What if there was a hidden, God-given quality built-in to your mind that could dramatically improve your Scripture memorization? (Hint: There is.) What if there was a way to harness this quality, turning your mind into a memorization workhorse? (You can.) It’s a subtle change in approach that will bring dramatic, noticeable improvement, I promise!
Too many people tell me they are convinced they can’t memorize Scripture.
Some fear their mind is too old to do it anymore. Others confess they were never great at it. They have resigned themselves that it’s just not their “gift” - whatever that means.
Memorizing Scripture is not a rare gift that only an elite few are born with. It’s a skill we all can learn, like driving a car.
Sadly, by failing to understand one key truth about how the mind works, many miss out of the blessing of hiding God’s word in their hearts.
For decades, I too was also missing out, because I failed to grasp this one simple truth. It can transform your memorization process.
Here it is:
God created our minds with an amazing quality: human curiosity.
Human curiosity rises to the challenge of discovering meaning, solving problems, finding answers.
Human curiosity. It’s the reason why people will spend hours playing games and solving puzzles of all kinds.
It’s also the reason crime dramas are such a popular form of entertainment.
Human curiosity is the driving force behind inventions, scientific breakthroughs and artistic creativity.
Curiosity also drives man’s quest to understand the purpose and meaning in life.
We’ll get to that.
First, do you want to see your own curious, problem-solving mind in action?
If so, please fill in the missing word in each of the following common expressions:
He cried like a ____.
He’s got ants in his ____.
It’s raining cats and ____.
Don’t step on my ____.
Let’s think outside the ____.
At the end of the ____.
Okay, admit it.
Your mind jumped at the chance to fill in the blanks, as though each short phrase was a puzzle, a problem-solving opportunity.
Your curious mind craves understanding. it needs to fill in those missing words, because without them, the phrases are meaningless.
That’s why your mind scoured your memory banks for common expressions and REMEMBERED each missing word.
Put your God-given curiosity to work! It is standing by, ready to help you memorize your next verse!
As you learn verses, your mind will continue working in the background, filling in the blanks, consolidating what you’ve learned, even when you’re not aware it is happening.
Even while you sleep.
Count on your mind’s innate curiosity, its need to solve problems to help you memorize your verses.
Cultivate this curiosity.
It’s your memorization superpower.
You can also be confident that your mind’s natural curiosity doesn’t stop with memorizing words of text.
As your mind learns your verses better and better, it will also be considering their message, again and again, drawing more and more meaning from the text.
Increased understanding is a natural byproduct of memorizing the Word. It’s one of the hidden rewards of Learning Scripture By Heart.
Human curiosity is a realm inside where our mind engages with the Holy Spirit. He is able to illuminate our understanding of the “God stuff,” more and more, at His discretion, in His timing.
So don’t let your God-given gift of curiosity lie idle. Put it to work, learning, studying and reviewing your memory verses. Trust Him to meet you there, to help you, to teach you. He will.
Until next week, happy memorizing!
Michael
“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. ”
