I began committing the Bible to memory just a few weeks after my conversion to Christ during my junior year in college in 1982, so I have now been memorizing Scripture for more than forty years. I can easily say this has been the most beneficial spiritual discipline in my life.

Day after day, Scripture memory keeps my mind on the glories and details of God’s perfect words rather than on the muck that the world, the flesh, and the devil would have me wallow in. Since I have been so lavishly blessed by this practice, I regularly advocate it to my brothers and sisters in Christ. Almost without exception, they genuinely want to memorize Scripture. They see the obvious blessings. Even still, many also confess to a regular pattern of making excuses for not beginning (or continuing) the practice. And we shouldn’t be surprised, for Satan wages war against everything the Spirit leads us to do in our journey toward Christlikeness — and all the more if that work is so threatening to his dark empire.

So, what kinds of excuses have you raised against Bible memory? Let me list some I’ve heard (and fought personally) again and again, and then attempt to help you over each one. My desire is to fill your arsenal with weapons of righteousness that have the power to demolish Satan’s strongholds against this beautiful labor of Scripture memorization so that you will be equipped to take every rebellious thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3–5).

1. “I don’t have a very good memory.”

The human brain is perhaps the most complex and astonishing physical creation God has made. It has as many neural interconnections as there are leaves in the Amazon rainforest!

Part of that amazing creation is our memory — the ability to recall the past so we can live well in the present. If you are able to read this article and understand it, you have a good enough mind to memorize Scripture. While you may not have a world-class memory (or even a memory as good as some of your friends’ memories), you have a much better memory than you think you have.

Consider that you have countless facts committed to memory: the vast vocabulary your parents taught you, the words to countless songs stuck in your head (even songs you hate), people’s names, their birthdays, capital cities, street names, and so on. If your mind can hold all of that information, sometimes over decades, it has the power and capacity to begin storing up the words of God. And beyond the capacities of your mind, Christ can right now open your mind so that you will understand and remember more of his word. Ask the Lord to do this for you!

What’s more, your memory ability will grow the more you invest in this discipline. No matter where you are now, you will be better a year from now if you put in the effort.

2. “It will take too much time.”

God has entrusted time to us as a stewardship. “This is the day that the Lord has made” (Psalm 118:24). God wrote all the days he has ordained for us in his book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:16). On judgment day, we will give an account to him for how we spent the moments of our lives. So, the excuse that Scripture memorization will take too much time is really just an admission of bad priorities. We haven’t ordered our lives or our schedules wisely — that is, around what’s truly most important.

We often say we’re too busy, but we’re busy doing what we’ve chosen to do. Even if we’re compelled by circumstances beyond our control (for instance, working at multiple jobs to support our family), we still have plenty of time to pause and commit something God has said to memory. Then, the more Scripture begins to transform our priorities, the more we will want to invest our time, energy, and resources in those things that most glorify God. And immersing our minds in biblical truth is one of those mosts. Memorizing Scripture is blue-chip stock, promising dividends both in this life and in eternity.

3. “I’ve tried it before, and it didn’t work.”

I understand that Scripture memory is hard, and many of you have made attempts (maybe many attempts) in the past. I’ve said for years, though, that the enemy of Scripture memorization is giving up. Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow so that his disciples would “always . . . pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). I would exhort similar tenacity when it comes to memorizing the Bible.

The words in these pages are not idle words for you; they are your life (Deuteronomy 32:47). “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). This practice will feed your soul for the rest of your life — if you don’t give up.

4. “I read the Bible every day. Why should I memorize it?”

This is a good question. I do not look at Scripture memorization as a replacement for daily Bible reading, but rather as a supplement. In addition to slowly memorizing books of the Bible, I read through the entire Bible once a year. The two habits together provide knowledge in breadth and in depth. What Scripture memory adds is deep meditation on passages and the ability to recall them with accuracy in vital moments — in temptation, evangelism, counseling, teaching, prayer times, and so on. Whereas regular Bible reading shapes the overall landscape of our minds, memorization cultivates richness and precision.

5. “I might become prideful.”

