 1: Bible memory side of things.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I just I'm excited to be
Speaker 2: back into it. It's fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'm really glad that we got into that
Speaker 1: discussion about it and I got kind of a reason
Speaker 1: to get back into it too. Well. With that, let's
Speaker 1: close with our blessing and an addiction. May God fill
Speaker 1: your heart with greater joy than all the world could
Speaker 1: ever offer. May He fill you with joy and his presence.
Speaker 1: May God Himself be your joy and your delight through
Speaker 1: sorrow and sadness. May the joy of the Lord be
Speaker 1: your strength. May the Holy Spirit himself annoint you with
Speaker 1: the oil of joy gladness to strengthen and encourage your
Speaker 1: spirit to stay and forevermore.
Speaker 3: And our benediction is from Psalm sixty seven, verse one.
Speaker 3: May God be gracious to us and bless us and
Speaker 3: make his face to shine upon us.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 3: We'd like to take just a quick second to thank
Speaker 3: the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us
Speaker 3: on the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com
Speaker 3: you will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in
Speaker 3: their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
Speaker 3: and so much more. That's life audio dot com.