It's too soon to call it a habit, and yet one hoped-for "habit" I have adopted lately is that of carrying a scripture verse with me on a 3 x 5 index card tucked in my shirt pocket. You won't find me marketing this brilliant new idea to Thomas Nelson or Zondervan as a new spiritual discipline; there is certainly nothing new about it, and yet it is new to me.
Don't call it Bible memorization. That conjures up a training motif that, despite its value, shuts it down for me. That may well happen on the way, but the way I am talking about is meditation, thinking about one Bible verse, maybe even one phrase, all day long. This yields surprising insights.
Take Philippians 4: 5b-7. In the NIV translation (and the way I memorized it), verse 6 is a new sentence that begins with "Do not be anxious. . .," but the ESV links that beginning directive by a semicolon with the last part of verse 5, "The Lord is at hand," so that it reads like this: "The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your request known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."
Together, verses 6 and 7, as set out in the NIV and as so often quoted, used to make me feel helpless and even angry. Commanding an anxious person to not be anxious is a near impossible command to follow, if indeed it be a command. And it certainly doesn't produce peace. And yet carrying this verse with me and seeing it throughout the day made me draw great comfort from the linkage I mention. Rather than a command, I saw more of an assurance, something like this: "Look, God is near. He is in control. He is wise and good and all-powerful. Therefore, you don't need to worry. Focus not on what you lack but on what you have. Give your cares to me. Let me carry them." Settling into me was the sense that God's peace is more the result of focusing on His nearness and His provision than any attempt not to be anxious.
I don't know what led the ESV translators to use the semicolon, but I'm glad they did. I noticed. I may not have, however, if I had not carried that scripture with me all day. Having it in my pocket, I not only caught it out of the corner of my eye but felt it. I read it while stopped at a traffic light, between bites at lunch, and when I noticed it during my work. I carried it in my hand when I took a walk. In a sense, it became three-dimensional, carried me as I carried it.
God's Word is all kinds of things. A light. A double-edged sword. Even an index card. But in the end, beyond those tangibilities, it's a person, and we don't carry it. He carries us.
Lord Jesus, come yourself, and dwell with us, be human as we are, and overcome what overwhelms us. Come into the midst of my evil, come close to my unfaithfulness. Share my sin, which I hate and which I cannot leave. Be my brother, Thou Holy God. Be my brother in the kingdom of evil and suffering and death. Come with me in my death, come with me in my suffering, come with me as I struggle with evil. And make me holy and pure, despite my sin and death.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christmas Sermons, ed. Edwin Robertson)
