“Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”~ John 14:3
George Müller: … | 1805-1898
George Müller’s life powerfully illustrates the extraordinary beauty of a life redeemed and wholly dedicated to God’s glory. Born in Prussia, as a child, Müller quickly earned a reputation for lying, stealing, and drinking. His mother passed away when he was 14 years old, and in the following years, Müller got into even more serious trouble, spending a month in prison for theft before his father bailed him out. Upon his release, his father enrolled him in a classical cathedral school and later sent him to the University of Halle to study divinity. As the son of a government official, Müller was expected to become a member of the clergy in a respected and profitable church. However, try as he might to please his father, no amount of religious instruction and or self-determination was strong enough to break Müller’s sinful habits.
However, while at University, God got ahold of Müller’s heart. A college friend named Beta invited Müller to a prayer meeting held in a private home, where Müller for the first time heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and prayed a prayer of repentance that changed his life in unimaginable ways. When Müller gave his heart to the Lord, he gave up drinking cold turkey, along with his other vices, and never looked back. He began studying the Word of God with an insatiable hunger to truly know his Lord & Savior. During his final years at the university, Müller began to preach and felt called to missionary work.
Like many other young men at the time, military service was expected of Müller when he completed his education. However, due to poor health, Müller was not qualified to serve and was sent to England for treatment and recovery. There, he met Henry Craik, a Gospel minister who became a life-long friend of Müller’s. Craik introduced Müller to people who sold their possessions and gave to the poor, instead living by faith as they worked for the Kingdom and depending on the Lord to provide through prayer. Müller was inspired by their faith and approached the mission board that supported him and asked them to allow him to serve on such a basis, but they rejected the idea. Around this time, Craik offered Müller a job as a pastor at a small congregation in Teignmouth. Müller accepted and he and his wife began serving the congregation and gave up their salary, trusting God to provide for their needs through freewill offerings.
Two years later, Henry Craik asked the Müllers to accompany him in moving to Bristol to preach and also minister to the orphans. In those days, stories like the one told in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist were common, with many orphaned children begging or stealing food to survive, and others working long hours in workhouses, mines, and other tough jobs that paid poverty wages. Neither local communities nor the government had compassion or any assistance programs for these poor children. Müller and his wife began to pray about starting an orphan house where children could be loved, educated, taught a trade, and most importantly, introduced to Jesus. Though they had children of their own, the first orphan house became the Müller family home, even as God began moving people’s hearts to fund larger orphanages that could care for even more children. Müller began to keep a detailed record of every donation-furniture, money, even dishes and spoons that were given for the children. Miraculously, God provided an architect to donate his services for building needs, and even teachers and workers came and offered their services. When they were ready to open, Müller prayed for orphans to care for to come, and God lead the children to a home where they would finally be loved and cherished with the heart of Christ.
Unlike in Dickens’ Oliver Twist, Müller’s orphans at Abby Down were treated well and given the best of what God provided. Müller records in his personal records how abundantly God provided for His children. When a child graduated, they had such a high-quality education and trade training that Abby Down orphans were sought after by businessman and craftsman for strong careers. Each child left the orphanage with prospects a bright future with a tin trunk that included two nice sets of clothing and their own Bible. Müller was actually accused my some of “raising orphans above their social sphere” and “stealing the factory of their fodder” because so many of his children were well-educated professionals and tradesman by the age of 14 when they graduated. The high standard of education at the orphanages is actually credited with causing labor shortages for a generation in the mines and many of the lower-class labor industries around the Bristol area. Dickens himself actually wrote a column in a popular newspaper about how exceedingly well treated the children were in Müller’s orphanages, testifying to the goodness of God and the faithful work of Christian people in caring for the least of these.
Yet, things were not always easy for Müller. God gave him big dreams that required big faith, and sometimes, God’s provision came just in time. Once, there was no food and hundreds of hungry children. They were seated at the breakfast table, and began to pray and thank God for providing, and even as they prayed, a baker knocked on the door with a large donation of bread that he said the Lord had told him to bake and deliver that morning. While the bread was being unloaded, a milk cart broke down in front of the orphanage. The milk would spoil before the cart could be fixed, so the owner offered all his inventory to the children. God provided right on time, as He did thousands of times throughout Müller’s life and ministry. God even supplied more than $1,000,000 to build a larger orphanage—without Müller ever asking for a dime. Throughout his lifetime, Müller and his family and team cared for more than 10,024 orphans, and trained a successor to continue the ministry. More than 200 years later, Müller’s work continues through the Scriptural Knowledge Institute (SKI), a non-profit ministry and trust that Müller founded in 1834. It supported Christian education, missionaries (including Hudson Taylor), and Christian charity including the Abby Down Orphanage in Bristol. Over the next 150 years, the trust cared for more than an additional 18,000 children and to this day, continues to support missionaries and Christian service around the world through ongoing unsolicited gifs made in answer to prayer.
