Walk in Wisdom

Thursday (December 18)

Heart Memory

Psalm 119:9-11

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

We tend to think of muscle memory as a rewarding function and rightly so. For instance, you might go for a drive today and brake at every stoplight and turn on your blinker before every turn without even realizing it, because you’ve developed habits and skills through years of driving that enable you to perform complex motions without even thinking about it. That same phenomenon happens when we cook and clean and walk and talk and read and write and shoot a basketball. The child who learns her vowel sounds and is then able to sound out the letters on a page might be reading Shakespeare before long. The man who learns to play Chopsticks on piano and grasps the meaning of an arpeggio might be playing Beethoven in time. That’s the good side of muscle memory. But, spiritually speaking, muscle memory can also be detrimental if we start to face the life of faith on cruise control, rather than actively participating with the Holy Spirit. When we find ourselves praying the same prayers before meals or praying the same words over our kids at night or coming to the Scriptures with our own understanding rather than desiring for God to grow us and change us and broaden our perspective, we’re stalling in spiritual motion rather than progressing. 

David isn’t storing up God’s Word in his heart because he thinks that memorizing Scripture is the end-all- be-all of Christianity. Far from it. He’s memorizing God’s Word so that he’ll have a defense against sin, realizing that sin shows up every day to derail the pilgrim’s progress in Christ and set him back from God’s desired end. Effectively, David is calling out in Psalm 119, “LORD, I won’t coast my way through these next twenty-four hours; no—I’ll seek Your Face from moment to moment, being alert and active, meditating deeply on Your truth, remaining conscientious of the temptations that seek to derail me at every turn.”

It’s devotion like that—not devotionals like these—that get us further in our pursuit of God.