Some time ago, I made this painful discovery about myself: I am already deeply prone to pride. You may have made a similar discovery about yourself. There’s some pride in nearly every decision we make and every action we take. The powerful working of the Holy Spirit alone can make us truly humble in Christ — and how does the Spirit work? He uses the words of God. No doubt, if we make good progress in memorizing Scripture, we will be tempted to boast about it. To combat that temptation, I recommend memorizing a few key verses to help keep such sinful pride in check, verses like James 4:6, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

My dear friend, I am so grateful that God has led you to consider this marvelous discipline. The benefits are endless, but I’ve focused instead on the obstacles. I’ve sought to help you overcome excuses that the devil will put in front of you to hinder you. If you trust Jesus and stick with it, I promise that God will bless your hard work for his glory, your own joy in him, and the souls of others.

On a recent ordinary afternoon, the sight of my daughter engrossed in a game of soccer moved me to prayer. At first, as I watched her fly across the field with her ponytail streaming behind her, her face flushed with determination, I swelled with gratitude for her natural instinct to live exuberantly in the body God has given her. Thank you, Lord, for her contentment.

In the very next breath, however, worry flooded me. She’s eight, I thought. How long will her confidence last? Will she still race against the wind when her straight lines bend into curves? As her body changes, will she revel in our Lord’s craftsmanship — or will she curl inward, lifting her eyes only to cast awkward glances at the mirror?

I lifted up a new prayer: Father God, please let her continue to see the body that you’ve given her as a gift. Help her to live in her womanly body as one loved and redeemed. Help her, no matter how the years change her, to know she belongs body and soul to you.

She Walks in Beauty?

Throughout the ages, artists have celebrated the elegance and loveliness of the female form in verse, paint, and marble. “She walks in beauty,” Lord Byron famously wrote, “like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes.” While such lofty praise tantalizes and flatters, in our fallen world the realities of living in a womanly body are far more complicated.

When God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, he ordained that one of the most fundamental experiences of womanhood would be painful: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16). There was a physical, corporeal consequence to our spiritual rebellion. Whether we bear children or not, that curse permeates life in a female body.

“Our bodies echo God’s good work in uniquely creating women to nurture life.”

The first inklings of trouble often surface in adolescence. As little girls, we race and climb like the boys, and for a few years we may even stand a head taller, thanks to our jump on the growth curve. Then puberty hits, and suddenly we swell in unexpected places. Clothes don’t fit quite right. Pimples dot noses, and hair darkens once-bare skin. In the face of unstoppable changes, insecurities bubble up and wash away our comfort in the body God has given us.

While boys also stumble through adolescence, research suggests that the toll on girls is especially high. One UK study found that almost half of surveyed adolescent girls reported frequent anxiety about body image, compared with only one-fourth of boys. The finding mirrors previous research suggesting that girls experience more dissatisfaction with their appearance and weight. Unsurprisingly, eating disorders are more than twice as prevalent among girls as boys.

Groaning in the Body

The complexities of life in a female body don’t end with our teenage years. If God blesses us with children, we marvel at how he has equipped the female body to sustain and nourish life — yet we do so while swamped with pain, exhaustion, and insecurity. Pregnancy breeds anticipation and wonder — along with aching joints, three months of nausea, another three months of insomnia, and countless other discomforts as our bodies stretch and groan. (My personal favorite was a repeatedly dislocating rib, a gift from my daughter in the third trimester.)

Then there’s the actual birthing process. Though lauded as magical on social media, in reality it’s painful, frightening, and fraught with danger for ourselves, our babies, and our families. When those long-awaited newborns enter our arms, we cry tears of elation but also face new trials. If we can’t nurse, we feel like failures. The continuous needs of an infant deplete us. Tumultuous shifts in our hormones can leave us feeling desolate, even depressed.

We stumble through motherhood, vocation, or both for decades, and then menopause hits. Our hair thins. Lines reflecting a tendency to laugh or worry permanently crease our faces. The baby weight that we promised to lose becomes a permanent fixture on our hips. A laundry list of medical problems piles up alongside a litany of advertisements that guarantee shiny hair and supple skin. Amid the deluge, we worry that we’re unattractive, undesirable — and no longer womanly.

