Here's a great interview with Ben Patterson, campus pastor of Westmont College. He's asked about his testimony, preaching, Bible memorization, prayer (both personal prayer and how to lead in prayer), the emerging church, and more.Some challenging but interesting insights they draw out of him. Specifically, they ask him about how he memorizes Scripture and how much he has memorized. He has memorized several NT books (Romans, Mark, Colossians, etc.). His current goal is to memorize all of the Psalms (he has about 45 of them down, including, most recently, Psalm 119). His time with the Lord begins at 4 AM and he usually spends 4 hours with the Lord.
It's interesting, isn't it, what the heart does when it hears this sort of thing? Some of us are inclined toward despair, some toward jealousy, some toward scoffing, some toward warnings about legalism, etc. But at the end of the day, I think the Lord wants to use this sort of thing to spur us on in the fight of faith and in the long race.
If you want to know more about praying the Psalms, Patterson's most recent book is, God's Prayer Book: The Power and Pleasure of Praying the Psalms. See also his book, Deepening Your Conversation with God: Learning to Love to Pray.
HT: Justin Buzzard
