Hack Your Mind

When I was in high school my youth pastor had us memorize a lot of scripture. Scripture teaches that it is like a lamp, a tea-light of sorts, illuminating just enough ahead of us to make a step. The author of Hebrews tells us that scripture can and will dissect every isolated pride, insecurity, and sin; every relationship, vision, and enterprise; and every thought, gut-churn, and every intention. I can't recite verbatim every passage I have once memorized. Sometimes I spit out a verse and you won't find it in any Bible because I've mixed up 3 different translations. Nevertheless, in specific times, those verses committed to memory are brought to the front of my attention. I want to be obsessed with scripture, to live and breath it. A couple years ago I got the notion to memorize an entire Gospel, and I decided on John because it showcases the person of Jesus. I compulsively jumped into memorizing it, got through about half of the first chapter and stopped *that is what my compulsive behavior does, starts and never finishes.* The deal is that the desire to memorize the Gospel has never left me. So this week, I began again, with a new understanding that I don't have to memorize a chapter a week *I am an extremist* and be done in 21 days, but simply incorporate it into a lifestyle of memorization and one day I might just be able to know the entire Gospel of John by heart. The cool thing is that as I started in on "In the beginning was the word..." what I had already memorized quickly came back.

"...and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.