Feasting at the wrong table

In 1886, Frederick B. Meyer, a British pastor and evangelist, wrote these words to those who desired to culture a devout spiritual life:
     We must be still before God.  The life around us, in this age, is preeminently one of rush and effort.  It is the age of the express-train and electric telegraph.  Years are crowded into months, and weeks into days.  This feverish haste threatens the religious life.  The stream has already entered our churches, and stirred their quiet pools.  Meetings crowd on meetings.  The same energetic souls are found at them all, and engaged in many good works beside.  But we must beware that we do not substitute the active for the contemplative, the valley for the mountain-top.  Neither can with safety be divorced from the other.  The sheep must go in and out.  The blood must come back to the heart to be recharged, and fitted to be impelled again to the extremities.
    We must take time to be alone with God.  The closet and the shut door are indispensable.  Happy are they who have an observatory in their heart-house to which they can often retire beneath the great arch of Eternity, turning their telescope to the mighty constellations that turn beyond life's fever, and reaching regions where the breath of human applause or censure cannot follow!
     It is only in such moments that the best spiritual gifts will loom on our vision, or we shall have grace to receive them.  It is impossible to rush into God's presence, catch up anything we fancy, and run off with it.  God's best can not be ours apart from patient waiting in His Holy Presence.  The superficial may be put off with a parable, a pretty story, but it is not given such to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven.

As I read those words I wondered what FB Meyer would think of our lives today - with not just the "feverish haste" of express-trains but automobiles in which we race from activity to activity.  Not just electric telegraph but each of us with a personal phone through which we constantly access the entire world via a huge web of apps.  I'm sure 30 minutes exposure to this flood of stimulus and media would overwhelm rather than impress him.  And if the spiritual life was threatened by the "feverish haste" of his day, how much more, exponentially more, is that true for us?  Somehow I don't think he could relate to the One Minute Bible.  

This necessity to seek God in the stillness, like a melody repeated in different movements of a symphony, has come to my ears many times over the past few years.  FB Meyer but also Ken Gire, JP Moreland, Richard Swenson, Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, AW Tozer, Amy Carmichael, Brother Lawrence - just a few of those that point the way back to seeking the better part.  Indeed, this is what has set apart the true spiritual in every age.  To experience the real spiritual riches of God Himself, we MUST make room in our lives for Him.  We can only make room if we are willing to disengage for a time or times at least, from the lesser things.  God does not do anything in haste; He does not pour out the riches of His marvelous truth and presence to the casual inquirer.  It's possible we could go through our entire lives and be only dimly conscious of what we are missing.  We might feast richly at the "fast food" table of this physical life but entirely miss the richer and true delights of God Himself.  "You have let me experience the joys of life and the exquisite pleasure of your own eternal presence."  Psalm 16:11 The Living Bible