Milking and Memorizing

 Today, as I was milking my goats, I did what I often do. I turned my favorite game on to play as I finished out each goat. (Finishing only takes one hand!)

As I was turning the game on, I had a small argument with myself. I know I would spend more time reviewing my memorized verses if I quit playing that game. But the game is fun, and relaxing, and satisfying. There is some value to it, especially for a person like me who is always on the go, trying to accomplish things. I felt peace about playing the game in these few minutes of time, even though I do want to also get on top of all of my previously memorized verses so I can say them perfectly, always. (See what I mean about lofty goals?)

Well, the game wouldn't turn on, because the wi-fi wasn't reaching the barn. So, I turned on my Bible memory app, which doesn't require wi-fi. And had a new idea – From here on out, maybe I should discipline myself to say 10 passages correctly before going on to my game.

So, I did 10, and then another to make it an even 40 in the "known" column.

When reviewing verses, I only hit a few perfectly, so I probably went through 30 or more passages to get those 11 out perfectly. And in going through all of that scripture, the Lord reminded me of a few things I had forgotten. As a result of those sweet reminders, my heart was softened, and quite a bit of prayer was also offered from that stool in my little goat barn in responses to the things He was reminding me of through His Word. I did a few more verses correctly, before trying my game again.

Well, my phone still couldn't connect to the wi-fi well enough for the game to turn on! "Oh well," I thought, "I'll just go back to my verse!" My verses were suddenly seeming like the thing I'd rather do anyway.

It takes me about an hour to milk right now, because I'm getting about 3 quarts out of 5 does, and it just takes that much time to do it, between switching goats between stalls, feeding, and tethering one back leg to remind them to cooperate, and doing the actual milking! Since memory review does not take a hand, most of the time, and I could do it for most of that hour, by the end, I had said 28 passages correctly. The Lord had reminded me that I'm not living for the "here and now", that there IS blessing in the work He's calling me to, that heaven is my very real reward, to praise Him in the midst of the people He has placed around me (like David purposed to praise Him in the midst of the congregation), and that God is working HIS PERFECT PURPOSES through all of my trials and personal heartaches. In addition to praying, I also found my heart was happier, and I was actually singing different songs the verses were reminding me of!

I came in truly refreshed, and ready to face another day, WITH the Lord.



I don't like talking about myself. But I wanted to share just this one little a glimpse into my life today. I want to encourage my Christian brothers and sisters to TAKE THE TIME to be in God's Word!

If I hadn't taken the time to originally memorize these passages, I wouldn't be able to sit down and fly through so many, so quickly, and I would have missed ALL of the things the Lord encouraged me with this morning. (I would have remained discouraged with life!)

Since I have been SO BLESSED by how God has used Bible memory in my life, I try to encourage others to memorize verses. The most common response is that people think they "can't" memorize, because God hasn't blessed them with a mind that can remember.

When I was a teen, I also thought I couldn't memorize. Then my church did a Sunday School contest on memorizing. At the beginning of those few weeks, I was writing the verse out, over and over again, in my notebook. It was tedious work, because memorizing was HARD. But by the end of those weeks, I had learned HOW to memorize, and that I could acutually do it quite well.

Eventually I learned that I could memorize 1-3 new verses a day, and retain them (all) with review, but I had to give it time. (Probably around 3 hours a week.)

What I encourage people to do is to TRY and memorize, and see what your abilities are, and work with them!

And, even more importantly, don't spend all of that effort to memorize a verse, only to never think about it again and loose it. Review, review, review! It takes MUCH less effort to review already-memorized verses than to learn a new one, and I have found the Lord uses those already memorized verses MORE than the new ones anyway!

I am convinced that people who are blessed with enough ability to speak and function normally in life can also, at the very least, memorize a verse a month. I think most people could handle a verse a week. And some people might be able to do more! But most Christians do not try. And then they miss the ENTIRE blessing of the Holy Spirit reminding them of the most precious lessons God has taught them in life, just because they (like me this morning) don't want to give Him a little bit of their time. We end up living like babies, stuck in whatever the current trial is, instead of remembering the things He's been teaching us and moving forward, in our spiritual lives.

Please, friends, try it and see. Take the verse that God has used in your life most recently, and memorize it. Write it on a slip of paper, and put it in your pocket to look at throughout the day/week/month. Commit it to memory, with YOUR abilities, on the time-table God lays on YOUR heart, and let this be the beginning of you "hiding God's Word in your heart", and giving Him one of the most effective tools to teach YOU about HIS WAYS, applying, again and again, His truth to your life as you add verse after verse (12 a year! Or 52 if you go for one a week!) to your arsenal of personally learned and applied truth from His Word.

God WILL use it in your life, and you will wonder why you haven't been utilizing this all along!

If you already have memorized passages of scripture, better yet! Add whatever it is God is teaching you with today, and begin reviewing what you already know. You will be so blessed.

I'll end with one of my favorite verses. (And, yes, one that was up for review today!)

"For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see light." (Psalm 36:9)

Friends, we get so twisted up in our own thoughts as we go through life. With God is the fountain of life. We can only see his light (which is the only REAL light) through Him. Since He communicates to us through His Word, WE NEED TO BE IN HIS WORD. When we read it, we usually think about it once. When we memorize it, we think about it again and again, and our (unstable) hearts NEED this.

Try it.

