The Benefit of Memorizing Verses

Christmas is such a crazy time of the year.  I love celebrating the birth of Christ, but there are so many things to do, gifts to buy, cookies to bake, and people to appreciate.  No matter how busy, I normally like to keep our Christmas traditions.  So that when the kids are grown, they can think back to the time they were at home and the things we did together to celebrate and honor the birth of our Savior.  I also want them to appreciate the true meaning of Christmas and to think beyond to the gifts to the Giver of all gifts.

One thing we do leading up to Christmas is a similar version of the Advent calendar.  I use this book The Advent Jesse Tree.  It has 25 devotions, one for each day in December.  It starts with creation and includes significant stories from Old Testament, pointing to and prophesizing of the Savior, to the birth of Christ.  And it also suggest an ornament to go along with each devotion.  We have been doing this for 4 years now.  Prior to starting, I have collected and made ornaments for these devotions.  So every night in December, we read a devotion and talked about it's role in God's plan for the human race.  Then the kids, guess which ornament goes with that devotion and get to put it on the tree.  The boys loved guessing and K have started to like digging through my box of special ornaments too.  If I don't like a certain ornament, the boys would keep an eye out for it through out the year or even help make me another one.  Sometime life gets hectic and we skip a devotion or two, but the boys would always want to make it up.

Today's devotion was about Isaiah the prophet foretold that God would send a Savior to the world.  He is the Prince of Peace which one day will bring us lasting peace.  The verse to read was Isaiah 9:6-7.  I started to reach for the Bible and turn to Isaiah, but J and then later C, started reciting the the verse to me.
For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
They said it's a verse they learned in Awana.  I thought they just memorized it quickly for the prize, I didn't think they actually can recall it based on the reference.  WOW! I was so impressed.  They memorized more verses than me now.  I am so thankful that they are hiding God's word in their heart.  I pray that God would use those verses in their heart and mind to help them in the future and draw them closer to Himself.