Thinking ahead: Tuesday's Challenge

~ as you may or may not know, i am a piano teacher.  i also have 2 kids and a hubby that would love to have suppers each evening. . . yes. . . prepared by me!  ;-)  i teach piano three days a week, so each of those days, i try to have supper ready for them to either eat while i am teaching, or to be ready to eat so we can all sit together and have supper.

~ today as i sat looking through my recipes trying to come up with a "new" exciting recipe, i started to think about how much time i devote to getting meals ready.  before i could get supper started, i had also gone out and purchased some new piano books for some students.  as my mind wandered from making supper to the amount of prep time i do for my piano lessons, i started thinking about how much time i spent with my poet.  (See my post on January 3rd http://sharon2kids.blogspot.ca/2014/01/valuable.html about God calling us his poem.)

~ i started to think about how little time i spend actually reading God's word.  sure i read lots of great books, and devotionals - other people's writings about His word.  but how much time do i actually spend reading HIS words?  when i think of all god did for me, what he all gave up for me, i am humbled by it all.  and i am humiliated by how little time i spend with him.  how little time i talk to him and how little time i listen for him .

~ in Anne Voskamp's blog http://www.aholyexperience.com/ she writes about scripture memorization.  what an incredible way of getting into god's word.  i did this as a child, and have on occasion memorized scripture through out my adult years, but what an incredible way of getting into god's word.  not only are we reading it, but we are mulling over it.  over and over. . . and what better way to defeat the devil than by reciting god's word.

~ as i sat and thought about this and about what i was going to try to memorize, i thought about my favorite book - philippians.

So here are the verses, i purpose to memorize this week:

Philippians 2: 1 - 4    1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

join me on my journey to memorize more of god's word so we can turn it over and over in our minds to be able to have it on the tips of our tongues.  so that when we rise up and when we lay down, we will have his words in our hearts and in our minds.