Train Up A Child

I was very sick yesterday, so I apologize for missing the day. I’m back now – a little worse for the wear, but ok.

When I was 16 years old, I went on a mission trip to Jamaica with a team of teenagers and four adults. We stayed at a college near Montego bay up in the mountains. It was beautiful. We were there to help build a building for the college and took the occasional excursion to put on puppet shows for kids in orphanages and such and also paint one of those orphanages. From June through the end of August, we spent the entire summer working. We laid bricks and blocks, chopped down trees, dug ditches, poured concrete, and because I was the only one who knew a little carpentry – I built all the forms. We all slept in sleeping bags on the floor in a single room and made a trade with the school to give them all our food so that we could eat at the cafeteria.

Working The Body And The Heart

Part of each day, we dedicated to bible study, and another dedicated to memorizing and reciting the bible passage for the day. Bible memorization was exceedingly difficult for me. Because I had a terrible time remembering, I struggled. One day, one of the older kids – Joe, explained the acting method. He said that if I acted out the verses, I’d be better able to remember. I was toiling over a short verse that seemed to have unnecessary words, and I kept messing it up. Finally, I tried what he said, and, to this day, I remember it. Psalm 40: 7 & 8 Then I said, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. 

Practical Application

Now, that’s not the SOK verse for the day, but remembering all that scripture memorization did remind me of it.  The verse for the day is a different verse I memorized during that summer, and it has been an enormous comfort to me over the years. There have been so many times in my life when I felt I messed up too badly or had strayed too far from God, yet, the lessons and scriptures I learned as a child have drawn me back over and over again. So, I thought it was important to share this tiny salmon card with you today.

Salmon Of Knowledge Day 10 Reading

Romans 8: 38 & 39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus Our Lord.