The Autobiography of George Mueller

Although I had read it some time ago, I found myself pulling the autobiography of George Mueller off my shelf while preparing for Sunday's message. For those of you who have never read it, it's one you don't want to miss. It's one of the best manuals on prayer you'll ever read.

For those of you who don't know, George Mueller was a nineteenth century pastor who wrote down thousands upon thousands of prayer requests and documented how God answered them. Many times the responses are nothing less than amazing.

A few favorite passages of mine...

June 25, 1834: "These last few days I have had very little real communion with God, and have therefore been irritable and weak spiritually."

June 26, 1834: "I rose early this morning and spent nearly two hours in prayer before breakfast. I now feel more comfortable."

September 29, 1835: " Last evening when I said goodbye to the family, I wanted to go to sleep at once. The weakness of my body and the coldness of the night tempted me to pray no longer. However, the Lord helped me to kneel before Him. No sooner had I begun to pray than His Spirit shone into my soul and gave me such a spirit of prayer as I had not enjoyed for many weeks. He graciously revived His work in my heart. I enjoyed that nearness to God and fervency in prayer for more than an hour. My soul had been panting for many weeks for this sweet experience."

On one occasion, George Mueller rebuked a member of his congregation for working all of the time, claiming that it was to "feed his family." Mr. Mueller replied, "My dear brother, it is not your work which supports your family, but the Lord. He has fed you and your family when you could not work at all because of illness. He would surely provide for you and yours, if, for the sake of obtaining food for your inner man, you worked fewer hours a day to give you proper time for rest."

Do yourself a favor and order a copy.