George Mueller (sometimes spelled Mϋller) was born in Kroppenstaedt, Germany on September 27, 1805. He died just short of the end of the nineteenth century on March 10, 1898, after spending most of his life in Bristol, England, where he pastored an unconventional church, founded The Scripture Knowledge Institute for Home and Abroad, and built five large orphan houses, which cared for more than 100,000 orphans throughout the years they were open.
Mueller’s mother died when he was 14, and he spent a little time in jail at 16 for nonpayment of bills. He became a Christian in 1825 after a Bible study he attended with a friend.
When Mueller turned 70, he began missionary work, traveling to 42 countries, preaching nearly daily for the next 17 years. Even after he stopped traveling (in 1892 at age 87), he still continued preaching and working in the Institute until his death six years later, including leading a prayer meeting at his church the evening before his death.
George Mueller read the Bible through nearly 200 times throughout his lifetime. He prayed whenever the orphans needed anything and never asked anyone for money directly, and took no salary in his last 68 years, but his trust in God was complete and God was always sufficient – he never needed a loan and neither he nor the children ever went hungry. He prayed in what would now equal about $7.2 million dollars over the course of his years caring for orphans.
Mueller married twice: at 25, he married Mary Groves, who bore him four children, only one of which survived past infancy. Mueller married his second wife, Susannah Sangar, when he was 66, two years after the death of his wife Mary, to whom he’d been married for 39 years. Susannah died when Mueller was 90, after 23 years of marriage.
Quotes
Faith
The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.
It is true that the faith which I am able to exercise is God’s own gift. He alone supports it, and He alone can increase it. Moment by moment, I depend on Him. If I were left to myself, my faith would utterly fail.
The more I am in a position to be tried in faith with reference to my body, my family, my service for the Lord, my business, etc., the more shall I have opportunity of seeing God’s help and deliverance; and every fresh instance, in which He helps and delivers me, will tend towards the increase of my faith.
Through faith in the Lord Jesus alone can we obtain forgiveness of our sins, and be at peace with God; but, believing in Jesus, we become, through this very faith, the children of God; have God as our Father, and may come to Him for all the temporal and spiritual blessings which we need.
Wherever God has given faith, it is given, among other reasons, for the very purpose of being tried.
Do but stand still in the hour of trial, and you will see the help of God, if you trust in Him. But there is so often a forsaking the ways of the Lord in the hour of trial, and thus the food of faith, the means whereby our faith may be increased, is lost.
To learn strong faith is to endure great trials. I have learned my faith by standing firm amid severe testings.
Faith is the assurance that the thing which God has said in His word is true, and that God will act according to what He has said in His word… Faith is not a matter of impressions, nor of probabilities, nor of appearances.
Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.
Prayer
Never give up praying until the answer comes.
It is a common temptation of Satan to make us give up the reading of the Word and prayer when our enjoyment is gone; as if it were of no use to read the Scriptures when we do not enjoy them, and as if it were no use to pray when we have no spirit of prayer.
The less we read the Word of God, the less we desire to read it, and the less we pray, the less we desire to pray.
The joy which answers to prayer give, cannot be described; and the impetus which they afford to the spiritual life is exceedingly great.
It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray aright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must pray patiently, believing, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer.
The Lord
The Lord, in His very love and faithfulness, will not, and cannot, let us go on in backsliding but He will visit us with stripes, to bring us back to Himself.
I desire many things concerning myself; but I desire nothing so much, as to have a heart filled with love to the Lord. I long for a warm personal attachment to Him.
The Lord never lays more on us, in the way of chastisement, than our state of heart makes needful; so that whilst He smites with the one hand, He supports with the other.
Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him, and expect help from Him, He will never fail you.
God judges what we give by what we keep.
Oh, how very kind and good my heavenly Father has been to me! I have no aches or pains, no rheumatism, and now in my ninety-third year I can do a day’s work at the orphan houses with as much ease and comfort to myself as ever.
If the Lord fails me at this time, it will be the first time.
Life
The longer I live, the more I am enabled to realize that I have but one life to live on Earth, and that this one life is but a brief life, for sowing, in comparison with eternity, for reaping.
How important it is to ascertain the will of God, before we undertake anything, because we are then not only blessed in our own souls, but also the work of our hands will prosper.
May those who enjoy the faithful ministry of the Word feel exceedingly thankful for it. There are few blessings on Earth greater for a believer; and yet the Lord is frequently obliged to teach us the value of this blessing by depriving us of it for a season.
The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts.
Our walk counts far more than our talk, always!
There was a day when I died; died to self, my opinions, preferences, tastes, and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame even of my brethren or friends; and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.