The Dawn Treader

I serendipitously came across an excerpt from a George Mueller article entitled How To Be Constantly Happy In The Lord.  Mueller is one of my heroes of the faith.  He demonstrated remarkable faith in his ministry of orphanages in England in the nineteenth century.

Mueller tried to begin each day with prayer but found that his mind constantly wandered again and again.  Perhaps you have had that problem.  I have.  Then Mueller made a simple discovery.

"Now I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, while meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.  I began, therefore, to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning early in the morning.  The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord's blessing upon his precious word, was to begin to meditate 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 for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my soul.  The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very 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 others, as the word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me that food for my soul as the the object of my meditation.

The result of this is that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication or intercession mingled with my meditation and that my inner man almost invariably is almost sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exception, I am in a peaceful if not a happy state of heart."

Phew.  That was a long quote.  But it is packed with interesting insight.  Let's unpack it.

Insight #1: Your soul is starving.  My soul is starving.  Why?  Because life is hard.  Because you and I are worn out trying to keep up and get everything done.  Because you and I live in an angry culture that grows more hateful and vitriolic by the hour.  Because you and I are quick to forget the promises of God and live like they are not true.  Because we don't know how to feed our souls.

We ought to tend to our souls.  We ought to feed them.  Our souls should feast on that which is true (Phil 4:8-9).  Our souls should feast on that which will last forever (1 Pet 1:22-25).  We need to eat daily.  So do our souls.  What do you feed your soul daily?

Too often I feast on Drudge report, blogs, and podcasts of talk radio.  No wonder I find myself angry too often.  My soul is becoming emaciated.

Insight #2: "Happiness in the Lord" is not the same thing as being a euphoric person.  In other words, it is much closer to peaceful, content and encouraged than it is what our culture associates with the word "happy" (i.e. laughing, smiling, bubbling over).  The happy soul is the one that rests comfortably in the promises of God like in Rom 8:28.  My soul, for instance, resonates in the truth that there is purpose and meaning in everything that happens to me and that life is not random.  For those of us in Christ, we are being remade into the image of Christ through the set backs and sorrow of life.  That brings hope.

Insight #3: Praying is easier when you pray scripture back to God.  I have the hardest time praying for more than five minutes straight.  My mind wanders all over the place.  I end up just asking for thing after thing and eventually day dreaming.  How much richer it is to read through scripture slowly and reflectively, all the while pausing to pray it back to God.  I find it easier to mix all types of prayer together : thanksgiving, confession, praise, supplication etc.  It is organic.  I don't have to follow some cookie cutter guideline ( A-C-T-S ... Adoration then Confession then Thanksgiving then Praise).

Mueller discovered a simple approach to life that aligned with the scriptural teaching to focus our minds on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise.  Guess what.  It actually does produce a soul that is nourished and happy in the Lord.

Put it into practice.  You will read fewer blogs and may not know about all of the current events of the day.  That is okay.  Your soul is starving.  Feed it.