We lose considerably, both in reading and hearing, by not conferring with our own souls about the truth we may have received, and at the time felt to be applicable to us. The ant is set before us as an example of one who prepares for the winter. Now we find that God provides us with provisions for some dreary time that is coming; but instead of being like the ant, when the winter comes, want comes on us “as an armed man.” It is not only winter, but we have no food, and all because we have merely enjoyed ourselves during the summer. Nothing reveals this (even to ourselves, if we at all judge ourselves) so much as the great difference between us in summer and in winter. In summer we seem to enjoy everything; we could almost imitate the lark; but when winter comes, the frost and pitiless blast supervene. All the supposed spiritual joy of the summer’s day is gone, and we talk and think only of the inclemency of the air which surrounds us. This painful discrepancy, or exposure of our want, would not occur if we really had stored provisions suited for the exigencies to which we are exposed. The apostle could say he had learned, in whatsoever state he was therewith to be content. He knew how to be abased and how to abound. (Phil. 4:11-12.)
I believe the soul ought to say when it takes in any truth, “Well, someday I shall want it, let me now see how it fits me, and whether I have it from God”—in a word, whether I have made it as much my own as any other acquisition of which I have real possession.
Receiving and not pondering, only leaves the soul in the end more barren, simply for the reason that you lose your appreciation of anything if you find that it only charmed you, but bad no place of abiding use or benefit to you. A clean animal must be also a nominating one! Good feeding will not do; the other must follow. Meditate, and find the true applicability of all you hear or learn to yourself, and what you really learn (certainly in divine things) you never forget.
“Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all.” (1 Tim. 4:15.)