The children who attend the after school program here at the Family Life Centre are encouraged to memorize Bible verses. To spur them on, they are awarded a prize if they succeed in learning five verses. Hopefully, a Bible verse memorized will resonate within the child and become a seed planted on the way to finding the truth of Jesus.
Five doesn’t sound like a big number, but for most of the kids, memorizing five verses is a monumental achievement. A lot of the kids require some special one-on-one time going through the verse over and over; taking it in chunks and then putting it all together. But knowing what the verse means is more important than just rambling off a series of words, so I also go over the significance of the verse.
One time, a little girl told me she knew a Bible verse. When I asked her to tell it to me, she proudly uttered the shortest verse in the Bible; John 11:35 “Jesus wept.”. But she put it in her own words and said, “God cried.” I had to tell her that the essence of what she said was correct, but that there is a subtle difference. And I did tell her I was happy she acknowledged Jesus to be God. My conclusion is that the kids are definitely a work in progress; just like all of us.
