Autobiography of George Mueller, the life of trust (1861)

Edited by H. Lincoln Wayland1

If memory serves me, the Autobiography of George Mueller, the life of trust (1861) was I think the second distinctly “Christian” focused autobiography/biography that I ever read as a young Christian.2  I was in my early twenties and hardly hatched out of the conversion shell.   The value to me then, as now, was not so much what I learned about the Christian faith, but rather what I learned about the life of faith itself, or perhaps better, a “living faith.”  As such, Mueller continues to both inspire and haunt me.

Now to be absolutely clear, I wouldn’t recommend this autobiography if the intention is to walk away with some semblance of a coherent orthodoxy as per “the faith.”  George Mueller was something of a theological maverick if ever there was one.  As noted by John Piper, himself a “reformed Baptist” (what for some of us is an oxymoron in its own right ), Muller is noted for his pastorate in  “a kind of independent, premillennial, Calvinistic,  Baptist, church that celebrated the Lord's Supper weekly and admitted non-baptized people into membership.”  Now this might not seem so unconventional in today’s terms, but such combinations were as rare then as they were daringly “untraditional” in the early to mid 19th  century church pastorate.   And yet the maverick persona of Mueller was expressed in some very refreshing ways in many other areas of his Christian life—which then brings me to his story itself.

As also noted by John Piper, it is that his “eccentricities were almost all large-hearted and directed outward for the good of others” that makes his life so compelling and worth a thoughtful consideration.  This is especially the case if the question one brings to Mueller’s life is this question of divine trust.  Can we believe God enough to obey him at his word even when it goes contrary to all circumstantial wisdom of this world?   If for instance, it seems that Sabbath keeping as an expression of resting in God’s provisions both circumstantially and redemptively (the big issue that Mueller was concerned about in his church) seems on the surface contrary to making a living, would it be enough that God commands it such that we should trust that God can provide for us while being faithful to his word, even if this makes us unfaithful to conventional market driven wisdom?   Well again, if you want to be encouraged to REALLY believe in God as a living trust such as to become a way of life and practice-- then Mueller is your man!

George Mueller spent most of his active years in 19th century Bristol England where he was the pastor of the same church for sixty-six years!   The years of his tenure were tough years for his people suffering under the ravages of war and financial depression.   While Mueller is known for many things including his role in the Great Awakening of 1859 in England and his role of inspiring the missionary faith of such missionary giants as Hudson Taylor, George Mueller is perhaps best known for his faith venture related to the establishment of an orphanage movement in England. 

The facts are as follows: In 1834 Mueller founded what he called The Scripture Knowledge Institute for Home and Abroad.  This organization in turn spun five major ministries—one of which was an orphanage whose purpose was “to board, clothe and scripturally educate destitute children who have lost both parents by death.”  The first orphanage begot a second, then a third, a fourth and eventually FIVE large orphan houses which cared for 10,024 orphans in his life.  His orphanage vision eventually inspired a movement wherein it is estimated that at least one hundred thousand orphans were cared for in England alone under his influence! 

Now, and again, these are the “facts.” But the facts themselves do not tell the real story here, at least not in so far as what Mueller would have us take away from it.  For it was the way Mueller went after the much needed venture capital that is, well, maverick if not inspired! For in his autobiography, the story is told how he never asked anyone directly for money, nor did he ever take a salary in his last 68 years of ministry, but rather he trusted God to put it on people's hearts to send him what he and the orphans needed, as they needed it!  He never took out a loan or went into debt.  And neither he nor the orphans ever went hungry or went without their basic necessities. 

Okay, so you see the maverick in him, don’t you? But the question is begged, why such an unconventional and even “beyond the expectations of scripture” sort of strategy (for even Paul himself raised support for his missionary ventures)?  The answer is stated over and over and over again throughout Mueller’s autobiography.   By way of a sampling:

The orphan houses exist to display that God can be trusted and to encourage believers to take him at his word.

That is, while acting to meet a desperate need out of Christ-like compassion for orphans, George Mueller was concerned to speak into the soul of his pastoral flock by way of enactment wherein those most anxious in their own walk of faith might see God’s faithfulness such as to be encouraged to “take God by His word and to rely upon it.” For again, Mueller was grieved that “so many believers . . . were harassed and distressed in mind, or brought guilt on their consciences, on account of not trusting in the Lord.”   And so it was his supreme passion “to display with open proofs that God could be trusted with the practical affairs of life.”

And so I recommend for your faith this amazing autobiography, even if an abridged version, of George Mueller and especially his venture of faith by way of example.  Oh, but one more clarification!  I am not recommending some kind of health-wealth style version of faith venture here—where the “gifts” of faith that WE would surmise as God’s will are so often confused with the “gift of faith” itself.  In fact, this would be the exact opposite of Mueller’s faith venture, even as he often distinguished the “gift of faith” from whatever “gifts” of faith that may or may not come.   For Mueller, the much greater “gift of faith” that he was after brought a much greater joy in the disposition of submission wherein all things whatsoever that comes to pass circumstantially can be viewed as from the hand of a faithful and loving God (vs.  the disposition of resisting presumption as to hold God to gifting us with what seems right in our own minds necessarily…”by faith” so rationalized!). 

In other words, Mueller was able to allow his rich grace-centered theology of Christian assurance to interpret his circumstances as from the hand of a loving Father seeking intimacy with his sons and daughters rather than the “health-wealth” kind of faith that tends to interpret God’s assurance based on circumstantial evidence as we see it.   This movement from grace-centered assurance to submission to life’s circumstances is nowhere more perfectly illustrated than in his response to the passing of his beloved wife Mary wherein he wrote:

Now, if we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have received grace, we are partakers of grace, and to all such he will give glory also. I said to myself, with regard to the latter part, “no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly”— I am in myself a poor worthless sinner, but I have been saved by the blood of Christ; . . . Therefore, if it is really good for me, my darling wife will be raised up again; sick as she is. God will restore her again. But if she is not restored again, then it would not be a good thing for me. And so my heart was at rest. I was satisfied with God. And all this springs, as I have often said before, from taking God at his word, believing what he says. 

1 The following review utilized as well the nice summary biography by John Piper and can be located at www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/george-muellers-strategy-for-showing-god.   Quotes are taken from 1861 unabridged version of Autobiography and/or Piper’s summation. 

2 I should note that the much shorter abridged addition that you have before you is not what I read, but it is my hope that you will receive the same reward.