Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest
(J. R. Miller, Daily Bible Readings in the Life of Christ, 1890)
There is a tendency to leave the Bible out of the prayer-closet. We hear a great deal of earnest counsel concerning secret prayer:
we must both open and close the day at God's feet;
prayer is the Christian's vital breath;
if we would live strong, noble, beautiful, radiant, and useful Christian lives — we must get seasons of secret prayer into all our busy days.
But we must take our Bibles with us into the prayer-closet. While we talk to God — we must also let God talk to us. God feeds us through His Word. It is "into all truth" (John 16:13) that the Holy Spirit leads Christ's disciples. Seasons of prayer without meditation on some portion of the Word of God, cannot yield the full blessing that we need.
Life is hard for most of us; at least, it is hard to live nobly, lovingly, purely, Christianly. We can do so only by getting a great deal of help from Christ. We need, therefore, daily to heed His invitation, "Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." (Mark 6:31). In communion with Him — we shall receive strength and blessing to enable us to live each day more beautifully, more victoriously, more radiantly, more lovingly. We shall rob ourselves therefore, of divine help — if we do not make room in our busiest days, for quiet retreats from noise and strife — to be alone with Christ, where we may sit at His feet to hear His words; or lie on His bosom to absorb His spirit — for the refreshing and transforming of our lives.