My memory is one of my most cherished possessions. It enables me to call to marshall the vast resources of wisdom and knowledge that I have collected over the years. And it keeps me cognizant of the words of God; both the words of Scripture and the words that he has spoken to me and over me through the years.
Most people think that a great memory is a gift that you either have or don’t have. Nothing could be further from the truth! A great memory is not a supernatural endowment, an Excalibur sword given by the lady of the lake to the chosen few. A great memory is a skill that can be cultivated, and you can begin today!
When we are talking about the memory, we are basically talking about two things: storage and recall. Storage is the ability to keep a mental record of the details of your experiences. Recall is the ability to call that record to mind at will. The first thing you need to understand about your memory is that your problem is not storage; your problem is recall!
There is nothing wrong with your memory; the brain is a powerful piece of machinery. It captures everything you see, hear, feel, smell, taste and touch. Learning to load experiences into the brain in a form that can be easily recalled is the skill that constitutes a powerful memory.
How can this be done? Here are three keys for doing just that:
1. FOCUS: Memory is the fruit of focus. The stuff that you can’t recall is the content of your unfocused experiences. When someone tells you their name, and you forget it immediately, it means that you were not focused when they told you their name.
There’s nothing wrong with your memory. The only problem is that we live in a culture that is highly distraction-oriented, and we are taught to multi-task . . . that is, to try to focus on multiple things at the same time. John Medina, in his best selling book, Brain Rules, demonstrates that the idea of multitasking violates on of the basic rules of the brain, and it leads to a drastic decrease in productivity!
This key to improving your memory is improving your focus. If you could learn to focus on the things that you wish to remember with an uncluttered mind, you’ll find it much easier to recall them when you need them.
2. REPETITION: Repeating something immediately after hearing/seeing it immediately stimulates the recall function of the brain. The key is to break things that you want to memorize down into repeatable chunks. If you’re trying to memorize a long passage of Scripture, don’t try to memorize the whole thing at once: take it one phrase at a time, and repeat that phrase from memory at least eight times before moving on to the next phrase.
I used this method to memorize 1 Corinthians 13 and Provers 2 when I was in the 8th grade, Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech when I was in the 9th grade, Shakespeare’s famed To be or not to be soliloquy from Hamlet in the 10th grade, and about ten years ago I used it to memorize the entire book of 1st Peter.
What repetition does is exercise the meaning of memory . . . to call to mind. People who want to memorize things without repetition are really wanting to memorize things without having to call them to mind. Doesn’t work!
3. PASSION: You will never succeed in memorizing something that you are not in the least bit passionate about. Passion is the hearts way of telling the brain that something is important. When you see or hear things that you give a high emotive quality to, you find that you remember them a whole lot easier than boring things.
This means that memory is not just a mental function, but an emotional function as well. You must engage your heart, if you are going to successfully activate your mind! There are easy ways to do this.
Visualization is one very powerful way. For instance, when I think of 1 Peter 1:3 and following, I have a whole narrative that plays out in my mind.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has give us new birth into a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1984 NIV)
In my mind, I see God the Father in a big hot tub called great mercy, and he is giving birth to us one by one, and as we are being pulled out of the water, we are pulled through the resurrected body of Jesus and dumped into another hot tub, called living hope.
If you practice creating visuals of things that seem non-visual, you will cultivate a powerful ability to recall more than you’ve ever imagined!
All three of these exercises (focus, repetition, and passion) are essential components of the practice of meditation. Meditating on Scripture is the most powerful way to memorize it, because it engages both your mind and heart, and it increases your ability to focus your mind by shaking it free of all of its distractions. My book, A Path Through Mighty Waters, can provide you with a daily guide for meditating on Scripture for an entire year! I also offer morning devotions that follow the schedule of meditations in my book.
I want the world to know the benefits of intimacy with Christ, and I believe that learning to meditate on God’s word is a practice that every believer should cultivate. And that’s why I’m giving away my book for free! You can download it by clicking here, and if you subscribe in the sidebar on the right, I’ll send you my daily devotions, absolutely free of charge. 🙂
If this post helped you, would you leave a comment below and let me know? I’d also love to answer any questions you might have. Blessings!
