Siesta Scripture Memory Team: Verse 12!

WE’VE MADE IT HALFWAY, SIESTAS! This is verse 12 of our 24! Can you believe it? I am so stinking proud of you that I don’t know what to do. And there is no doubt in my mind that God is as pleased with this pursuit as anything we’ve ever done on this blog. I’ve enjoyed it like crazy.

I’ve practiced Scripture memory and used index cards for many years but now, when I recite my verses, I think of so many of you out there doing exactly the same thing. I picture you darling college girls, a bunch of you single siestas, tons of you busy moms, and a terrific band of grandmoms all practicing your Scriptures as you balance the demands of your crazy lives. I think of all our Canadian Scripture memory-siestas and our beloved missionaries in other countries and how they sometimes record their verses in their new languages. There’s so much joy and motivation in community.

I keep thinking about a woman I met at the Pittsburgh event. She’d made the life altering decision to receive Jesus Christ as her personal Savior and I had the joy of getting to visit with her and pray over her for a few minutes. In her lap, she was holding a very nice large leather Bible still in the box. She had the top off the box and had stacked it underneath so that the Bible was in open displayed.

“Did you just get that beautiful new Bible here at the event?"

She rubbed the leather on the top of it then took it out of the box for me to smell how wonderfully aromatic it was. She shook her head and said, “No, I’ve had it for a while. Isn’t it beautiful?”

I could have cried. She’d brought it to the event in the box so it wouldn’t get messed up. I’d never seen anyone do that before in all these years of speaking. Her reverence for that Bible was stunning and, yet, there was something also very childlike about her. I didn’t think it was going to do much good to try to talk her into scribbling all over those gorgeous gold leaf pages so we offered her another Bible, a hardback Life Application NIV, so she’d feel like she could ruffle it up, mark verses, and write in the margins. I don’t know if she will or not.

Isn’t that the paradox of the whole thing? Sacred words etched on the page by the breath of God so folks like us with feet of clay can wallow all over them. Not just live by them but live on them. Not just thrive through them but sometimes, in tragedy and storm, survive through them. Life lived with Bible out of the box, off the shelf, flipped wide open and pressed to the heart.

And committed to memory. That’s how we press it to the head.

I’m working on the second half of my June 1st portion out of Psalm 112 NIV. Here are Vv.4-8:
Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.

Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.

Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever.

He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting the Lord.

His heart is secure, he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.

OK, Siestas, hit it! Let’s have your Verse 12! Name, city, verse and translation!

DILIGENCE, SIESTAS! DILIGENCE!