02 Disciplines of Quiet Time: Meditation and Memorization
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Now I left off last episode talking about how quiet time is like a kiss because a kiss is love made manifest, which is what our time with God is like; it is His love made manifest in us and our love made manifest for Him.
It is also unique, special, and something to remember.
And today I want to elaborate on that last point: That quiet times should be memorable.
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I want you to think with me for a second of one of your favorite memories…it could be your wedding with your spouse, for those who are younger it could be a sporting event, it could be an award you won, it could be anything along those lines.
For me, one of my favorite memories is hitting a buzzer beater three in a church league basketball game when I was in sixth grade. We were down late playing a bunch of kids a grade older than us, and truth is they were better than us. We had just hung around because one of my teammates named Colton was having the game of his life and our opponents were not taking us seriously. They were playing with their food, if you will.
Anyways we hung around, and it came down to the final possession. I can’t exactly remember the score, but I believe we were losing by 2 as the clock ran down. We had the ball, and I decided to set a screen for Colton, who had been feeling it. I remember I got dead legged, which means my knee made contact with the defender's knee and my whole leg was in numbing pain. So I limped to the corner to get out of the play because my leg was killing me. But, sure enough, Colton drove to the basket and kicked it to me in the corner because my defender went to help, leaving me wide open. So there I was, wide open, under a few seconds to play, and I just drained it. Game winning three. It was awesome.
Now I bring that up because I don’t remember much from sixth grade. I don’t remember all my teachers, I don’t remember what I learned, but I do remember that shot. And the only reason I remember that shot is because I played that memory endlessly in my head after. I played it over and over and over again because I didn’t want to forget it. In fact, I even made a reminder on my phone that says ‘Feb 22 Buzzer Beater,’, which goes off every year on that day to remind me of the shot. And yes, I’m aware that’s weird but it was sixth grade and I really did not want to forget that shot, so extend me some grace haha.
Anyways, similar to me with that shot, whatever that fond memory is for you, I want you to picture quiet time in the same light. I want quiet time to be something that is so awesome every day that you play it in your mind constantly throughout your day because you don’t want to forget it.
Because, as evidenced by my sixth grade buzzer beater, what you bring to mind continuously you store into your heart.
And that process of bringing things to mind continuously is what we call meditation.
And the process of storing things in your heart is what we call memorization.
And that is the quiet time principle I want to talk about today. What I call the discipline of M&M. Meditation and memorization.
Now in this episode I’m going to break meditation and memorization up into two questions;
First: Why? Like why should we meditate and memorize Scripture? And then second: How? How do we meditate on and memorize Scripture?
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So firstly, why should we meditate on and memorize Scripture?
To me, there are five biblical reasons why we should meditate on and memorize Scripture: The first reason is threefold.
We meditate and memorize Scripture because it is valuable, profitable, and a means of equipping.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 says ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work’.
Now let’s break these verses down. First of all, we see Paul say that ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God’, meaning it is divine, which makes it of utmost value. I mean that’s huge! Like you want to talk about things that are worth remembering?!? How about something that is of God, that endures forever, and that is infallibly true? Like that’s worth remembering.
Truth is we spend so much time, whether we know it or not, meditating and remembering things of this world. We remember the high school we went to, we remember the rosters and records of our favorite sports teams, we even remember our orders at our favorite restaurants.
But all these things are passing away! Jesus says in Matthew 24:35 that ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not’.
God’s Word endures forever, and in Psalm 19 we’re told it is ‘much more desirable than gold, even much fine gold’. God’s Word is so valuable, and its value greatly exceeds anything of this world. And that alone makes it worth M&Ming.
But that leads me to the second reason to M&M Scripture found in this verse, and that is because it is profitable. Paul says the Scriptures are profitable for ‘teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness’. Now all four of these aspects, in one way or another, are connected to our character. So that means in a general sense Paul is saying that the Scriptures are profitable to our character. And that word ‘profitable’ that Paul uses in that verse he actually uses in his first letter to Timothy, saying in 1 Timothy 4:8 (King James Version) ‘For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come’ (emphasis mine).
Now in that verse Paul is saying godliness is profitable in every way, not just in our life now, but also in the eternal life that is to come. And this godliness, as John Piper writes, “this ‘godliness’ that is profitable in every way, even into eternity, is explained in 2 Timothy 3:16–17 as coming from Scripture”. Hear that.
Godliness that is profitable in every way comes from Scripture.
And the profitable effect of Scripture, the effect of growing in godliness, according to verse 17, is “that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” And that’s the third reason in these few verses in 2 Timothy to M&M Scripture. Those words at the end of verse 17 show us that the Word of God, through the helping of the Holy Spirit, can help us to discern and complete the good works that need to be done. And as I’m sure every one of you listening knows, there are plenty of good, redemptive, and restorative works that need to be done in our country and in our world, and the knowledge of Scripture equips us to do them.