So, while we can say with Lord Byron that beauty marks our God-given bodies, the mundane and awkward features of living in them confirm that we still walk in a sin-stricken world.

Wonderfully Made

Amid the mire of culture and social media, our aching muscles and unwieldy hormones, we can lose sight of God’s goodness. The truth is that, while fallen, our bodies remain good even as we age and change because God made them good (Psalm 139:13–14). He created Eve because Adam needed a helper: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). God’s call for people to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) hearkens back to his design of women, whom he created to support new life.

The value of our bodies, therefore, resides not in what we accomplish by our own hands — not in the litheness of our limbs or in the firmness of our skin — but rather in what he has done, and continues to do through us.

Even if the Lord ordains that we remain childless, our bodies echo his good work in uniquely creating women to nurture life and to complement our male counterparts. Our minds work differently from those of men; while individuals vary, women overall have greater deftness in fine motor coordination, language skills, and memory, abilities that equip us to teach and guide those in our midst. While men have more muscle mass, our muscles more readily resist fatigue and recover at a faster rate, and we’re less prone to the effects of sleep deprivation. A woman’s body can endure the long, hard hours often required to care for others.

Even more important than such differences, however, is how God has made men and women similar: he created both in his image, for his glory (Genesis 1:26). And he has redeemed both through the blood of his beloved Son, who is making all things new (Revelation 21:5).

Means to Worship

Christ’s death and resurrection transform our relationship with every aspect of life, including our bodies. Rather than something to hide, bemoan, or idolize, the body is a means to worship. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” Paul writes. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).

As women redeemed, we aim for modesty, for holiness, and for good stewardship of our feminine vessels (Ephesians 4:22–24; 1 Timothy 2:9–10). For our call “to glorify God and to enjoy him forever,” as the Westminster Catechism puts it, manifests itself in the way we use our bodies, not just in how we focus our minds and hearts.

“Rather than something to hide, bemoan, or idolize, the body is a means to worship.”

We can, as Paul entreats us, “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,” resisting conformity to the world and committing instead to the renewal of our minds — and bodies (Romans 12:1–2). Rather than carnal spectacles for others to ogle, our bodies are godly gifts, entrusted to us so that we might worship him, glorify him, and walk in the good works that he has already prepared for us (Ephesians 2:10).

Sure Hope for Frail Bodies

For the Christian woman weary of life’s physical toll, this news is cause for rejoicing. Our bodies remain good no matter the season of life through which we tread, no matter how we sag and ache, because Christ has made us new. The worth of our form hinges not on fashion trends, but on God’s one and only Son — who gave his life so that we might live, even as our bodies age.

In him we are never misshapen, withering, or out of style. Rather, we are members of “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

As we talk with our daughters, whether with little girls racing across a soccer field or with teens scrutinizing themselves in a mirror, the gospel informs our conversations and infuses them with hope. Jesus redeems not only our souls, but our bodies, and so we reassure them that their shifting contours have a God-given purpose. If Christ has made them new, they can shut out the imagined reproach of others and instead embrace their identity in him.

No matter how awkward they feel, they were made women for a purpose. No matter how the world would chastise or pressure them, they are redeemed and made alive in Christ. And as image-bearers of the one true God, the female body in which they move and strive and love is very good (Genesis 1:31).

And Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast — not quite as fast — as he could. Shasta felt the change at once. Now they were really going all-out.

The old cliché “God will never give you more than you can handle” has taunted me over the years. I can remember several times in life when it has seemed evident that God was giving more than I could handle.

Would anyone claim the ability to handle the sudden, near-death experience of their son due to life-threatening seizures? What about loved ones walking away from God? Disability? Chronic pain? You likely have much worse trials to add to my list. We endure these circumstances because we have no choice, even as we endeavor to walk through them trusting that God is for us in Christ.

Still, as I was lying facedown on the bathroom floor, drenched in a sweaty fainting spell while paramedics worked on my seizing son in the next room, I certainly didn’t feel like I had been given a situation that was within my ability to handle.

