Running a D8 twelve hours a day, carving a firebreak road deep in the wilderness, racing to beat a raging forest fire. We were helicoptered in each morning—jumping out as the chopper hovered above the ground.
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Fear Has Its Own Liturgy
This year, I started an unusual experiment. I began memorizing long portions of Scripture. So far, I am averaging a Psalm a week.
At first, it felt slow. Awkward. Like trying to cut a road through ground that had never been touched. The words would not stay put. I would get one line, lose the next, back up, and start again. But somewhere in that slow work, I began to discover something surprising. Memorizing Scripture may be one of the best antidotes to worry I have ever found. And strangely enough, I first learned the principle years ago while building roads in the far north of Canada.
The Beginning Struggle
Scripture memory is not impressive at the start. It feels clumsy. Like trying to follow someone else’s trail through thick bush. Ancient poetry. Strange rhythms. Lines that refuse to stay in order. But something begins to happen when you stay with it. Slowly, the words begin carving pathways in the mind.
Building a Road
When I was younger, I worked in road construction in northern Canada. Most of the time, we repaired old roads. But occasionally, we built new ones.
That meant cutting into mountainsides, filling valleys, and carving a path where none had existed before. The first pass was always rough. Mud. Rock. Trees. Raw earth. But slowly the route emerged. Then came the grading, the shaping, the strengthening.
Eventually, a road appeared — strong enough to travel. That is what memorizing Scripture feels like. At first, you are hacking through the brush. But over time, a road forms in your mind.
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A Psalm Under Pressure
One of the passages I memorized recently is Psalm 17.
This is not the prayer of a man drifting peacefully through life. It is the cry of someone under pressure.
Enemies surround him. Danger presses in. Yet instead of letting fear run wild, David brings his whole case before God.
“Hear a just cause, O Lord.” “Give attention to my cry.” “You have tested my heart.” “Keep me as the apple of Your eye.” “Hide me in the shadow of Your wings.”
There is grit in this psalm. But there is also shelter.
David does not pretend life is easy. He does not numb himself with distraction. He brings everything honestly before God and places himself again under God’s protection.
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A wilderness road carved through the bush to my friend’s newly staked gold claims in the Yukon. It’s rough going at the beginning. We needed chains to get through the mud.
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When the Road Disappears
And sometimes life erases the road.
In the Arctic, one of my jobs was driving a snowcat after a blizzard had wiped the land clean. On the main road down to the airstrip, we had long poles with reflectors, but the side road to the lake, where we got drinking water, had no reflectors.
The wind erased every trace of the road.
White hills. White sky. No tracks. The landscape was blank.
The only way forward was memory. We had to know where the road was, even when we could not see it.
That is what Scripture memory does for the soul.
When storms erase the landscape, the words of God are still there beneath the surface. Guiding us forward.
After a blizzard erased every visible track, the road had to be found again from memory.
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The Real Goal
Psalm 17 does not end with easy circumstances. It ends with something deeper.
“As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake.”
That is the turning point.
Others may settle for whatever this life piles into their hands.
David wants something greater. He wants God.
And that is the deepest gift of Scripture memory. It does not merely calm the nerves. It reshapes the heart. It builds roads in the mind that lead back to God again and again — even when storms erase the landscape.
A Simple Invitation
Here is my encouragement for you this week.
Choose a short passage. Start small.
Repeat it during the quiet spaces of your day — while driving, walking, or lying awake at night.
Build the road slowly.
One day, you may discover that in the very place where worry used to roam, the Word of God has begun to carve a pathway of peace.
And if someone comes to mind who might need that kind of road right now, feel free to pass this along.
