A new take on IOUS

Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain. (Psalm 119:36)
Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. (Psalm 119:18)
Unite my heart to fear your name. (Psalm 86:11)
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. (Psalm 90:14)

I first heard about this lovely prayer, assembled directly from Scripture by John Piper, from Jean.  She suggested it as a good one to pray prior to reading the Bible.  I copied it out on the front page of my Bible and have used it almost every day before reading the Bible ever since.

I recently looked it up on John Piper's blog to find it mentioned in an article about how to pray for the pastoral staff at his church.  It turns out he uses the IOUS prayer to pray for those close to his heart. 

It is a beautiful way to pray for those we love - great prayers to pray for others and ourselves - as well as for our own times reading God's Word.

Good courage for memorising Scripture

Now, speaking of John Piper and memorising Scripture, I have said before that I think memorising Scripture is important.  Really important.  But I don't do it.  I have small spurts of enthusiasm for this task but they are short lived.  I find memorising Scripture really difficult.  For one thing I just plain have a bad memory - which would probably be improved for taking up this type of activity!  And I am conscious of the fact that I don't pray before trying to memorise Scripture - and I expect Satan would quite like to see all of us defeated in this task.

But the other reason I struggle - the reason I give up before I have even started - is that I don't retain a lot of what I memorise over the long term and this discourages me.  At my best I had the aim of memorising two verses per week.  For a while it is possible to memorise, review and retain a stash of verses. But it soon reaches a point where the number of verses to review becomes too great and then I give up.  If I can't review them I won't be able to remember them.  And if I can't remember them then there is no point in trying to memorise them in the first place.

John Piper memorises Scripture every day during his quiet time.  If that was only one verse per day, that would be 365 verses a year!!

So I was relieved and encouraged to read this John Piper's response to the question, "How do you keep from forgetting Scripture after you've memorised it?"  Said John Piper...

I don't. But practically, what can you do to keep it as long as you can? There is only one word. Review.

Review, review, review. There is no way to memorize Scripture that keeps you from losing it. Some people don't lose anything. Some people have traps in their head that just hang on to it. But only 1 in 10,000 people can do that. Average folks like me have to work real hard to memorize the first time, and then recurrently review to keep it. So I memorize verses every day, and I forget them every day.

This morning I re-memorized a verse. I finished Deuteronomy and ran across a verse that I memorized years ago. Maybe I memorize it once a year, because I read the whole Bible once every year.

The verse is Deuteronomy 33:26. "There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help, and through the skies in his majesty." So, I've got it memorized. I probably will forget it in a week. That verse is hard for me to remember.

I've memorized that verse probably five times in five years. I forget it because I don't use it as often as some verses. So, I jot it down on a little piece of paper and carry it in my pocket, pulling it out during the day once or twice. If I try to nail it so that it is useful for me over the long haul, I keep it and review it.

A practical thing I would suggest for people to do, is decide what cluster of text they want to always be at their disposal. For me I could name Psalm 46, Psalm 23, Psalm 1, Romans 8, 2 Corinthians 5:21, a cluster of texts surrounding justification, 1 Peter 4:11—"let him who serves serve in the strength that God supplies, that in everything God may get the glory through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the dominion forever." This is the most quoted verse as we move into worship at Bethlehem.

So for my soul, for the warfare of my life, and for ministry in hospitals and counseling sessions, I want a cluster of texts at my disposal. Decide what those are, put them on a piece of paper, and review them until you have them down. I'll give you a little story.

My first or second year of pastoring I was called to the hospital—quickly. I went without my Bible. Rollin Erickson's wife just had a heart attack. I walk into a room of probably 20 family members that didn't know if she was alive or dead—as she is in surgery. Rollin gave me a big hug and said, "John, give us a Word from the Lord." Now, if I had my Bible I would have opened it to a Psalm or something. I didn't have my Bible, and for whatever reason at age 35 my mind went blank.

I felt so humiliated. It was horrible. Here are 20 people, and the husband of a dying woman says, "Give us a Word from the Lord." I can't even remember what I said. I probably said, "Let's pray," and tried to paraphrase some Scripture. I went home and got on my knees that afternoon. I said, "Lord Jesus, that will never happen again." I opened to Psalm 46—"God is our refuge and strength." I have been able to quote Psalm 46 verbatim for the last 28 years. I decided that Psalm 46 is going to be in my head because it is so useful all the time.

The answer is, review. But don't try to do that with every verse you learn. You should be learning hundreds of Bible verses by heart, and forgetting 90% of them. But then you get to them again and relearn them, and they are still with you because you learned them once. Somehow they will function to get out into your life.

But really nail down a cluster of soul strengthening words.

That is a great comfort.  Time to get back on the horse.

HT: Desiring God.

Less is More

John Piper says,

I [do not] want to give the impression that I think there is virtue in reading many books. In fact one of my greatest complaints in seminary was that professors trained students in bad habits of superficial reading because they assigned too many books. I agree with Spurgeon: “A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed, lapping at them.” God save us from the allurement of “keeping up with Pastor Jones” by superficial skimming. Forget about “keeping up.” It only feeds pride and breeds spiritual barrenness. Instead devote yourself to boring in and going deep. There is so much soul-refreshing, heart-deepening, mind-enlarging truth to be had from great books!

