As I said, I am scared. And what I am afraid of can be summed up in one word: failure.

What if I try this task and don't succeed? What if I never reach my goals? And worst of all, what if I quit? The shame that goes with my lack of discipline would haunt me far into the future.

As I consider this, I am reminded of something that a very wise man once said: "Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame." Taking this advice to heart, I will recognize that I am a sinful man, lacking in discipline and wisdom. This is one of the reasons I need to know more scripture, in the first place.

If I go into this project trying to reach a goal or accomplish some great feat, my risk for failure will be very great. After all, anything short of complete memorization of the Bible would be considered failure, under that model. But if I consider the model of success to be obedience to God, then success is within my grasp. For God does not require any great intellectual feat from us before He will consider us successes. What he asks is that we study his Word and obey it (Joshua 1). Memorizing the Bible may be hard, but studying it is easy, and the goal of memoriazation will give me something to shoot for while I am obeying God's command to study His Word.

A good friend of mine (he's 27, but he's wise enough to be thousands of years old) told me that I have nothing to be concerned about in this challenge. "After all", he said, "any scripture you memorize will leave you better off than you were before. You don't have a single thing to lose!" I like that attitude. I think I'll use it.

Well, so much for fear. But that leaves the next question: How on earth am I supposed to go about doing this? I'll explore that tomorrow.