Defining God

 (Words from God, to Ezekiel)

"And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: 'Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?' Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 33:10-11)

God loved His chosen people, Israel. But instead of loving Him back, they rejected Him, again and again. They turned to idol worship, even though they KNEW the one, true God, the creator of the universe! They delighted in what God called sin. They broke His law.

God sent prophets to warn them, and they did not listen.

God continued to leave the way open for the people to turn back to Him.



I find it so interesting that today, a common cry against God, is that He can't be real, because He allows "bad" in our lives. (While taking the liberty of defining this "bad".) These people have forgotten that God is a Person. He was already a Person before the world existed! He was a Person before we existed. He continues to be who He is, and He will continue to be that same Person throughout all of eternity.

There is a very large gap between us and God. He is bigger than us. He is above us. He is holy and just and righteous. We (as in, the first man, Adam) sinned, and we have been cut off from God. BUT! He has written to us in the Bible. The gap can be bridged! In this Book we can find all we need to know about God in this world! (Amazing!)

I just love verses like this one here in Ezekiel, that reveal part of the heart of God. Does he take joy in the bad in our lives? No, clearly, He does not!

Now, these verses were referring to a specific context. Israel, as a nation, was being judged for their sin and rejection of their God. They had been taken into captivity by their enemies. Most of the people had been moved to a far-away nation. Only the poor remained in the land. Their enemies were in complete control of everything - they just had to do what they were told and find a way to get through.

God was judging them, because He wanted them back. He wanted their hearts. He wanted THEM to turn to HIM.

Did He want them to die? No, he did not! But it was very important to Him that they know Him. Their punishment (and death of many in the process of it all!) was God trying to reach their sinful hearts and get them to turn. Through all of this, His plea was, "Turn back, turn back from your evil ways!" This was what He wanted, above all! But the people were, at the time of this judgement, unwilling. And God followed through with His judgement. (There was promise for the future, and an open door for them to return to Him, but this would be far too much to grapple with all at once.)

Thankfully, for us, He is also merciful, and very often we get to live out our entire lives with Him pleading, "Turn, turn back from your evil ways!" At any point, any person can turn from their sin, and be reconciled to their Creator! THIS is the heart of God. He wants US.

Now, back to the accusations I hear against God so often in our day:

Since God is supposed to be good, and yet lets bad things happen, He must not be good. (or real, or I don't want anything to do with Him, or whatever the argument of the moment might be.)

To those of you who feel these things, I would like to say, I hear your frustration. I have so often felt your frustration! I know many of you are crying out with bleeding hearts. You have lost a child, or your health, or there has been a tragedy or heartache that feels too big for you to handle. I am sorry for your pain. (And God cares about your pain too! But again, there's not enough space here to hit all of that!)

To be honest, I, too, have wished I could define God. Sometimes I wish I could control God. (This is sin.) Most of us would make God serve us. We tend to make ourselves the center of our own universe, and, if we could, we would make GOD, our Creator, serve us. (This is also sin - see the first commandment in Exodus 17!)

But God was here before we were. He set up a world, and He held the right to set up the rules. He holds the right to keep those rules in place. (And, when you look at those rules, they are good rules.) He has a right to enforce these rules. He has said certain things are sin, and they are sin. He has given mankind a choice, and He pleads with them to come to Him, to obey Him, and to love Him!

Do most people do this?

The Bible say, "The gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many." (Matthew 7:13) Most people close their ears to God's call, and choose to serve themselves over God. This selfishness leads to sin, and this sin leads to judgement.

Since we don't have eyes to see the unseen world, we can't put everything into neat little categories, and we often don't know why the "bad" is happening. But we know, from God's Word to us, God does control all things. (ALL THINGS! No exceptions!)

We know that some of the "bad", some of the tragedies, wars, and disasters, are Him pleading, "Turn, turn!" Some are judgements of sin, even  judgements of a nations' sin. Some are both!

We also know from His Word that some of the "bad" is just set up as a means for His glory and praise. (John 9:3) This is a second broad category of the reason we might come to "bad" in our lives.

There is also "bad" that, from God's perspective, is actually good! He may using something difficult in your life to teach things that yield eternal benefit. He may be using your trouble to show others what faith looks like. He may be giving direction to your life that to you, now, seems bad, but you will appreciate later! There are so many ways that we misunderstand things for "bad" that are actually GOOD things straight from the hand of the Lord. 

A fourth category of "bad" is, I suspect, the most common. Other's sin has consequences. Since God has set up a world in which He asks people to turn to Him, and had given people the choice, the ones who choose to serve themselves end up sinning in ways that affect others. Remember Jonah, who, when fleeing from God's command, almost caused the sinking of a boat filled with other people who had nothing to do with his sin?

Some of us want to cry out that these things are not fair. But that is the point of this little post. We aren't the ones who get to decide that! God is!

To the broken heart that is struggling: Please just hear God's heart. "Turn, turn from your evil ways", and LIVE. Stop fighting Him. Stop running. Turn to the only One who can truly help you in your hour of need.

Is life fair? No. Is life always fun? No. Is life full of heartache? Sometimes. But the One who knows all things is calling to you. Turn to Him, and live.

As to how to live out the rest of your life in a fallen world - give all of your fears to God, and follow him. Give Him each heartache. Trust Him.

 You will continue to feel pain, because, in this life, "bad" will keep happening. But there is a life to come! We have a Savior! We have been loved with everlasting love. He continues to call to us. He wants us. THIS, my friends, is joy.

Hear Him calling, and answer Him.