Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Psalm 119:9–11
How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
CONSIDER THIS
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
So how do we Bible? We read. We ruminate. The R-word (and middle finger from our mnemonic device) is rememberize. I know. It's not actually a word, but this practice is so distinctive that it merited the invention of a new word altogether. Perhaps you think I mean to say memorize. I don't. Let me tell you the story of the word's origin.
Years ago, when my oldest son, David, was four or five, we were working with him on memorizing Scripture. One day he rounded the corner into the kitchen with gleeful excitement and this announcement, "Mom! Dad! I finally rememberized it!" I've never forgotten it. It's actually the perfect word.
We all know what memorization means. It's that frenetic thing you do the night before a big exam in order to pass the test. We load in the information, and we pour it out on the paper and, in most cases, we promptly flush it into the nether regions of our skull or some other crevasse of our small intestines.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
Memorization quick-loads our short-term memory. Rememberization is of another order. It slow-loads our long-term memory. As an example, consider my grandmother (a.k.a. Meemaw), who had severe dementia for the last decade of her life. She could not remember who I was, but the minute I started praying the Lord's Prayer or saying the Apostles' Creed or singing "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus," she was right there with me—every . . . single . . . word. This is because she was in church for some seventy years—every . . . single . . . Sunday . . . saying the Lord's Prayer and declaring the creed and singing the songs. She slow-loaded her long-term memory. She had rememberized it.
Maybe this is why the word "remember" is one of the most repeated and significant words in the whole Bible. To remember something is quite different than memorizing something. My Meemaw, and likely yours, too, shows us how remembering actually survives complete memory loss. It's why there is no substitute for the long slow work of every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade. To remember something is to reattach to it in practical ways. Break down the word: re-member. It is something like re-attach or re-connect. Memorization requires brain activity; rememberizing requires soul engagement.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
I like how the English Standard Version translates this text from Psalm 119:11: "I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." This "storing up" comes from the Deuteronomy 6:4–9 every day—all the time—when I lay down—when I rise up—when I walk along the road—Word of God way of life.
So how do we rememberize? There are lots of ways. Let me share a practice I implemented with my children when they were young that continues to the present and which I have also shared with friends on a daily and weekly basis now. I would like to call it texting, but that's kind of been taken now. Let's call it versing. One repeats the first half of a verse and the the other says the latter part.
Me: I have hidden your word in my heart. . .
You: . . . That I might not sin against you.
I also like to practice versing with text messaging. I text the first part (the call) and a friend texts back the rest (the response). Here are some more of my more recent go-to texts for versing.
ME: Delight yourself in the Lord:
YOU: and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Ps. 37:4)
ME: Blessed are those whose strength is in you:
YOU: whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. (Ps. 84:5)
ME: I lift my eyes to the hills; from where does my help come:
YOU: My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. (Ps. 121:1–2)
Try taking your new word for this new year and breaking it into a way of versing back and forth. You can imagine my delight when the other day, out of the blue, I got a three-word text message from my youngest, Sam (19)—now a college student:
The grass withers . . . ! (and he didn't even ask me for money!)
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
One last bit here. Note the purpose listed in Psalm 119:11: "that I might not sin against you." In this instance, the Hebrew word for sin means "missing the mark." We tend to read this in a behavioral and moralistic framework (i.e., we hide God's Word in our hearts to keep us from misbehaving). There is a better framing. We hide God's Word in our hearts so we might hit the bull's-eye of the target for our lives. We hide God's Word in our hearts so our lives will be filled with joy and resplendent with the glory of God. We hide God's Word in our hearts because this is the one in whose image we are created and for whose purposes we are crafted—who made us by his Word and who alone can keep us by his Word.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
THE PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Lord Jesus—Word of God from before the beginning—our Great Teacher,
Teach and train me to hide your Word in my heart so I might not sin against you and, even more so, that my life might fulfill the purpose for which you created me. Lead me into the delightful joy of rememberizing your Word bit by bit and day by day. Bring me a friend or two with whom I can share this practice. Help my family discover and enter into this playful exchange of your Word.
It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for my good.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen!
