“I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.” Psalm 119:15
Back in the day, while living in Haiti, many were the times that I was alone and if someone was near, we didn’t share a common language or similar culture; there were many times when solitude was better than fellowship and when silence was wiser than speech.
I firmly believe that each of us would be better Christians if we spent more time being alone, waiting on God and finding spiritual strength for service to Him by meditating on His Word. We should first consider the things of God because only then will we get real nutrition from them.
Consider these children in Cap Haitian, preparing to eat their daily meal; simply taking food into their mouths does not nourish their bodies, for it is the full process of digestion that supplies nutrients to muscles, nerves and bones. And it is through spiritual "digestion" that outward food is brought into our inner life. Our souls are not nourished merely by listening for a while to this and that, and later to another portion of His Word. Hearing, reading, examining, and learning all requires inward digestion to complete their usefulness, and that inner digesting of the truth takes place primarily by meditating on it; dwelling upon His Word. We all need to be fed on His Word and His food daily. Isaac Watts wrote the hymn ‘Oh, that the Lord would guide my ways’ in 1719 and it seems a fitting way to close this message.
“Oh, that the Lord would guide my ways to keep His statutes still! Oh, that my God would grant me grace to know and do His will! Order my footsteps by Thy Word and make my heart sincere; let sin have no dominion, Lord, but keep my conscience clear. Assist my soul, too apt to stray, a stricter watch to keep; and should I e'er forget Thy way, restore Thy wandering sheep. Make me to walk in Thy commands, 'Tis a delightful road, nor let my head or heart or hands offend against my God.”
Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
May God be with you,
Jay