MEDITATION
MEDITATION
I see great importance in the Lord leading His disciples apart to rest awhile: “and when they were alone, he ex-pounded all things to his disciples” (Mark 4: 34). I am sure that the reading of the word and prayer are necessary, and that great help comes to us through ministry; yet there is another exercise which surpasses all the rest; indeed, the others are, I might say, invalid without it. I mean meditation. “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them” (1 Timothy 4: 15). I believe that as your physical constitution requires [p. 15] rest, or all your power would become enfeebled, however you might eat and drink and act; so it is with the spiritual man. However much you may take in, and receive in an honest and good heart, there must be, like a grain of wheat, months underground, unseen by any mortal eye, a secret germination before there is the blade — anything to be seen. The most valuable grain requires a longer time underground. I mean that the deeper the truth I receive, the longer the time of meditation before it characterises me. I think many do not habituate themselves to sitting before the Lord; one does not appear to be doing anything, and yet that is the very time in which the peculiar lines of His mind and pleasure for one are acquired. See the effect of His presence on the two disciples at Emmaus. They only saw Him, and the effect was so great that they started at once for Jerusalem — the place He Himself was going to, though He said nothing to them about it. It is wonderful the unaffected correspondence to His own present mind there would be in us if we were more in His company. Being guided and decided by a text is legally right, but there is not about it the ease, the unction, the concert with Him, which a sight of Himself imparts. It will be deep joy to my heart if your coming seclusion through the Lord’s grace should be a time of being ‘beside’ yourself, that His society may so conform you to Him that you will come forth able to comprehend all His words better, simply because you know Himself better.