This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
Joshua 1:8
From George Müller’s autobiography:
While I was staying at Nailworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a
truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the
benefit of which I have not lost, though now…more than forty years
have since passed away.
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, 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 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,
whilst meditation, my heart might be brought into
experimental, 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 to prayer but to meditation, yet it turned almost
immediately more or less to prayer.
When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or
intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on 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 meditation.
The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of
confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled
with my meditation, and that 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, very soon after, 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 have myself to meditation, but for the profit of my
own inner man.
The difference 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… 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 being
nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship
with God, I 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 astonished me that I did not sooner see this. 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….
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 forty years tried
this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. 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!