The Still Hour

My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. PSALM 5:3

Meyer was one of the busiest men of his generation. He ran a large church and a web of missions, preached several times a week, travelled constantly and wrote books at a rate that still astonishes. And the counsel he gave more often than any other was to stop. Be still. Shut the door. Take time. His generation spoke of the morning watch, the quiet time at the start of the day before its business begins, and Meyer pressed it on his hearers because he knew how easily a busy Christian loses it.

The neglect of the still hour

In Where Am I Wrong?, the address in which he diagnoses the loss of Christian joy, one of the causes he names is simply this: too little time alone with God through His Word. It is not necessary, he says, to make long prayers. But it is essential to be much alone with God. And then comes a sentence that every active Christian should hang on the wall: “No number of meetings, no fellowship with Christian friends, no amount of Christian activity can compensate for the neglect of the still hour.”

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. MATTHEW 6:6

He knew the difficulty. We do not always want to pray. His counsel is blunt and kind together: “When you feel least inclined for it, there is most need to make for your closet with the shut door.” Do for duty’s sake, he says, what you cannot yet do for pleasure, and it will become a delight. When you cannot pray for yourself, pray for others. When desire flags, take a text and turn it into a petition, or count your mercies and turn each into praise. And if the Bible itself has become dull, ask whether you have spoiled your appetite with sweets.

The Word first

For Meyer the still hour was always a Bible hour. He did not mean a hurried verse and a prayer, but real reading. He looked for a widespread revival of private Bible study, and said there was no short and easy method of godliness that could do without it. In Our Daily Walk he gives a homely piece of advice about the order of things: “Let us each one resolve to soak ourselves in the Scripture before turning to prayer,” as water poured into a pump helps to draw water up.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. PSALM 119:105

He practised a way of meditating that many have found helpful. There is no better way of communing with God, he writes, than to walk up and down in your room or in the open air, Bible in hand, turning its precepts and promises into prayer. God walks in the glades of Scripture, as once in the garden in the cool of the day.

The first words of the day

Meyer’s own habit at waking is recorded in the first reading of Our Daily Walk, and it is worth copying. “For my part, I like to begin every day, before lifting my head from the pillow, by saying, ‘Thou art within, O Spirit of Christ, though I feel Thee not.’” It is a small thing, and it sets the whole day on the right foundation: a fact believed, not a feeling waited for.

And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. MARK 1:35

To this he joined the practice he urged in his address on the Spirit: to ask, before leaving one’s room in the morning, to be filled afresh. The still hour was not only for listening and asking. It was for receiving.

When water stands

Why does stillness matter so much? Meyer’s answer in the address In the Secret of His Presence is one of his loveliest pictures. The Spirit within and the presence of God around cannot be discerned, he says, while our senses are busy and our pulse is racing and our minds are full of hurrying thoughts. “It is when water stands that it becomes pellucid,” and shows the pebbles on the bottom. Be still, and know that God is within you and around you.

Be still, and know that I am God. PSALM 46:10

And so his rule: “Let no day pass without its season of silent waiting before God.” He was not asking for hours. He was asking for regularity, for a season kept against the rush.

Carrying the presence out

The still hour was not meant to be shut up in the morning. Meyer wanted his readers to carry God’s presence into the day. He admired Brother Lawrence, the lay brother who worked in a monastery kitchen and claimed to be as aware of God among the pots as at the sacrament. In Our Daily Walk he urges his readers to practise the presence of God: in business or in the midst of daily toil, to lift the heart for a moment into the atmosphere of His presence, and to say to themselves when irritated or worried, the Lord is at hand.

Thou art near, O LORD; and all thy commandments are truth. PSALM 119:151

He recommended one practice that surprises modern readers. Cultivate the habit, he says, of speaking aloud to God as to a present friend, whether sitting in the house or walking by the way — talking over your letters, your plans, your mistakes and your sorrows with Him. “One cannot talk long with God aloud without feeling that He is near.”

And he insisted that the presence is found in work as well as in withdrawal. The place of prayer would lose its light, he says, if we lingered there after the bell of duty had rung below. As we go out to our daily tasks, the angel of His presence meets us at the door and walks beside us.

Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. PSALM 31:20

Reading him with care

Meyer liked to hold up examples of unbroken communion — Brother Lawrence, who said he did not lose the sense of God’s presence for more than sixty years, or Spurgeon, who was reported never to pass a quarter of an hour without a sense of the Lord’s nearness. Such examples can inspire. They can also crush, and some sincere Christians who have never known anything of the kind have concluded that something is wrong with them. Meyer’s own teaching on fact and feeling is the best answer: God is present whether we sense Him or not. The still hour is kept not in order to produce a feeling, but because He is there.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Set a fixed time for a still hour — even fifteen minutes — each morning this week, before the day’s business begins. Keep it when you least want to.

2. Try Meyer’s first words of the day before you lift your head from the pillow: Thou art within, O Spirit of Christ, though I feel Thee not.

3. Read Scripture before you pray. Take one verse and turn it into a prayer.

4. Walk while you pray once this week, Bible in hand, speaking to God aloud about your plans and worries.

5. Choose a phrase — the Lord is at hand — and say it to yourself at three moments of irritation or anxiety during the day.

A PRAYER

Lord, my days are full, and I have let the still hour slip away. Forgive me.

Meet me in the morning before the day begins, and speak to me through Your Word.

Let the water of my heart stand still long enough for me to see that You are here.

Then go out with me into the work of the day, and let me find You there too. Amen.