As a parent, as a believer.... Getting the Word IN you, I believe is of upmost importance. Since walking with Yah, this is something that has been near and dear to me. Since we, as a family, came into knowing more and more Truth, even more so, we see the need for keeping the Word in your heart, in your thoughts, daily "renewing your mind".
As a family, we enjoy listening to audio dramas. We do not watch TV and very rarely watch a movie. We do enjoy reading books individually and together as a family and listen to audio dramas. If you have never heard of audio dramas, I would say it is like watching a movie without the screen. You will hear the sword fighting, crashing of dishes, the English accent of the actor, the weeping sobs of the widow... You can really begin to imagine the story with the sounds of the "audio" drama.
We had noticed that everyone was able to quote lines from audio dramas and give such dramatic notion with it but when it came to quoting scripture...not so much. Do not get me wrong, we all love reading the Scriptures together and each of us seeing many connections throughout the scriptures! Throughout a week we will share what scriptures are touching us specifically. However, when it came to memorizing and reciting scripture... book, chapter, verse, as I like to say. ;-) It was not happening at any regular intervals. So what do we do... We change that!
We decided that as a family we would begin memorizing scripture together. We are only a few weeks into it but it has already been a blast. Just today, one member was adding an Australian accent to the verse we are memorizing this week! That is a joy to hear.
We truly desire to create a culture that we, as a family, are constantly striving to bring Yahuah into our midst and be apart of our lives with every facet. We have to be intentional on this. If we see something that is not adding Him into to His rightful place in our lives, we need to make choices to put Him there! Period. Sure this is not easy but once you begin and set a standard...it will get easier. Do not give up, keep trying!
--> "For seven times a righteous man falls and rises, But the wrong one stumbles into evil." Proverbs (Mishlĕ) 24:16 <--
I am one to set my standard low to start. Why? Because I like to attain my goals. I have the bigger picture in mind but I set smaller goals to reach the bigger one. Hopefully, that makes sense. So here is what we are doing. We started with making a list of favorites verses everyone enjoys personally. We have a dry erase marker board that we use...for everything (daily chores, checklists, Scripture verses we enjoyed, doodling, leaving notes for each other, etc.). We had a starting list of about 10 or so verses or group of verses to memorize. That will take us about 10 weeks to complete. One set of verses to memorize every week as a family. We start on Tuesday evening (3rd cycle of the week) with the new verse. We picked that day because everyone gathers that night , we eat dinner and read scripture together. Each one of us, writes the verse to be memorized on a 3x5" index card. We will all have our own copy and already begin to get the verses in us by writing it down. The goal is by Shabbat (7th cycle of the week) we ALL have it memorized.
During these days, everyone is responsible to memorize the verse. We, as a family, will certainly encourage each other along the way with some examples like this: "Hey, how are you doing on this week's verse?" One member was not remembering the verses, so over the course of the day they wrote the verses down on paper over and over again, totaling about 5 times writing it. They had it memorized. I have added a musical tune to remember some of them. Some added an English accent or a beggars accent to the verses. Others find "key" words in the verse to be "markers" or visionary points to help them remember. What has been neat is seeing everyone use them for themselves but then also sharing their helpful tips with each other and it is encouraging us all to remember even more!
So now we have a verse memorized but how do we keep that in our brain and our heart long-term? During the week, as we memorize, we have encouraged everyone to read the sounding verses and really the whole chapter of the verse's location. I believe this helps us with understanding the verse more than just "memorizing words". These Words we are reading, reciting and learning bring life to us, to our very being. Two verses come to mind on this thought.
The first is Deuteronomy (Debarim) 32:47, which reads:
"For it is not a worthless Word for you, because it is your life, and by this Word you prolong your days on the soil which you pass over the Yardĕn to possess."
The other is Leviticus 18:4 & 5:
"Do My right-rulings and guard My laws, to walk in them. I am יהוה your Elohim. And you shall guard My laws and My right-rulings, which a man does and lives by them. I am יהוה."
scripture by just daily recitation. Basically, you have a verse you work on memorizing daily, once that is mastered you move that verse to an "ODD" or "EVEN" day, then move on to anther verse to memorize for daily. Once that is memorized you use each "DAY" (cycle) of the week to put a memorized verse. Eventually, you will have different verse you recite daily based on the date (odd or even) and the day (cycle). We did this for a quite a bit, years ago and it is amazing how fast you can memorize scripture with this system! Click this link to take you to the Simply Charlotte website and see for yourself.