Job 22:22

And lay up His words in thine heart.

Meditation

What is meditation? It is thinking steadily, continuously, repeatedly, on a subject. Surely we can find time to think in this steady way, of your business, your family, your politics, your amusements even? Is it so impossible, then, to think thus of your God? How can you expect to grow in the knowledge of God if you never think of Him? It wants no learning, no singular vigour or acuteness, to think Christian thoughts; but it does want a Christian inclination: and if you have not that, do not blame the subject, but blame yourself. You may be sure that no man is better than he means to be. It is the seeker who finds. Idleness about one’s soul often goes side by side with industry in our affairs, and the same person who is careful and troubled about many lesser things, will be seen neglecting the one thing needful. In the way of meditation, we set up defences of piety, taking home common rules, and building them into our secret resolves. God blesses these exercises of meditation, that they may lead us on in goodness, so that what, we find true in thinking, we should make come true in acting. The rule runs, “In meditation strive for graces, not for gifts”; that is, do not aim at impressions and emotions only, but try to become a better person, and more Christian in life. Warnings--

1. Every light throws a shadow; every virtue is haunted by a counterfeit. Meditation should never lead the fancy into false familiarity with heaven. The good man is, in a humble way, a friend of God, and a child of God, but a child still in minority.

2. Turn the matter of salvation, as the saying is, “with a daily and nightly hand.” Thoughts come to us first as strangers; if received, they return as guests; if well entertained, they stay as members of the family, and end as part of our life and self. So bad thoughts grow into oppressors, and good ones into echoes and reflections of heaven. (T. F. Crosse, D. C. L.)