My Word, My Heart

My father insisted his boys memorize Psalm 2 word for word from the King James Bible. The first line reads, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” The text is filled with strange words in unfamiliar order, and the concepts are tough to assimilate.

But I learned it anyway and can recite it word for word to this day.
The picture from Psalm 2 of God laughing has visited me at many opportune moments. When tempted to defy God’s word, these words scroll before me: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.’ He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.”

This memorized word kept me from defiant actions against God more than once. I did not want God to “vex” me “in his sore displeasure.”

My text for this Sunday (June 27, 2010), Psalm 119:9-16, I also memorized as part of Dad’s creative club activity for boys in the church, “Hawley Loyal Legionnaires.” I was loyal, and I received a lot of patches on my jacket for memorizing those verses as a seven-year-old.

“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.” That is how Psalm 119:9 goes in my mind. I learned early that if I heeded the word of God, not just memorized it, I would live a cleaner life.

Memorizing Bible verses at that tender age embedded God’s truth in my mental, moral and spiritual development. It is not a cure-all or a certain guarantee of faithfulness to God. But hiding the word deep in your heart surely will change both your ROM (read only memory) and your RAM (random access memory).

The word of God “is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). Hide this in your heart, and you are ready for battle.