Psalm 46 is my favorite of the psalms. It was a key Scripture during a difficult time in my life and it’s also one of my favorite Psalm 46 Shane and Shane songs. For this reason, it’s been important to me to commit this chapter of the Bible to memory.
If you’re interested to join me to memorize Psalm 46, I’ll be happy to show you my method. I like to employ my own kind of memory palace to memorize Scripture, which is a way to organize the information in a way that allows me to attached chapter and verse numbers to each verse I memorize.
This process can be broken out into three parts:
One more thing before we get started here: if you’d prefer to download a printable version of this memory palace, I’ve created something that you can download right now.
Ok, let’s get started with creating our memory palace.
Creating the Memory Palace for Psalm 46
When using the memory palace technique, one of the first things you need to do is to create your palace.
This can be done in a number of different ways, and most of the time you want to use a palace that is very personal to you (so that you know it well), but for the sake of this exercise I’m going to use a location that most people should be able to understand:
A golf course.
Since Psalm 46 has 11 verses, I know that I need to create eleven distinct location on the golf course that I can associate with a number.
Follow along with all the Bible Memory Goal YouTube videos!
Once the memory palace has been created, you’ve set the stage for the most important part of the process: encoding the verse to the palace locations.
Encode Each Verse on the Golf Course
Encoding a verse is the process by which you create some sort of mnemonic, preferrably one that is visual, and attach it to a location in your memory palace.
This is much harder to explain in writing than it is to just show, so get comfortable and press “play” on this next video where I share how I encoded all eleven verses of Psalm 46 to the golf course.
What did you think? Remember: this needs to be memorable for you, so feel free to change any of the images or stories to suit your memory style. There are so many visual phrases such as “nations rage”, “oceans roar” and “mountains melt”…which makes this such a great psalm to start memorizing with a mind palace.
You’ll notice that I’m creating images for each number. If you’d like to learn more about this method, check out how to use The Major System for Bible memory.
Reviewing Psalm 46 Effectively & Efficiently
If you take the time to memorize Psalm 46, and then you don’t take the time to review…it’s all a waste!
This last step is probably the most important. Here are the ways that I personally review Psalm 46 to make sure that it sticks in my memory for life.
Final Thoughts on Bible Memory | Just Start!
Hopefully this has inspired you! Or perhaps this method of Bible memory isn’t attractive to you. Either way, the important thing is this:
JUST GET STARTED!
As stated at the beginning, you can download a printable version of the Psalm 46 memory palace that you can take with you as you’re learning this method.
As my friend Scott Stonehouse says, any time spent memorizing the Bible – even if it’s only 5 minutes a day – is better than no time at all.
Many thanks, the videos and explanations are very helpful!
Only one question comes to mind: sounds like you’d want a different memory palace for each Psalm, that would be 150 of them – an awful lot. Is that what you’d do? Yet other folks seem to use a memory palace long enough to learn the psalm by heart, till the images and memory palace are no longer needed for recitation, and leave the memory palace unused long enough to let the psalm imagery fade; then they re-use the memory palace for some other Psalm: that way, they figure the won’t need to make so many memory palaces. Would appreciate your views or hunches on this.
Thank you again! Long ago, it was quite common for everybody to know all the psalms by heart, and I’ve a hunch they used memory palaces to learn ’em.