I went through my “learning process” tab and from the beginning found posts all the way through this process that involved struggling how fast or slow to go so that I might go deep yet broad. One night I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning working out a plan to go for Mark, the rest of the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs in five years. Fun stuff. About 5-6 verses a day. But then I wondered if it was still too many. My experiment of doing 5-6 verses in the New Testament and 1 verse out of Psalms was going good but not great. When I memorized the 1 verse out of Psalms, it was hard to mentally connect it to the rest of the verses in its context. It also made it harder to memorize. And the 6 verses a day still was a little bit on the edge of high for going deep. After toiling these things over and over, I had a novel idea. Why not ask the LORD? And how long have I been His follower?
So I asked him and I felt pretty clearly that he said 3 verses a day. This makes sense in the daily rhythm of life. I can do 1 verse in the morning, 1 in the afternoon, and 1 in the evening and at the end of the day put it all together. Doable. Digestible.
I also did some number crunching and realized that if I stick with this, I can memorize the whole New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs in 10 years, 3 months. That sounds like a long time but when I realize the very first time I made a run at this was in 1994. I finished the book of Philippians and a few other sections and then stopped. The second serious attempt was this year and I made it to Matthew 23 but that was after 3 months. I faded away because I felt I wasn’t getting the time to digest it. Somewhat like chewing great food and spitting it out to without swallowing so you can hurry up and get another bite. But if I had started the 3 verse/day program, I could have memorized the whole New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs and have been half way through doing it a second time.
So I’ve been working on the 3 verses per day plan and you know what? I am completely encouraged! I feel the peace of the Lord. I am digesting what I’m memorizing. I feel like God has given me a grace to be content for the 10 year journey (I am a driven person so I needed this grace). More than that, I’m responding to what I feel the Lord has spoken to me.
It will still take perseverance. It will still be a learning process. But I press on because it is my desire that the Word of Christ dwell in me–RICHLY.