I actually think that for some people this point is not true.  I know a few people who can devour a lot of material quickly and then process and retain what they read effectively.  In fact I am married to one such person.  But for me, Piper's quote rings true and is an encouragement.  I read pretty slowly and I don't seem to be able to make a lot of time for reading in any case.  So to choose a few really good books and read them slowly and carefully works for me.

From John Piper's Brothers, We are Not Professionals
HT: Desiring God blog

Reflections on Reflections

If you click here it will take you to a link from the Desiring God blog of an interview with John Piper about his devotional Bible reading . Reading the interview is a worthwhile endeavour, if for no other reason, than to catch a beautiful glimpse of a humble heart.

But there is plenty there to encourage and inspire as well. Here are some things that caught my attention.

Firstly, John Piper gives about an hour per day to his quiet time. He reads four chapters of the Bible (four chapters per day will get you through the Bible in a year), taking about twenty minutes. He then prays for twenty to thirty minutes, leaving five to ten minutes per day to memorise Scripture. I don't think I have ever thought of using this particular part of the day to memorise Scripture. But I like the idea.

To memorise Scripture he chooses a verse, reads it ten times and then closing his Bible and/or eyes, says it ten times. "Ten times read, ten times said and you've got it, " he says. The next day he repeats that verse five times (for revision) and then moves onto another verse. I tend to go phrase by phrase throughout the day, adding more on as phrases are mastered. I've recently started trying to memorise some Scripture again and generally aim for two verses a week. I wonder if my brain could do a whole verse at a time and that many a week? There's a challenge to exercise the brain!

Piper also explained why he memorises Scripture - and it is not so that he can boast that he can say the whole of Leviticus from memory. And nor is it to merely exercise his brain. (A personal rebuke slipping in there.) No, he memorises Scripture so that at 3pm, when the good effects of his morning quiet time have worn off, he has Scripture in his heart and mind to keep fighting the good fight. He memorises Scripture so that if he is talking to someone about the things of God and he hasn't got his Bible with him, he can still be sharing from the Word of God. John Piper memorises carefully chosen Scripture for the good of his soul and for the good of the souls around him - not to be clever, to have a fit brain or to boast. John Piper is a humble man.

The other thing that caught my eye was that when he prays for his twenty to thirty minutes, he prays for his family, the church and his soul. Whoa! He prays for his family, the church AND HIS SOUL.

Now, this is not rocket science, but I don't think (at least during these busy days of life with young children) that I pray for my soul. There is much to pray for with my family and the church. Yes, I pray many prayers of confession. I ask for help a great deal. But I don't think I pray for my soul - that I will grow in my knowledge and love of God, in my trust and dependence upon Him - even though I pray this for lots of other people. I think I hope that through my reading, thinking, prayerfulness for others, actions, the need to confess that invariably follows my actions and so on, that my soul will just grow...

Life as one of God's children is such an adventure. There is always something more to consider. And that is good. This interview contains plenty to encourage those new to reading the Bible right through to seasoned readers of the Scriptures. If having a quiet time is a part of your life - or you want it to be - then the few minutes it will take to read this article will be time well spent.

Head and Heart

Earlier this year Jean (her blog "in all honesty" is always worth reading) inspired me to start reading again - something more substantial than parenting and recipe books. I got off to a great start but my good resolve fizzled out.

There are lots of reasons why it all fizzled out:

* not wishing to encroach upon my precious time for reading the Bible,
* a reading list that was too ambitious in length which then overwhelmed me,
* reading choices that were too ambitious in content that overwhelmed my unfit brain,
* being too busy (or is that not enough discipline to make the time to do it??) to fit it in,
* not doing it for 21 days in a row (because apparently it takes 21 uninterrupted days to form a habit).

The centrepiece of my list of excuses includes the admission of an unfit brain. (I have carefully kept it that way to match my unfit body!!) And I am going to think about brain fitness next time (if I can concentrate for long enough!!!)

But on the 23rd March Dr John Piper had this to say on his Desiring God blog:

This is a plea that all of you would build into your lives both personal devotions and purposeful study of God’s word.

Both: Daily prayerful meditation seeking personal application of God’s word to your own heart and life.

And: Regular study in a class or with a book where the (living or dead) teacher has seen more than you have and can give you insight in 30 minutes that might otherwise take you ten years to see.

The reason I plead for both is that without a book or a class about what some part of the Bible means and a teacher who is ahead of you, your devotions will probably flatten out at a low level of insight.

Year after year you will go over the same biblical ground and find it as perplexing as before. There will be little advance in understanding. This will tend to take the heart out of devotional reading, because the lack of growth cannot sustain the joy.

Seek out preaching, books, and classes which take you further in grasping what various books and texts in the Bible mean.

Well, I am encouraged to have another go at doing both - devotional Bible reading and also serious reading about the Bible - which means making a plan to do the purposeful study. Most of the books that were on the previous over ambitious list were about the purposeful study of the Bible. So I think I just need to choose more carefully and keep the list short to begin with.

And there is more encouragement to be had for those who need an extra push. Here are some encouraging ways to get into devotional reading and here is another piece of inspiration to pursue serious reading in a SMALL way - which I was VERY pleased to read - which will ease an unfit brain into tackling print matter again. Because reading IS a joy and I am not actually doing this to punish myself.