Memorizing the Bible is very important, especially while you are still young! This is for several reasons. One, God wants us to! Two, things that you memorize when you are younger stay with you for the rest of your life (my mom can still remember songs she learned when she was a girl!). And it is a lot easier to memorize the Bible when you are a child than when you are an adult, for some reason. Three, the more you memorize and become familiar with your Bible, the more it will influence your worldview and help you make the right decisions. There are more good reasons to memorize scripture, but that is not the topic of this post. So I will move on.

You may not have memorized much out of the Bible yet. Well, this is a good time to start! You may want to learn some Bible verses but not really know how. You may be thinking, "Okay, I said the verse to myself about twenty times and I still don't know it... what is wrong with me?" Obviously it is going to take a little bit of work. But if you apply yourself, you will find that memorizing the word of God becomes easier the more you do it. If you have hard time learning Bible verses, try some of these suggestions:

• Set a goal. If you don't want to be haphazard in your memorizing practice, you need to set a goal. For school I have a verse every week I am supposed to learn. Then it is on my quiz at the end of the week. If I don't know it perfectly it affects my grade. Also, every week our church has a memory verse to learn. This is a little bit easier, since we all say it together (you can be a couple milliseconds behind and no one will notice, LOL!), but it is still helpful to have a deadline. One or two verses a week is not unreasonable to start with.
• Say it every day. Five to ten times is a good amount. Say the reference before and after the verse, too. This may help you remember it, so you will know where to find it in your Bible if the need arises.
• Write out the verse several times and tape it up around the house. Seeing and reading it several times a day and in different places will help you learn it. Also, the writing part alone is good, too.
  
• Make a desktop picture with a Bible verse on it. If you like to play around with photoshopping, this can be fun.  Just about every time you get on the computer you will be reminded of the Bible verse!
  
• Unscramble the words. Write the verse out, cut all the words apart, and work on getting them all back in the right order. If you want to play the difficult version of this game, cut all the letters and punctuation apart, too!
• Play every-other-word with a friend or sibling. First, you start, then they say the next word, you say the next word, and so on. After you say the verse a few times like this, say two or three words at a time. After saying it several times like this you will have it down!!
• Put the words to music. It's amazing how well you can remember lyrics! Put the Bible to music. It doesn't have to be fancy -- you could even try to use a tune you already know. Sometimes the tune will be too short by just a couple words, and then it is pretty funny trying to squeeze all the words in!
• Make a bookmark with the Bible verse. Then stick it in the book you are reading. Every time you open your book, remember to say your verse a few times.
• Make a recording. Using a tape player, mp3 recorder, or microphone on your computer, make a recording of the verse. Listen to it while you work on something like penmanship or something else you don't really have to concentrate on.
• Draw a picture. If you like to draw or paint, try illustrating the Bible verse. Then write the verse below it in your very best handwriting. Hang it in your room.
• Repeat-after-me. Do this with a younger sibling. First you say a small section, and have him/her repeat after you. As you both become more familiar with the verse, lengthen the sections until you can say the entire thing at once!
• Say it with a rhythm. Like this: "Look not EVERY man on his OWN things, but every man ALSO on the things of OTHERS."
• Refrain from looking at your Bible as much as possible! Of course, look at it every once in a while to make sure you aren't saying the verse wrong. You don't want to have to un-learn and re-learn the verse because you practiced it wrong.
  

Do you have any other fun memorizing tricks to share?