Okay, here we are at day one of attempting to memorize the scriptures. I don't want to get over-optimistic, but it seemed easy-even fun! I got out my first flash card, which read like this:

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light", and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light, "day", and the darkness he called, "night". And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.

What an appropriate set of verses for my first day on the job!

So I set to work, and found to my amazement that the work was finished in only a few minutes!

WHOOOOPEEE!!!

But I should not be overconfident. These verses are fairly famous, and I had a pretty good idea of what they said before I even started. Will I still find things so easy when I get to the book of Leviticus, and God is laying down regulations for the inspection of homes that have been infected with mold spores? That remains to be seen. But for now, I am happy.

But if you will recall, Going over a flash car was not all I had to do today. I also had to read the Bible or a full 30 minutes, out loud. It was right about here that I discovered a new use for our microwave oven. It has a setting on it that says, "Kitchen timer". Just enter a given amount of time, and the microwave sounds an alarm when the time is up. I set the timer on 32 minutes-to give me time to get situated-and set to reading. Thirty minutes later, I had read the first eight chapters of Genesis-more than I have read in a sitting in a long time. Then-oh, what a feeling! I felt moved to prayer.

Do you know that feeling you get when you start to pray, but you feel like you have to force yourself to do it because some invisible force inside yourself simply does not want to do it? Well, that force has been hampering my prayer life lately, but it was not doing so now. Praise and thanksgiving came forth naturally. It felt so good to pray. I have no doubt that it was the reading of God's Word that brought about this change in me. Praise be to the One who spurred me to start doing this! I can feel my life improving already!