Another Muller Musing

When I finished reading "George Muller of Bristol," I was reminded of one of the many things I have learned in these years of retirement.  Many a preacher has floundered after leaving the pulpit.  It is the same with any person who walks away from forty years of going to work.  It is not an easy transition for the prepared and impossible for the unprepared.  Muller started his orphanage work at age 30 and spent the next 40 years building and maintaining five orphanages which cared for thousands of children.  At age 70 he was led by God to begin what he called "missionary tours" to countries all over the world.  

These "missionary tours" would be called preaching missions today as he traveled and preached like an itinerant preacher.  From his seventieth to his eighty-seventh year, he traveled in forty-two countries.  The distance he traveled was over two hundred thousand miles which is equivalent to nearly eight journeys around the globe.  He preached over five thousand times to an estimated three million people.  In all these mission tours, he depended on God to provide his every need which included steamer fares, railroad journeys, hotel accommodation, food and living expenses.  It was funded by God just as had been the orphanage work. He prayed and without any appeal for human help, God provided.  Step by step the Lord led him forward, providing his needs as he went.  

As I walk toward my seventy-eighth birthday, I wonder how he did it.  Of course, I know how he did it.  He did what he did because of the grace of God and the way God used a man of such faith that we stand in wonder over a hundred years later.  Muller is certainly a witness to the way God takes our weakness to make His power known.  Could it be that many of us wallow around in a mire of uselessness because we are not asking God what He wants us to do?  One word of caution.  It might be a good thing not to ask unless you really want to know!