A Christian manufacturer was asked, “When do you manage to find time to read and study the Word of God?” The questioner well knew the gentleman’s life was a very busy one; that to minister on the Lord’s day and at other times, as he did, must need a fair share of time allotted to private devotion. “I never find time to read,” he replied, “I am at the mill from early till late, and business needs so much of my attention, how do you think I could find time?” His friend said, “How then do you manage?” Looking at the other’s puzzled face, he said, “I will tell you: I take the time. For one hour in the day I turn the key of my private office, and during that hour no one can see me while I read and study the Word. If I did not take time, I should never find time.”
About the year B.C. 1451, God drew His people’s attention to the importance of an habitual meditation in His Word, saying, “This Book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success “(Josh. 1:8).
Four hundred years later, the Lord needed to remind His people of this exceedingly important habit of life. In describing a truly blessed man, He says of him, “His delight is in the Law of the Lord, and in His Law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season: his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsover he doeth shall prosper” (Psa. 1:2-3).
After a lapse of a thousand years, A.D. 60, God speaks for the third time to impress upon forgetful minds the highly essential practice of steadily going on, day after day, with the thoughtful reading of His Word: “Whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:25).