Some friends of mine challenged me to answer a simple question in regards to this Bible memory challenge: What’s my WHY? In this week’s memory vlog, I talk a bit about the challenges I’ve faced and how I would answer that question. Watch the video below or read the transcript!
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Vlog #1 Transcript: Why Document Your Bible Memory?
Hey, what’s up guys? It’s Josh. Before I get started, check this out. I just finished getting framed my Bible Memory poster.
So it’s got all the different books of the New Testament broken out into their chapters so I can check it off or X it off, I don’t know what, but it’s gonna be that visual encouragement to keep going towards my goal and seeing how far I’ve come. I’m really excited about it.
Anyway, today I wanted to bring up, talking about my why a little bit. Simon Sinek, who’s an author, pretty well-known right now says that what you do simply proves what you believe.
What you do simply proves what you believe.
Simon Sinek
And I’ve been challenged by a number of my friends recently to really consider why I’m doing this challenge and, more specifically, why I’m doing this YouTube channel and this website.
‘Cause if I’m really honest, the fact is is that these two things are, they’re not in conflict with each other, but they certainly don’t go, they don’t necessarily… They cannibalize each other times.
So what I mean is this: for me to make this video and to put it up on YouTube, to edit it, to put it up on YouTube, to create the website content, it takes time. And a lot of times that time is cannibalizing the time that I would use to actually memorize whereas if all I did was memorize, then I wouldn’t really have the time to create these videos, edit them, upload them, all of that stuff.
So it’s this balancing act.
And I asked my friends last week or two weeks ago and just basically said, “I’m struggling to figure out how to balance that time between creating the content and actually doing the content,” because I don’t want to be disingenuous with you and put on this facade that I’m doing all these things that I’m not actually doing.
I mean, I’m putting in a lot of work to memorize the New Testament, not only that, but I am not a super memory person. I would bet that I’m very much like you that’s watching this right now. I have an okay memory. I did well in high school and college, but it’s not like I would consider myself a Bible memory champion or even a memory champion in any way.
It is hard work for me to do that. And so I need to put in the time to do that hard work.
So what is my why?
Well, I’ve already talked a little bit on this channel at the very beginning and I haven’t gotten too into depth but part of my story involves a moment in my life where I had the Bible taken away from me. I had all of my devices taken away from me and I had to answer this question that it was so important to me that I printed it on a piece of wood.
What is your identity?
Because I had everything stripped away from me. And when it came down to it, I had to grapple with the idea of am I comfortable just being okay that I am a child of God? Nothing else, I’m not a businessman, I’m not an American. I’m not an expat, I’m not the Bible Memory Man, I’m not all of those things. I’m not a mom, a dad, not a mom, a husband, all of these things.
I am a child of God. And that is my identity.
And if what I do is simply proves what I believe then part of that is I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. And one of the ways that I can prove that that’s something I believe is by memorizing each book of the Bible.
And, surprisingly, there are more people memorizing than I realized. I did this channel and I’m starting to talk with people who are like, oh yeah, I’ve memorized the book of James before. We do it, but it doesn’t seem like it’s a consistent practice for many of us or, at least, it wasn’t for me.
And that’s something that I value right now is making that a consistent part of my week and even my daily life is making time for memory. So that is my ultimate why. Obviously, there’s good reasons why we should memorize scripture, but what’s my why for doing this?
My why is because I believe that the Scripture is the inspired Word of God…
My why is because I believe that the Scripture is the inspired Word of God, that there is no better use of my time, at least, time for other things outside of my family and the things that I must do. There’s no better use for that time. I’m not gonna regret the time that I spend memorizing the Bible.
And it could be taken away. But one thing that could never be taken away is whatever is in my brain.
What about my “Sub-WHY”?
But then if you can have a sub-why, if that’s even allowed, I’m gonna say that it is, just for the sake of this channel but there’s a sub-why, I want to to inspire people to wanna do the same.
Maybe you don’t have the same experience that I’ve had where the Bible and your devices and all these things have been taken away from you and you get to realize what you have in your brain is not that much, maybe you don’t have that, but by hearing my story of that happening to me and realizing that I only had 20 verses in my memory and I was just ashamed of that and not necessarily ashamed, but I was just like, what am I gonna do if I get put in prison for a couple of years and that’s all I’ve got to feed on? That’s very few morsels of scripture.
Having that as a sub-why of wanting to inspire you to do this and bring you along the journey to see how I’m doing it, to see that it’s not that easy.
I’ve been in Colossians 1 now for a little over a week. I should have had Colossians 1 finished in a few days at the rate that I usually go but it’s taken me a little time.
And that’s just the reality of it. You’re gonna have portions of scripture that are gonna take longer than others. And it’s not necessarily about finishing that chapter or finishing that book. It’s about continuing on. It’s about being inspired to make that next step, no matter how hard it is.
So I’m, hopefully, gonna be able to do over the next, however long this happens, this channel works out, I want to do well, that balancing act of doing and creating the content about the doing, if that makes sense. And I hope that in the process, you can enjoy that, you can be inspired by it, and that it will prompt you to wanna take your memory of scripture to new heights over the coming year, too. That would be my hope.
And I’m gonna, hopefully, make this fun for you along the way. You guys have a great week and I’ll talk to you later.
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