Read Your Bible, Then Pray
In chapter 5 of Desiring God, Piper relates the testimony of that great saint George Mueller. And he closes that chapter with a lengthy quotation from Mueller. Basically Mueller says that he used to pray first thing in the morning, but it took him quite a while before his mind would stop wondering and then he really began to pray. He found that when he actually started his day with meditation on the Word, it would lead him into prayer and he found his way into prayer much easier.
He decided that first he must feed himself, before he goes about doing his "Christian Duty". This is so true. Here's a quote from Mueller...
I have been reading an awful lot the past 2 months and I've found that preparing for preaching and teaching has come easier to me. I'm able more often to share from my "fullness" where previously I spent more time finding something to say.
I also have been applying something that I learned at Church Camp this past summer. Something that most everyone would see as obvious, but somehow I missed. I always get more from my scripture reading if I ask the Lord to speak to me from His word before I read it.
So I guess I would disagree with Mueller in this small detail - pray first that God would speak to you through His word, then read His word, then pray as your lead while reading His word.
He decided that first he must feed himself, before he goes about doing his "Christian Duty". This is so true. Here's a quote from Mueller...
The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.
I have been reading an awful lot the past 2 months and I've found that preparing for preaching and teaching has come easier to me. I'm able more often to share from my "fullness" where previously I spent more time finding something to say.
I also have been applying something that I learned at Church Camp this past summer. Something that most everyone would see as obvious, but somehow I missed. I always get more from my scripture reading if I ask the Lord to speak to me from His word before I read it.
So I guess I would disagree with Mueller in this small detail - pray first that God would speak to you through His word, then read His word, then pray as your lead while reading His word.
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