MEDITATION

(by Spurgeon)

"I will meditate on your precepts."
- Psalm 119:15

As the Master himself often retired for
meditation and prayer to the mountain
side and the garden's shade, that alone
with his Father he might seek the face
of his God, so let us leave awhile the
busy scenes of life and the haunts of men,
to spend a still hour in quiet meditation,
and in pouring out our hearts into his
ever-loving breast.

There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence
is wiser than speech. We would be better Christians if we were
more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering spiritual strength
for labor in his service, through meditation on his Word. We ought
to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real
nutriment out of them.

Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: if we would have
wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it
many times. The bruiser's feet must come down joyfully upon
the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must well
tread the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be
wasted. So we must, by meditation, tread the clusters of
truth, if we would get the wine of consolation therefrom.

Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the
mouth, but the process which really supplies the muscle, and the
nerve, and the sinew, and the bone, is the process of digestion.
It is by digestion that the outward food becomes assimilated with
the inner life. Our souls are not nourished merely by listening
awhile to this, and then to that, and then to the other part of
divine truth.

Hearing, reading, marking, and learning, all require inwardly
digesting to complete their usefulness, and the inward digesting
of the truth lies for the most part in meditating upon it. Why is
it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make
but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their
closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They
love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the
corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it;
the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the
water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it.
From such folly deliver us, O Lord, and be this our resolve this
morning, "I will meditate on your precepts."