Among his many accomplishments, throughout his lifetime, George Müller:
· Preached more than 10,000 sermons to his congregations in England
· For more than 30 years, he gave away an average of 80-90% of his personal income to Christian ministry and was never in debt or lacked material needs
· Personally gave out more than 31 million Bibles and tracts
· After turning 70 years old, traveled more than 200,000 miles as a missionary (equal to more than 8 times around the world), preaching the Gospel in more than 42 nations to millions of people
· Built five large orphanages and cared for 10,024 orphans
· Received the modern equivalent of more than $147,000,000 in donations to fund his orphanages without ever asking for a penny
· Built 117 schools that provided a strong academic education and an even stronger Biblical Worldview to more than 120,000 students.
Lessons From Müller’s Life:
The words of Ephesians 3:20 are true, that the Lord can do abundantly, exceedingly more than we can ask or imagine—but first we must give our selves fully to Him as Lord and Savior. George Müller gave the Lord everything and was extraordinarily intentional and discipled in his faith. He prayerfully set goals and objectives for his ministry and regularly checked in to make sure he was staying focused on the work God had called him to. As Müller’s ministry grew, he always prioritized his own time with the Lord in prayer and in Bible study. He delegated to others so that he could keep first things first, he carefully documents God’s provision and every answered prayer in open books that built the faith of others around him, and he trained successors to continue the kingdom work beyond his own life and generation.
From the time he repented of his sins and surrendered his life to Christ, he surrendered his dreams too. While a young man, he dreamed of serving in global missions, but the Lord set other work before him to which he cheerfully and faithfully devoted himself. It wasn’t until the age of 70 that Müller and Susanna, his second wife, set out as global missionaries. For 17 years, they traveled the world, trusting God to provide their travel needs and resources as they shared the Gospel with millions. Given travel conditions in the 1800s, the scope of Müller’s missionary work is miraculous, and much of it still bears fruit today.
In 1892, and the age of 87, Müller returned to England and spent his remaining years sowing into the faith of the next generation at the orphanages and schools he built. He passed away in Orphan House Number 3 on March 10th, 1898. He was buried at Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol by a funeral procession fit for a king, attended by more than 10,000 people (shown in the photo below), including more than 1,500 children from the orphanages he established. His tombstone was designed and donated by many of the orphans he helped, with this epitaph:
‘In loving memory of George Müller, founder of the Ashely Down Orphanage, born September 27, 1805; Fell Asleep March 10, 1898. He trusted in God with whom “nothing shall be impossible.” And in His beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord who said, “I go unto my Father, and whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” And in His inspired Word which declares that “All things are possible to him that believeth.” And God fulfilled these declarations in the experience of His servant by enabling him to care for about 10,000 orphans. This memorial was erected by the spontaneous and loving gifts of many of these orphans.’
Like Müller, we as modern-day believers have the same amazing promises from God’s Word. What if we dared to believe them? What is we were disciplined in our faith and chose to depend on God for absolutely everything? What if we refused to retire from building His Kingdom and refused to live a single day for our own selfish ambitions? Can you imagine how God would be glorified and the world changed for the good?
George Müller in His Own Words:
“My business is, with all my might to serve my own generation; in doing so I shall best serve the next generation, should the Lord Jesus tarry… 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.”
“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.”
“Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him, and expect help from Him, He will never fail you.”
“Money is really worth no more than as it can be used to accomplish the Lord’s work. Life is worth as much as it is spent for the Lord’s service.”
“According to my judgement the most important point to be attended to is this: above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord’s work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself!”
“But in what way shall we attain to this settled happiness of soul? How shall we learn to enjoy God? How obtain such an all-sufficient soul-satisfying portion in him as shall enable us to let go the things of this world as vain and worthless in comparison? I answer, This happiness is to be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures. God has therein revealed Himself unto us in the face of Jesus Christ.”
“The greater the difficulty to be overcome, the more will it be seen to the glory of God how much can be done by prayer and faith.”
“I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk about, when I lie down and when I rise up. And the answers are always coming.”
“Either we trust in God, and in that case we neither trust in ourselves, nor in our fellow-men, nor in circumstances, nor in anything besides; or we DO trust in one or more of these, and in that case do NOT trust in God. If we, indeed, desire our faith to be strengthened, we should not shrink from opportunities where our faith may be tried, and, therefore, through the trial, be strengthened.”
Sources & References:
Answers to Prayer from George Müller’s Narratives
The Autobiography of George Müller
A Narrative of Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Müller
The Scriptural Knowledge Institute: https://www.mullers.org/ski
GeorgeMuller.org
Mullers.org
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