Day 116- A 12 Disciples First

Today I spent the first part of the afternoon with Hannah Grace at a dress rehearsal kind of thing for her dance recital.  After that, I took Joel fishing.  We caught a good many out of a friend's pond and had a blast. I also caught one fish that was almost the exact size of my bait. Joel later caught one almost the exact same size. Joel suggested that as a "first." I don't remember ever catching two bass that small in one trip on artificial baits.

That was kind of cool, but not really a "first." It would have been far better to catch the biggest fish ever.

So, as it got late and I was trying to think of a "first" I looked at a brain book I have. In one chapter, it talked about a device for memorizing called a mnemonic.  A mnemonic is

a device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists in remembering something.  So, if you want to remember the planets in our solar system, you can use the following, "My Very Excellent Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets." the first letter of each of those words corresponds to the 9 planets (I still like Pluto).  So, it works like this: My=Mercury, Very=Venus, Excellent=Earth, etc. It is a memory trick.  The book challenged me to do one on my own and even suggested doing one for the 12 disciples.  So, I did a mnemonic to remember the 12 disciples of Jesus as my "first."

The 12 disciples are hard to remember.  I thought this might be helpful for me.  Even if you've seen drawings of them, they are hard to remember. The drawings are not very helpful in remembering.

 12 is a lot of letters so here's what I came up with.  I divided them into two sections. The first section is "Barry Ate Jumping Peanuts Till Midnight". These letters correspond with Bartholomew, Andrew, John, Philip, Thomas, and Matthew.

The second half is Jeff Gordon Jumped John Isaac's Saucer & Plate Seven Zillion Times.  These correspond with James the Great (Jeff Gordon), James, Judas Iscariot, Simon Peter, Simon the Zealot, and Thaddeus.

So, I know that if I needed that for a test, I could pull it off pretty quickly.  I can do pretty good just doing this for a few minutes tonight.  It's just one of those tips to help remember things. I used to do this when I was studying lists for tests.  Of course, I did not know it was called mnemonics.

I've heard that the 3 most important things in remembering something is review, review, and review.  There is no substitute for going over something daily if you want to remember it.  Many people say they can't remember anything, but they can. They remember their families' names, they remember where they live, they remember where their favorite fishing lake is, etc.  It does get harder as we age, but we can remember things if we go over and over them.  Now, what was I writing about? Oh yeah, the fishing trip was great. No, wait, don't tell me... right, that mnemonic memory thing.

This is why when I go hear someone preach, I almost always take a pen and paper.  I know I'll remember very little of what they say 3 days later.  If I write something down, I will remember it better. If I write it down and go over it each morning for a week, it will make a much greater impact on me.  When I go to a retreat or a conference that makes a big impact on me, I will often use the verses that impacted me the most in my quiet time (devotional time, alone time with the Lord) for a week or two.  That way, I can keep a good bit more of what I believed God was saying to me.

Why not take a pen and paper to church next time and write down the things that you sense may be God speaking to you?  You can hang on to it longer that way.

Hanging on to truth for the abundant life
Barry

3 things I thank God for today
1. Great time fishing with Joel
2. Laura getting to talk about Jesus at another church
3. Bread