Chapter 4.
Getting Scripture into the Imagination
The wise store up knowledge.
(Proverbs 10:14)
For those needing a little extra courage to take the plunge into Scripture memory (or into any other endeavor), consider our granddaughter, Chloe, age nine. Here’s an e-mail our daughter Victoria sent to us last night about their outing to the YMCA.(Proverbs 10:14)
With our son-in-law Ethan in Iraq with U.S. forces, Victoria and her seven girls have taken advantage of a free membership our local YMCA gives military families. This week they’ve gone swimming in the evenings.
Victoria wrote, “We ate pizza for supper and went to the Y. It was a good way to end the week. On Tuesday the oldest four, with the exception of Chloe, took the swimming test so they could go into the deep end. Chloe struggled and struggled in the shallow end with me. She finally came over to me and said, ‘Mom, I’m disappointed in myself that I don’t have enough faith in myself to try.’
So I told her three things:
(1) that even if she never takes the plunge, she is just as special, and I love her just as much as if she passes a thousand swimming tests;
(2) that she should use her mind and imagine herself doing it over and over until she believes it;
(3) that the Lord is the One who helps us conquer fears because He is bigger and stronger and He gives us strength on the inside.
She mulled all of it over and never took the test. Later that evening she told me she was imagining herself doing the swimming test. She struggled all night with this inner battle, and I just had to let her. There wasn’t anything I could do except let her struggle through the process.
“Tonight we had only been at the pool about ten minutes, and she came over to me and told me she was taking it and marched right to the lifeguard and told him. She swam from the deep end to the shallow end beautifully. I quickly had to wipe my tears so she didn’t see me cry. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of her. That’s my girl!”
I think Victoria’s advice will work in any pool we’re in. We tap into a powerful force whenever we combine prayer, imagination, and initiative. Most professional athletes now have mental coaches who help them train through visualization, and I’ve read about Olympians who were sidelined by injuries yet ended up winning the gold or silver because they continued training in their minds when they couldn’t do so with their bodies. One diver visualized every second of her routine day after day, using intense, focused concentration. She recovered from the disabled list just in time for the games, and she ended up on the winner’s platform.
Just last week I finished the biography of a man who spent several years in a POW camp in North Vietnam. He was an avid golfer, and every afternoon he played a full eighteen holes in his mind. Using a stick, he walked around his tiny cell, swinging his arms as best he could. He saw himself getting in the golf cart and chugging to the next hole. He visualized every swing of every hole. When he finally returned home, he took up his game as if he’d never been interrupted.
All this demonstrates the power of meditation, the potential of visualization, and the truth of the proverbial adage, “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7 KJV).
Who created our brains with their incredible complexity?
Who gave us the ability of painting frescos on the walls of our mind? Who made the imagination?
I’m not really an advocate of the philosophy that sloganizes, “If you can conceive it and believe it, you’ll receive it.”
It’s not that automatic or naive. But the Lord certainly wants us to contemplate His Word in our minds, using all the mental powers He gave us. Our minds are an amazing bit of God’s creative genius. They process thought, but they also visualize and imagine. The daydreams and fantasies of our fallen natures are often harmful; but there’s tremendous power in the sanctified use of imagination and visualization.
Scripture memory allows us to practice spiritual contemplation. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37, we must love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, and minds.
- “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Eph. 4:23 NKJV, emphasis mine here and in the following verses).
- “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isa. 26:3 NKJV).
- “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5 NKJV).
- “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:2 NKJV).
- “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:5-6 NKJV).
- “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7 NKJV).
- “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13 NKJV).
- And Romans 12:2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
The same hand can write a positive, hope-filled message of life on the walls of our
intellects whenever we learn the Scriptures by heart.
The apostle Paul told us in Colossians 3:16 to let the Word of God dwell in us richly; and in the Old Testament the Lord promised, “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jer. 31:33 NKJV).
Listen to this translation of Deuteronomy 6:4-7: “Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only true God! So love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. Memorize his laws and tell them to your children over and over again” (CEV).
Deuteronomy 11:18 says, “Memorize these laws and think about them” (CEV).
And Psalm 119:11 says, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (NKJV).
Scripture memory enables us to maintain our mental equilibrium and spiritual vitality. We can see the Scripture in our minds, picturing its scenes, hearing its words as if spoken just to us, rolling them over in our minds like rocks in a tumbler. We’re transported to green pastures, still waters, Galilean storms, Judeans hills, Roman jails, golden streets, and to the very throne of God Himself.
When you memorize biblical texts, you’re putting frames around the verses and hanging them on the walls of your inner library. And you’ll find as you visualize them that you’re always in the picture.
One night I was worried about someone I loved. At length I knew I had to get some sleep, for staying up all night wouldn’t help the situation; it’d only leave me exhausted the next day when I needed fresh energy to deal with it. I couldn’t relax in bed, but I thought I might be able to rest on the sofa if only I could corral my runaway thoughts. But my mind wouldn’t cooperate, imagining the worst and visualizing every terrible scenario.
Finally I decided to manhandle my thoughts and force them in a different direction.
Tossing on the sofa, I began to repeat the Twenty-third Psalm, which I had memorized many years before:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me. (KJV)
When I got to the end, I started again from the beginning. My mind began to visualize those green pastures, to see and sense the Good Shepherd, to know His presence in the dark valley, to claim His promises of goodness and mercy.As my mind relaxed, so did my body; and I was able to sleep.
Later I thought to myself, What if I had never known Psalm 23?
What if someone had not led me to memorize Psalm 23 when I was in the second grade?
What would I have done?
Where would I have turned?
Many people have told me of experiencing the same peace while contemplating Psalm 23 word by word; and just today I read in the newspaper about a man who, during a time of deepest trouble, quoted the Twenty-third Psalm to himself 100 times in a single day.
Dr. Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania is perhaps the world’s foremost expert on optimism and motivation. In his groundbreaking book, Learned Optimism, he suggests that depression is primarily the result of wrong thinking. He writes, “Depression... is caused by conscious negative thoughts. There is no deep underlying disorder to be rooted out: not unresolved childhood conflicts, not our unconscious anger, and not even our brain chemistry. Emotion comes directly from what we think: Think ‘I am in danger’ and you feel anxiety. Think ‘I am being trespassed against’ and you feel anger. Think ‘Loss’ and you feel sadness.... If we change these habits of thought, we will cure depression.”
Scripture memory is our most powerful tool in changing our habits of thought, and the internalized truths of God’s Word keep us mentally healthy. It’s the greatest secret I know to personal resiliency. It molds our thoughts, and our thoughts shape our lives; for as we think in our hearts, so we are.
If our “little gray cells” are such an important thing about us, and if the Holy Scriptures are the very thoughts of God Himself, then Bible verses represent the most healing, clarifying, bolstering, uplifting data we can insert into our brains. The power of Scripture is unlike anything else on earth. It’s a force to be reckoned with, containing intrinsic power, high enough to give us insight, deep enough to give us peace, wide enough to mold our personalities, and strong enough to bear us through horrendous days.
Someone once told me that Scripture memory accelerates the transformation process in our lives. It’s like a special additive that exponentially increases the efficiency of sanctification. By internalizing Bible verses, we’re mainstreaming God’s thoughts into our conscious, subconscious, and unconscious logic.
I don’t know about you, but that’s what I constantly need.
* 100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart.
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