March 24

Ministry of meditation


“O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psa. 119:97).
“Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all” (1 Tim. 4:15).

We are to employ the ministry of meditation. I care not how unpractical the counsel may seem in this busy, hurrying, breathless day. If we men and women are ever to attain unto life and make progress in its way we have got to find time to go to school and learn. I think one of the cant phrases of our day is the familiar one by which we express our permanent want of time. We repeat it so often that by the very repetition we have deceived ourselves into believing it. It is never the supremely busy men who have got no time. So compact and systematic is the regulation of their day, that, whenever you make a demand upon them, they seem to be able to find additional corners to offer for unselfish service. 


I find that when I have comparatively little to pack into my traveling-bag it seems as full as when I have much. The less we have to pack the more carelessly we pack it, and the traveling-bag appears to be full. There is many a man who says he has no time, who proclaims his day to be full, but the fullness is the result of careless packing. I confess, as a minister, that the men to whom I most hopefully look for additional service are the busiest men. They are always willing to squeeze another item into their bulging traveling-bag.
But even though our plea were legitimate, if our time were crowded, if the traveling-bag were packed, if we cannot find a corner of the day for meditation in the school of Christ, then we must take something out and make room for it.
I think if we search our bags we shall find many and many a rag which takes up space, but which is of very little worth, and which might very safely be banished. But if even all the contents were valuables, even assuming that they were pearls, the Master has declared that the secret of progressive living is to sacrifice the pearl of inferior value for the pearl of transcendent worth. Even assuming that the newspaper is not a rag, but a jewel, I do not think it wise to cram so many into one bag that there is no room for the book of Revelation, the title-deeds of “the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” No, if we mean truly to “live,” we have got to find time for the highest of all exercises, meditation upon the eternal things of God.
—J. H. Jowett.

Read full article...