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Now the second reason why we should meditate and memorize Scripture is so that we can be doers of it.
We meditate and memorize Scripture so we can be doers of it.
In Joshua 1:8 the LORD said to Joshua, ‘This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success’
Look at the middle part of that verse. God says that Johsua shall ‘meditate on the Word day and night, SO THAT…’ so that what? ‘…SO THAT he may be careful to do according to all that is written in it’ (emphases mine).
In other words, God is telling Joshua that he must be a knower of the Word before He can become a doer of the Word. He is basically saying ‘Joshua, you cannot do according to all that is written in my Word until you first know it - until you first meditate on it day and night’.
So to bring that together, this all means there is absolutely zero chance we can live according to the Word of God unless we know it. And the way we come to know it is by doing what? By meditating on it (or M&Ming it) continuously (or day and night).
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Now that leads me to the third reason why we should meditate and memorize Scripture, because I think it builds off the previous one, and that reason is because it keeps our way pure from sin.
We meditate and memorize Scripture because it helps keep our way pure from sin.
In Psalm 119:9 the Psalmist writes, ‘How can a young man keep his way pure?’ By guarding it according to your Word.’
Now this verse, as you may be able to tell, is talking about sin. The Psalmist is saying that we keep our way pure (or free of sin) before the Lord by living in accordance to the pure and divine Word given to us. I want you to notice that this verse doesn’t allude to us being able to keep ourselves pure…the Psalmist doesn’t say “How can a young man keep his way pure? By ‘living better’ or by ‘trying harder’ or by ‘willfully abstaining from bad things’”...he doesn’t say that.
He says here that we keep ourselves pure and we keep ourselves from sin by guarding it according to the Word of God.
And how does the Psalmist guard the Word of God to keep his way pure?
By memorizing it.
He says, v11 ‘I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you’.
Wow. I love that verse.
‘I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you’.
I mean shoot. I remember reading that almost a year ago and it hit me like a ton of bricks. And it hit me like a ton of bricks because at the time I hadn’t been memorizing Scripture to combat sin in my life and the temptations that led to it and so I was so convicted. On top of that, I remember becoming even more convicted as I read how Jesus kept His way pure and fought temptation in the wilderness in Matthew 4. In that chapter the enemy tempts Jesus three times, and each time Jesus responds saying ‘It……is……written’, and then proceeds to quote Scripture. I mean HELLO! Jesus fought temptation to sin through the quotation of the written Word of God.
So if we want to succeed against temptations to sin, and keep our way pure, just like Jesus did, we ought to know the Word. We ought to have it stored up in our heart just like He did, ready to fight temptation and keep our way pure.
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Now the fourth reason we M&M Scripture might be the biggest one, at least for me.
And that reason is because we LOVE it.
We meditate and memorize Scripture because we love it!
Psalm 119:97 says ‘Oh how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long’.
MAN! This Psalmist never ceases to stop bringing God’s Word to mind because of how much they love it!!!! Imagine that love real quick. Imagine the Psalmist going to bed with a giant smile on his face because tomorrow he’ll be getting up early to eagerly meditate on the Word. Imagine him smiling as he gets home from work because he now has more time to meditate on the Word of God. I don’t know about you but that’s a love for the Word I want to resemble.
The Psalmist here meditates on God’s Word because:
They enjoy it.
They feed off it.
They cannot get enough of it.
Meditation and memorization should not be homework. You’re not studying for a test. You’re abiding in love. That’s what M&M should flow from. A desire to abide in love. Meditation and memorization (M&M) should not come out of a place of ‘have to’ but a place of ‘want to’.
And if it doesn’t, that is something to pray for, because we should love the Word of God.
And we should meditate on the Word of God because we so deeply love the God who wrote it.
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Now the fifth and final reason why we M&M God’s Word, is because we SHARPEN THE SWORD.
We meditate and memorize Scripture because we sharpen the sword.
In Ephesians 6 Paul talks about putting on the whole armor of God, which all serve to defend and protect us and the Gospel. But he also lists one offensive weapon, just one, and that weapon, Paul writes in v17, is the ‘sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God’ (emphases mine).
I remember my Pastor saying to me a few months ago that the only way we make any advancement in the spiritual war raging on this earth is by speaking the Word of God.
Nothing, absolutely nothing other than that takes up any ground. Isn’t that crazy to think about? The Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, is the only offensive weapon we have. That means the more we meditate and memorize the Word of God, the sharper our sword gets.
In basketball terms, that means our bag gets deeper.
And for those who don’t get that, in basketball they say when a player has a lot of moves they can do and shots they can hit they have what’s called a ‘deep bag’. And I think we should all desire to have that with Scripture. We should want to have a deep bag of verses that the Holy Spirit can bring to our mind whenever He wants to. Just like how basketball players have a deep bag to score on offense and beat their defender, we should want a deep bag of stored Scripture to make ground against the defense in the spiritual war that we presently face.
