Eureka! According to the Providential Kindness of an Ever-Watching Lord
Monday, August 8, 2005
Has it been weeks, days, months - years? - or just dull seasons, that I have stumbled groggily through morning devotions; praying, but only realizing that I was thinking about my wardrobe or one thousand other trivial things, sitting to pray for 30 minutes, but only praying for 10 or 15 of them and just feeling frustrated? Oh what a drag it was on my soul!
Yesterday around noon, I sat down on the couch - there were a few minutes before lunch - and asked God to just help me; can't even remember what I prayed. Beside me was Desiring God which I have been reading for awhile (and which I will say to anyone that if you haven't read this, read it!).
Picking it up, I opened to the end of the chapter on "Scripture: The Kindling for Christian Hedonism" where I had left off. John Piper wrote about George Mueller [some excerpts from a long passage]
"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......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 strenghened 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 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...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... The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my would 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 awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplicaion, 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 continally keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation...
"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 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."
Now, that was EXACTLY what I needed; and this morning I did this - prayerful meditation on God's word. It was such a blessed way of doing morning devotions. I want to do this for the rest of my life! Thanks be to God for the wisdom passed on from saints gone before.
Monday, August 8, 2005
Has it been weeks, days, months - years? - or just dull seasons, that I have stumbled groggily through morning devotions; praying, but only realizing that I was thinking about my wardrobe or one thousand other trivial things, sitting to pray for 30 minutes, but only praying for 10 or 15 of them and just feeling frustrated? Oh what a drag it was on my soul!
Yesterday around noon, I sat down on the couch - there were a few minutes before lunch - and asked God to just help me; can't even remember what I prayed. Beside me was Desiring God which I have been reading for awhile (and which I will say to anyone that if you haven't read this, read it!).
Picking it up, I opened to the end of the chapter on "Scripture: The Kindling for Christian Hedonism" where I had left off. John Piper wrote about George Mueller [some excerpts from a long passage]
"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......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 strenghened 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 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...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... The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my would 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 awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplicaion, 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 continally keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation...
"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 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."
Now, that was EXACTLY what I needed; and this morning I did this - prayerful meditation on God's word. It was such a blessed way of doing morning devotions. I want to do this for the rest of my life! Thanks be to God for the wisdom passed on from saints gone before.
Labels: Life Lessons
posted by Alyssa Faith at 3:59 PM
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