"Meditate upon these things
… that your profiting may appear to all" (1 Tim. 4:15).

It has pleased the Lord to teach me
a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than 14 years. The point
is this:the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every
day is to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about
is not how much I might serve or glorify the Lord. Rather it is how I might get
my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished. I might
seek to set the truth before the unconverted, to benefit believers, to relieve
the distressed, or to behave myself in other ways as it becomes a child of God.
But if I am not happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in
my inner man day by day, these things might not be done in a right spirit.
Before this time my habitual practice had been to give myself to prayer after
having dressed myself in the morning. Now I have seen that the most important
thing I have to do is 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, and instructed. Thus, while meditating upon the Word of God my heart
is brought into experiential communion with the Lord.

I have begun therefore to meditate
on the Scriptures early each morning. The first thing I do, after having asked
in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, is to begin to
meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get
blessing out of it. This is not for the sake of public ministry of the Word but
for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. Almost invariably I have found
that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession or
thanksgiving or intercession or supplication. Thus, though I do not give myself
to prayer but to meditation, yet it turns almost immediately more or less into
prayer.

Having been for a while making
confession or intercession or supplication, or giving thanks, I go to the next
words or verse, turning all into prayer for myself or others as the Word may
lead to it. All the while I keep before me that the object of my meditation is
food for my own soul. 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 nourished and
strengthened.

I often find that the Lord is
pleased to use that which He has communicated unto me to minister to other
believers at some later time. This occurs even though it is not for the sake of
public ministry of the Word that I give 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 awakened, I began
to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent almost all my time till
breakfast in prayer. 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 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 of
having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc., and often after
having suffered much from wandering of mind. I scarcely ever suffer now in this
way. My heart is 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 discussion with a
fellow-believer 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. What is
the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God. Again, it is not
the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our
minds, just as water runs through a pipe; rather, it is 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 a measure of godly desire. The season when this
exercise of 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, comfort, instruct, humble, or reprove us. We may
therefore profitably meditate, with God’s blessing, though we are ever so weak
spiritually. In fact, 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. 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 more than 14 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. For more than 26
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.

What a difference it makes for the
soul to be refreshed and made happy early in the morning, compared to meeting
the service, the decisions, and the trials of the day without spiritual preparation!