By: Kirstie Skogerboe, Class of 2018

Back when my mom taught elementary at a private Christian school in the ‘80s, she’d teach her students Bible passages to memorize and perform at school recitals. She would invent rhythms, actions, clapping, and vocal inflections to help the kids memorize the words. Once she had her own children, she did the same. I hardly know how many Bible passages I have filed away inside me. But often enough, a series of verses will come into my head at unexpected, though timely moments, and I hear the voice of God.

The other night it was Psalm 27. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” It came into my head in bed, right after I had prayed with my husband for spiritual protection from an unsettling set of attacks from the devil. I recited the Psalm out loud on the spot (and only got a little stuck at the end). The words fell out of my mouth like a sword from the Spirit:

For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of His tent.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.”

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

We went to sleep at peace.

The next day, I found myself talking with a student whose mom had just found out she might have breast cancer. Grasping for the right words to say, I suddenly, again, had Psalm 27 pressing at the door of my mouth. I asked the student’s friend to read it aloud.

For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of His tent.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, Your face, Lord, do I seek.”

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

These words now took a new shape, molded by the Holy Spirit to bring a different kind of comfort for a different kind of fear. I felt awed by God’s work through this one chapter of words — hidden in me by my mother, kept alive in me by the Holy Spirit, and brought to light for two consecutive nights to bring to nothing the attacks of the devil.

This Psalm reminded me that Scripture is God’s primary tool of conviction, protection, and comfort for the Christian. These Lenten days may be especially fitting for committing parts of God’s Word to memory. We need His Word to humble us to confession, to help us acknowledge our insufficiency, to make us run to Christ for refuge. The words we hide in our hearts now will stand guard over us, and those to whom we speak them, through all our temptations and crosses until we look upon Jesus in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord.

–K.J.

Originally published at: https://kjskogerboe.wordpress.com/