Morning, October 12, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“I will meditate on your precepts.”– Psalm 119:15

There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We would be better Christians if we spent more time 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 there we get the real nutrition out of them. Truth is something like a cluster of the grapevine: if we would have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The stomper’s feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must tread well the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So, we also must by meditation tread the clusters of truth, if we would get the wine of comfort from them. Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the mouth, but the process which really supplies the muscle, and the nerves, and the sinews, and the bones, 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 for a while to this, and then to that, and then to another part of divine truth. Hearing, reading, observing, and learning, all require inward digestion to complete their usefulness, and the inward digestion of the truth lies — for the most part — in meditating upon it. Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make only slow advances in the spiritual life? It is because they neglect their quiet places, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would receive 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 foolishness deliver us, O Lord, and let this be our resolve this morning, “I will meditate on your precepts.”