The priority of communing with God in the life of a believer

"These last three days I have had very little real communion with God, and have therefore been irritable and weak spiritually."

Can you relate to this?

These words actually come from George Mueller's autobiography. And I know that I can relate to it, both in the struggle to have a meaningful and consistent devotional time where I am truly communing with God, and in the fruit of neglecting that sweet fellowship.

Here's the entry for the next day of Mueller's life, "I rose early this morning and spent nearly two hours in prayer before breakfast. I now feel more comfortable."

I believe that Mueller's humble testimony provides a great arguement and motivation to invest our time in meaningful communion with God ("devotions," "quiet time"). It argues from both the positive and negative: positively, time with God is sweet and rewarding; negatively, neglecting time with God puts me out of step, makes me spiritually vulnerable, and sinful fruit pops up in my life. I believe Mueller would exhort us to make it a chief priority in our life to attend to; in fact, he does so several times in his autobiography. Let me give you a few examples:

A humble testimony of neglecting time with God...
“I must offer a word of warning to believers. Often the work of the Lord itself may tempt us away from communion with Him. A full schedule of preaching, counseling, and travel can erode the strength of the mightiest of the Lord. Public prayer will never make up for closet communion. After this evening’s meeting, I should have withdrawn from the company of brothers and sisters, explaining that I needed secret communion with the Lord. Instead, I spent the time until the coach came in conversation with them. Although I enjoyed their fellowship, my soul needed food. Without it, I was lean and felt the effects of it the whole day. I was even silent on the coach and did not speak a word for Christ or give away a single tract.” (p. 48)

And here is a motivating exhortation...
“Anyone who spends one, two, or three hours in prayer and meditation before breakfast will soon discover the beneficial effect early rising has on the outward and inward man.” (p. 119)


There are a hundred other things competing for our attention, but none is so rewarding and so enduring as communing with God. May God change our hearts to see both the blessing of the results of communing with Him, and the supremely delightful privilege it is to have the open ended invitation to enter into His presence and enjoy communing with Him.