Note 001 - Feed the Soul First

Summary : The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. This is achieved by the reading of the Word of God, and to mediate on it, for the sake of obtaining food for soul. It will be best done by walking in open air, as it will be both beneficial to the body and soul.

First thing of the Day

There may be a lot of things planned to do everyday:

But the first thing is to get my soul in happy state, and how my inner man be nourished. How to achieve ? Give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to mediatation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experiential communion with the Lord.

How to Read the Word

I began therefore to mediate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words in the Lord's blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to mediate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word, not the sake of preaching on what I had mediated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.

The result I found to be almost invariably this, that after a few minutes my soul 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 a while making confession or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled into my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart.

Walking with Jesus

With this mode I have likewise combined the being out in the open air for a one to two hour walk about in the fields, before breakfast, and in summer sitting for a little on the stiles, if I find it too much to walk all the time. I find it very beneficial to my health to walk thus for meditation before breakfast. I generally take out a good-sized New Testament.

I used to consider the time spent in walking a loss, but now I find it very profitable, not only to the my body, but also to my soul. The walking out before breakfast is, of course, not necessarily connected with this matter, and everyone has to judge according to his strength and other circumstances.

Food for Soul

My heart is nourished by the truth, and brought into experiential fellowship with God. The first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is, to obtain food for his inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as everyone must allow. Now, what is the food for the inner man ? Not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God, os that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.

The inner man is nourished by meditation on the Word of God, where we find our Father speaking to us, encourage us, comfort us, instruct us, humble us, and reprove us. We may therefore profitably meditate, with God's blessing.

How different, when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one.

by King, December 28, 1999 (Excerpt from the Work of George Muller)

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