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.