Weapon Against Anxiety #3: Memorizing God's Word Together
Last week we talked about abiding in Christ. One of the major ways we can abide in Him is by connecting with His word – The Bible – moment by moment. As we become more and more accustomed to reading His word, we find that it begins to penetrate not just our minds, but our hearts. We can speed up this process by memorizing God’s word. This sounds really hard, but your brain treats memorization like a muscle – the more you work it, the easier it gets and the more capacity it has. Also, there are so many tools available to you to make this easier.
The beauty of memorizing Bible verses is that you will find them popping into your head when you most need them. I often find that the verses I’ve memorized about anxiety or fear provide great comfort to me when I can’t sleep or am tempted to reach for a snack I am hoping will quiet the loud emotions I’m having. And when I’m frustrated because parenting is the hardest job ever, verses about God’s patience remind me not to lose my temper.
Family Activity:
- Speak Deuteronomy 6:6 out loud together. Speaking it out loud involves more concentration and more of your senses than simply reading it silently, so it sticks in your brain better.
- Write the verse on a note card or sticky note and put it somewhere you will all see it regularly. You can decorate the verse if you want. You can even make more than one.
- Put the words to a common tune, or come up with your own, and sing the song to each other frequently throughout each day.
- Use the free Bible memory app, Verse Locker, to work on the verse on your own. Or, you can use the same tools in the app as a family.
- Write it on a bulletin board or white board and erase a couple of words. Say it out loud and, if you got it, erase a few more words.
- When you are fairly confident, write down the first letter of each word and say the verse out loud.
- When you’re sure you know it, try writing it without looking. Writing is slower than speaking, so you’ll have to think harder!
- To get it into your long-term memory, practice the verse every day for a week. After that, make sure you read it or say it once a week or so to refresh your memory. If you find you’ve neglected it for too long, you can go back to some of the original memory tools.
Want to go deeper?
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