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So, to recap that, we should meditate and memorize Scripture as part of our quiet time because:
Scripture is valuable, profitable, and a means of equipping (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Because we have to be knowers of the Word before we can be doers of the Word (Joshua 1:8)
Because M&M helps us fight temptation and keep our way pure (Psalm 119:9,11; Matthew 4)
We M&M Scripture because we just LOVE it (Psalm 119:97)
And lastly, we should M&M Scripture because it sharpens the Sword, which is our only offensive weapon (Ephesians 6).
Those are five reasons why we meditate and memorize Scripture, but they don’t answer how.
How do we meditate and memorize Scripture?
To me the answer is simple. We memorize by meditating. In my opinion, we get way too caught up in the goal of memorization that we forget about the needed goal of meditation, because memorization cannot exist without meditation. In the academic world, we call these differing goals ‘lead and lag goals’. The lag goal is the ultimate goal that we desire to achieve, whereas the lead goal is the impact goal that we must achieve in order to achieve the ultimate goal.
Take physical health as an example. Say you have a goal of gaining 5 pounds of muscle. Well in order to reach that goal of gaining 5 pounds of muscle, you have to first achieve the goal of lifting consistently.
So the lag goal, the ultimate goal there, is putting on 5 pounds of muscle.
And the lead goal, the impact goal, is lifting consistently.
Now in relation to meditation and memorization, the ultimate goal we have, or the lag goal, is memorization, because we want God’s word stored in our hearts, just like the Psalmist in Psalm 119. But in order to get there, we must first achieve the lead goal, the impact goal, which is meditation of Scripture.
Does that make sense? That means when it comes to memorizing Scripture, the goal isn’t necessarily memorization, the goal is meditation.
That’s why I call this discipline of quiet time meditation and memorization, with meditation coming first. We meditate AND the result is memorization. Our meditation turns to memorization.
Now I say all of this because from talking to many people on this subject, many of you who I know are reading, you would say you really struggle to memorize things. And that may be true, but I think if you’re thinking that way you’re missing the point. In Psalm 1 it says ‘Blessed is the one who meditates on the Word day and night’. And again back to Joshua 1:8 God commands Joshua to ‘meditate’ on His Word day and night, and that when he does, God says in the end of that verse ‘then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success’.
God is very clear in His Word that blessings are on the head of those who meditate on His Word. Now I’m not saying God does not bless those who memorize God’s Word, I’m just saying that God loves and blesses those whose minds are constantly pondering and beholding (there’s that word again), beholding His Word. And we can all do that. Sure, you may not be able to remember as much as someone else, but you can still spend time constantly bringing God’s Word to mind.
And if you’re still wondering how…like how can I meditate on God’s Word? How can I constantly bring it to mind?
Listen, I know you’re busy. I am too. We’re all busy and most if not all of us don’t have 30 minutes to just sit down and meditate on a verse. But here’s what we all have. We all have in between moments in our day that we can capitalize on. We can spend a few minutes meditating on a Bible verse instead of scrolling through instagram. We can spend a few minutes meditating on Scripture as we walk to class, or as we drive to work. We can spend a few minutes meditating on Scripture as we put our makeup on in the mirror. There really are so many in between moments that add up throughout the day, and if you were to take those moments to meditate on Scripture, you would be surprised at how much you memorize.
So think about it…what are your in-between moments that you could spend meditating on a verse instead of doing other tasks? Is it while you walk to class? Is it while you get ready in the morning? Is it while you drive to work?
For me, my biggest in-between moments are my twenty minute walks to and from class. So what I do to capitalize on those moments is I write down Scripture that sticks out to me from my Bible reading on index cards. I write down the verse, I write down its meaning, and then I take that card everywhere with me, continually reading and beholding it, thinking about what the verse means and storing that to heart.
If you do the math there that means by meditating on God’s Word in between my walk to and from class I’m getting an extra 40 minutes meditating on the Word, and from personal experience what I’ve found is that if I use that time to meditate on just one verse it is always memorized by the time I’m home.
And I encourage you to do something similar. You could write Scripture on index cards like me or record voice memos or write them on sticky notes and put them on your bathroom mirror.
Whatever will help you bring Scripture to mind constantly throughout the day, whatever will help you capitalize on your in-between moments, I encourage you to do that. Because, again, from all we’ve just talked about, there is nothing better you can do. And if you’re listening and you are still convinced that meditation won’t help you memorize Scripture, if you don’t think you can M&M, I would encourage you by saying ‘if you can remember your Chick-fil-a order, you can remember a bible verse’. Truly.
‘If you can remember your Chick-fil-a order, you can remember a bible verse’.
Now for the next episode we will talk about the discipline of prayer in quiet time.
See you then.
I love you all.
God bless.
