Memorizing scripture is not an easy spiritual discipline, but it’s definitely a fruitful one.

Below are tips and resources for memorizing Bible verses and chapters, reviews on books about memory, lists of verses to learn, and more.

1. TIPS

• 31 Days of “Tools to Memorize a Bible Chapter“
• 10 tips to memorize a Bible chapter
• Using first letters
• 5 helps for memorizing Bible verses
• Do the first thing
• 3-step review
• How to make a Bible notebook
• How to memorize scripture with mental maps

2. RESOURCES

• Facebook memory group, Hide His Word
• Scripture Typer
• Favorite Bible verses/chapters to memorize
• Classic memory verses
• Memory verses for trips (and free printable)
• Do Not Depart memory challenges
• Fighter verses

3. BOOK REVIEWS

• His Word in My Heart, Janet Pope
• Memory Rescue and Stones of Remembrance, Daniel G. Amen
• Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer

4. REFLECTIONS

• 5 reasons to not give up
• Memorizing a little is more than none
• No regrets for memorizing
• Say yes to memorizing
• To my daughter…memorizing grace
• Why do you do it?
• A midnight habit
• Who do you quote?
• Turn on the light – Memorizing scripture

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Please share any tips or experiences you have with memorizing Bible verses.

“If I had to summarize the entirety of an enlightened person’s life in a few words, it would be complete acceptance of what is. As we accept what is, our minds are relaxed and composed while the world changes rapidly around us.”
– Sunim Haemin, from The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down

The Weight of Distance

I am sitting at my kitchen table, with the greeting card in one hand and my pen in another. As I write down a birthday wish, I carefully measure each word I choose. I keep it intentionally short, hoping my brevity will make my message more likely to be read, more likely to be heard in the heart I’m hoping to reach.

I sign my name and lick the envelope closed.

Then I break. I crumble to the floor in a heap and wail.

I want to be in person to deliver this birthday wish, just as I want to be in person for ballgames, for Christmas gatherings, for an ordinary occasional picnic in the park.

But these things are no longer an option.

An Unexpected Theme in Memory

I stay on the floor a few minutes. I feel the weight of all I’m missing by this distance. But I can’t linger here forever, so I force myself up.

I check what’s next on my to-do list: “Memory practice.” I look up my list of words to review today.

And for the first time, I notice a theme among the poems and quotes I’m memorizing. It’s not a theme I consciously chose at the beginning of this year (if so, it would have been Curiosity, my One Word of the Year), but oddly enough, or curiously enough, perhaps this unconscious theme has been choosing me.

For example, this week’s words are:

“There is one thing in life that you can always rely on: life being as it is.”
– Charlotte Joko Beck

Last week’s words were:

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.”
– Joseph Campbell

I’m still curious. I glance back at other quotes I’ve been memorizing.

Two months ago I began memorizing:

“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
– Vaclav Havel

And in February, I’d chosen:

“Accept—then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy.”
– Eckhart Tolle

Choosing Acceptance, Again and Again

Yes. There is definitely a theme weaving through these pieces: Choose acceptance.

I know I’ve been resisting, struggling to accept what life has placed before me, clinging to things I wish were different. I still don’t want to believe how things have unraveled. Big things. And then smaller things that also changed, as they rippled out in the wake of the bigger things.

Yet the words on my memorization list urge me forward, encouraging me to face the reality that is here, not the dream I had planned. Make the best of what is, not what could have been.

I turn again to the lines I’m committing to memory, words that almost feel like a plea:

“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:
There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
or, you will be taught how to fly.”
– Patrick Overton

With these words echoing in my heart, I put on my shoes and walk outside to the mailbox as it waits for me. I place the birthday card inside the box, raise the small red flag, and send the card on its way with all my love into the darkness of the unknown, trusting that it, too, will land somewhere solid, into the places I can’t be.

And if it can’t land there, I trust that it will somehow learn to fly, just as I am having to learn. One day at a time. One quote at a time.

Share your thoughts in the comments.

If you find yourself needing to derail anxious thoughts, think on better things, or stay present in this moment, you’re invited to . 

Beginning June 5, a group of us will memorize Jesus’s message from Matthew 6:25-34 about anxiety. 

We’ll go slow—one verse per week—but we’ll be steady. See the full schedule here. 

You’re also invited to join our private Facebook group, Hide His Word. It’s for anyone who likes to memorize scripture (not just this Matthew 6 challenge but any verses) and wants extra camaraderie.  

So if you want some help to keep life into perspective, sign up now to receive the weekly email reminder for 10 weeks, plus links to all our free resources to memorize Matthew 6:25-34, such as 3×5 cards, one-page texts, journal pages, etc.

Sign up today for our summer challenge.

Questions? Share your thoughts in the comments.

I’m linking at these blog parties

Grace & Truth Featured Post

How do you do laundry? Wash/dry/put away all in the same day? Or do you leave a load in the washer and unfolded clothes on the couch for days on end?

But what about the laundry of life? Do you have unhealthy relationships or patterns of thinking or unhealed wounds that also need putting away?

Read all of Katherine’s post at Candidly Christian on putting away all types of laundry, then link up your own blog posts below.

“It’s Time to Put Away Our Laundry”

Review the rules here about adding your most recent Christian Living posts and how to be the Featured Post. Visit all four hosts social media here or websites here: Maree Dee, Lisa notes, Lauren Sparks, Tammy Kennington.

Now Let’s Link Up!

This is our last memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge. This week is Romans 8:39.

nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:39

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This week’s memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge is Romans 8:38.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
Romans 8:38

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This week’s memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge is Romans 8:37.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8:37

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This week’s memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge is Romans 8:31.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:31

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This week’s memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge is Romans 8:28.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28

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This week’s memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge is Romans 8:26.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Romans 8:26

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This week’s memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge is Romans 8:15.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
Romans 8:15

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This week’s memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge is Romans 8:1.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 8:1

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