A Lion and Our Limits

“Gallop, Bree, gallop. Remember you’re a war-horse” (The Horse and His Boy, 270). Aravis, a young princess escaping the evils of her country, Calormen, urged the talking horse named Bree to run as fast as he could away from the enemies that pursued them. C.S. Lewis tells us this story in A Horse and His Boy, one of the seven Chronicles of Narnia. Bree and his friend Hwin appear, by their own reckoning, to be running all-out. “And certainly both Horses were doing, if not all they could, all they thought they could; which,” as Lewis tells us, “is not quite the same thing.”

This desperate sprint across the countryside by two talking horses — and the unlikely boy and girl on their backs — would quickly reach a peak of terror none of them could have anticipated. For not only were they chased by a terrible army of Calormene soldiers, but a much nearer and more dangerous enemy roared at their backs: a great lion.

“And Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast — not quite as fast — as he could. Shasta felt the change at once. Now they were really going all-out” (271). This simple scene in the midst of a children’s story profoundly changed my perspective in three ways over the past decade and beyond: (1) it has changed how I understand my “limits” in the midst of difficulty, (2) it has reminded me of Who it is that bears down on me in those difficult times, and (3) it has helped me glimpse the goodness of God in how much he chooses to bear down on us.

Applying on the Bathroom Floor

I suppose there is some irony that while Bree found new speed with the Great Lion Aslan at his back, my story involves barely moving at all, having blacked out during a moment when I desperately wanted to be present for my son’s crisis. How is the horrible physiological response to stress (blacking out) in any way parallel to Bree finding a new gear with the Lion at his back?

“When you’re under the pressure of the Great Lion, never, ever let yourself forget: all his paths are steadfast love.”

Well, as unlikely as it sounds, I found my own new gear, facedown on the floor. As I lay there, I cried out to God, asking him to save my son, while I was forced to find a new gear of trust in my Lord. I wasn’t there to watch over my son every second, but God was. I couldn’t make the seizure stop, but God could. I wouldn’t go with him if he died, but God would be there. I, like Bree, found that I had not been trusting as much — not quite as much — as I could. I had not been enduring as much — not quite as much — as I could. There was new speed to discover with the Great Lion in pursuit.

Have you learned this yet? That what you consider your limits aren’t your limits? That you don’t actually know what your limits are because you aren’t the Maker and Sustainer?

Beyond My Limits

We think we’ve given our all, we think the reserves are gone, but actually, we have never had our limits truly tested. When my mind says, I can’t do that; it’s beyond my limits — I can’t endure that loss, I can’t live with that trial, I can’t face that outcome — God is perfectly capable of applying the kind of pressure that will prove me wrong.

Paul tells the Corinthians,

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8–9)

You see, the new gear that we find in the midst of hardship is not a testament to our strong constitution. It is a Spirit-empowered gear that blows faith and hope into the hearts of those who are burdened beyond their own strength. It is a testament to his strength at work in us, even when we are weak and sweaty on the bathroom floor.

Paths of Steadfast Love

God often shows us, then, that we most certainly can do what we think we can’t (by relying on him). And as counterintuitive as it sounds, he doesn’t get us there merely by encouragement or through positive thinking or by pouring on the affirmation, but, as with Bree, by bearing down and increasing the trial that drives us to him.

“When God pushes us past our limits, it is his grace to us. He’s driving us toward his goodness.”

You see, as Bree quickened his pace beyond what he thought he could, the Great Lion was increasing the distance between them and the true enemies that were coming after them. Aslan did terrify them, but for the sake of their own safety and well-being in the end. We can trust that even if we, like Paul, feel we have received the sentence of death, God is subjecting us only to what is right and good in the end, and not a drop more or less. He really does work all things together for the good of those who love him — and in so doing, conforms us to the likeness of his Son (Romans 8:28–29).

When God pushes us past our limits with circumstances that have us sprinting and gasping, it is his grace to us. He’s driving us toward his goodness. He’s pressing us beyond ourselves to new vistas of himself. He’s moving us away from the things that would really harm us by putting distance between us and our old enemies — the world, our flesh, and the devil.

And when you’re under the pressure of the Great Lion, never, ever let yourself forget: all his paths are steadfast love (Psalm 25:10). You can trust him, even facedown on the bathroom floor.