George Mueller

Faithful, prayerful, and selfless all describe George Mueller, a man who lived his life in the power and freedom of God and for His glory alone. As a youth one would not think George Mueller, the fourteen year-old boy who drank and played cards while his mother died, would turn into a great man of God. Yet in his college years, he met a Christian student at school and attended a prayer meeting which changed his life forever. Mueller began to live a life of faith and set himself apart for God. Each day he obediently engrossed himself in the Scriptures, reading the Bible through over 200 times during his life. Even though many trials tested his faith over the years, including outliving two wives and his four children, he kept trusting in the Lord. George Mueller found satisfaction in God alone, took God at His Word, and believed Him.

So convinced God would provide his needs through prayer, George Mueller never accepted any form of a salary, never asked anyone directly for monetary needs, and never took out a loan during his adult life. Nevertheless, answering his prayers, God provided all he needed. For example, as a young pastor at a church in Devon, England, he did not receive enough money in the church donations box to feed himself and his wife. One night he and his wife felt urged to pray to God for their need. The next morning a deacon of the church came and gave them enough money to support themselves, and by the end of that year they had received more than enough for their immediate needs. Later in his life, George Mueller lived in Bristol, England, and built desperately needed orphanages. Answering Mueller’s continual prayers, God sent millions of English pounds over the years to provide for thousands of orphans. George Mueller always prayed in faith with his Bible open before him.

Above all else, George Mueller selflessly served God and others during his lifetime. Mueller, at twenty-eight years old, founded a mission organization called The Scripture Knowledge Institute for Home and Abroad. This organization began Bible knowledge schools, Bible distribution, missionary support, book and tract distribution, and orphan ministry. When he started this ministry in 1834, accommodations existed for only 3,000 orphans in England, but at the end of his life in 1898, George Mueller had built five large orphan houses and had cared for over 10,000 orphans! He established the orphan houses to glorify God and to provide for the spiritual and physical welfare of fatherless and motherless children, trusting God to furnish him with every means to do so. Not only did he care for orphans, but Mueller also preached God’s word faithfully at his church in Bristol and in forty-two countries throughout the world. His selflessness shined as a great example to many, and he even inspired missionary Hudson Taylor. George Mueller is a hero to me because he trusted God, he communicated intimately with Him in prayer, and he gave up everything to follow God completely; I would like to be like him.