Deuteronomy 11:18. You shall put these words of mine in your
heart and soul.
When I read this passage, I think about how we learn and
try to imagine how to put the laws that Moses spoke of in my heart and soul. It
feels much easier to write them down and commit them to memory. I bet that
repeating the words and spending time trying to learn them “by heart” might
actually help us to internalize them and start to believe in them. Words and
advice may make perfect sense to think about but I am not sure the heart learns
by memorizing laws. We can teach our children obedience by commanding a certain
behavior or conditioning them but I have found with my own children that they
learn better if they really understand why we make the choices we do. I think
the heart learns from a real deep connection to our emotions and experiences.
We often need to experience the law in action through our relationships with
others to really understand it and believe it in our heart and soul.
This verse also goes on to talk about writing the words on
doorposts and gates at home and wearing them on your hands and forehead. When I
apply this to our modern day life, I imagine a handmade sign of the
commandments written in a cool modern font hanging in a home or seeing someone
with a verse or cross tattoo or wearing symbols in jewelry. All of these are
visual reminders to ourselves and the rest of the world that our belief in the
laws is important to us. But the hope is that those words and signs are more
than words and laws for us, they have traveled from the head to the heart, once
we know them “by heart,” we live them out daily and teach our children by
example.
—Jennifer
Eichenberger
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