It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost, for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit. Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experiential communion with the Lord.
I began therefore to meditate on the New Testament
from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having
asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon his precious Word, was, to begin
to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get
blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word, not
for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of
obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably
this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to
thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did
not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost
immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for a while making
confession or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go to the
next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others,
as the Word may lead to it, but still continually keeping before me that food
for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that
there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or
intercession mingled with my meditation, and then my inner man almost
invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast
time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart.
Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, either very
soon after or at a later time, I have found to become food for other believers,
though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave
myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.
The difference, then, between my former practice
and my present one is this: Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as
possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all
the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer, except when I
felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the Word of
God for food, or for refreshment, or for a revival and renewal of my inner man,
before I gave myself to prayer. But what was the result? I often spent a
quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour, on my knees, before being
conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul,
etc., and often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the
first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then
began really to pray. I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart,
first being nourished by the truth, being brought into experiential fellowship
with God, I then speak to my Father and to my Friend (vile though I am, and
unworthy of it) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious
Word. It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this point. In no
book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter
before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter.
And yet, now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as
anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning
is, to obtain food for his inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work
for any length of time except we take food, and as this is one of the first
things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take
food for that, as every one must allow. Now, what is the food for the inner
man? Not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of
the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs
through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying
it to our hearts. When we pray, we speak to God. Now, prayer, in order to be
continued for any length of time in any other than a formal manner, requires,
generally speaking, a measure of strength or godly desire, and the season,
therefore, when this exercise of the soul can be most effectually performed is
after the inner man has been nourished by meditation on the Word of God, where
we find our Father speaking to us, to encourage us, to comfort us, to instruct
us, to humble us, to reprove us. We may therefore profitably meditate, with
God’s blessing, though we are ever so weak spiritually; nay, the weaker we are,
the more we need meditation for the strengthening of our inner man. Thus there
is far less to be feared from wandering of mind than if we give ourselves to
prayer without having had time previously for meditation. I dwell so
particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and
refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I
affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow believers to ponder this
matter. By the blessing of God, I ascribe to this mode the help and strength
which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials, in various
ways, than I had ever had before; and after having now above fourteen years
tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. In addition
to this I generally read, after family prayer, larger portions of the Word of
God, when I still pursue my practice of reading regularly onward in the Holy
Scriptures, sometimes in the New Testament, and sometimes in the Old, and for
more than twenty-six years I have proved the blessedness of it. I take, also,
either then or at other parts of the day, time more especially for prayer.
How different, when the soul is refreshed and made
happy early in the morning, from what it is when without spiritual preparation,
the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one.
George Mueller"Blessed is the man whose…. delight is in the law (Word) of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers…. The LORD knows (is intimately acquainted with) the way of the righteous…." Psalm 1
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