The key to financial security (so desperately desired today) is hiding somewhere in a Used Books store…

It’s one of our weaknesses, both Husband’s and mine: books. Especially old books.

We poke around sway-backed, dim and dusty shelves, wearing out time, kneeling on cold floors, bending low till backs ache, to see what treasures might hide on bottom levels.

Some gems we find that way balloon in value over years—and not just dollar-wise—because reprints “edited for today’s reader” too often both dumb down the language and leave out key content! Even when wording remains unchanged, whole passages sometimes go missing.

Like the appendices in George Mueller’s authorized biography. There (in early editions), in concise and easy-to-locate form, lies vital information that could bring financial relief to thousands: Mueller’s financial secret, which empowered him to finance completely the building and operation of a huge orphanage complex, starting with nothing—zero dollars, nada loans, zilch! 

That secret interweaves there with Mueller’s three reasons why he started that astounding ministry to Bristol, England’s nineteenth-century orphans. (Words in red, from here on, are Mueller’s own): 

1. That God may be glorified [by evidence] that it is not a vain thing to trust in Him; … that… the faith of His children may be strengthened.

2. The spiritual welfare of fatherless and motherless children.

3. Their temporal welfare.

Note that first and primary reason. Specifically, he intended to demonstrate how we can trust God to fulfill His promise of Matthew 6:31-34, specifically Matthew 6:33.

What stirred him thus? People (specifically “Christians”) he knew who worried themselves sick, worked themselves to death, and even compromised their principles because they saw no other way to provide for their children, for old age, or for emergency. He wrote, for instance, of…

…a brother who worked fourteen or even sixteen hours a day at his trade, [so that] not only his body suffered, but his soul… had no enjoyment in the things of God.

…I might point out… that he ought to work less, so that his bodily health might not suffer, and that he might gather strength for his inner man [from] God’s word and …prayer. The reply…

“If I work less, I [won’t] earn enough [to] support… my family. Even now… I have scarcely enough. The wages are so low, that I must work hard in order to obtain what I need.”

There was no trust in God. No real belief in the truth of that word: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness:
 and all these things shall be added unto you.”

I might reply, “My dear brother, it is not your work which supports your family, but the Lord; … He who … fed you and your family when, [sick], you could not work at all,… [wouldn’t He do that] if you were to work only… so many hours a day as would allow you proper time [for obtaining food for your inner man]? …Is it not the case now, that you begin… work… after having… only a few hurried moments for prayer, and when you leave off… work in the evening… are you not too.. worn out… to enjoy [God’s word], and… often fall asleep… reading the Scriptures or… in prayer?”

The brother would [admit] it was so; …that my advice was good, but still I read in his countenance…

“How should I get on if I were to carry out your advice?”

That was one kind of example. Three others:

(1) …children of God… harassed by fear… of old age, when they might be unable to work any longer… 

(2) brethren in business, who… brought guilt on their consciences by [how they carried it on]  …competition in trade, …bad times, over-peopled country… given as reasons why… [it couldn’t be done with success] simply according to the word of God… 

(3) individuals… in positions in which they could not continue with a good conscience… but… feared… to give up the position, …lest they be… out of employment…

In all these cases Mueller saw…

God was not looked upon by them as the LIVING God.

And it grieved him.

My spirit was oft times bowed down by this, and longed to [give] them not only instances from the word of God of His willingness and ability to help all those who rely upon Him, but to show them by proofs that He is the same in our day. [Though] the word of God ought to be enough, and it was, by grace, enough to me; …still, I considered… I ought to lend a helping hand…

It needed to be something which could be seen… by the natural eye. …

Now, if I, a poor man simply by prayer and faith, obtained, without asking any individual, the means for establishing and carrying on an orphan house, [that] might be instrumental in strengthening [their] faith…, besides being a testimony to the… unconverted of the reality of the things of God.

This he then did – “without any one being asked by me or my fellow labourers, whereby it may be seen that God is FAITHFUL STILL, AND HEARS PRAYER STILL.”

So Mueller proved.

But then people thought he was some special giant of faith, and this was still too big for them!

So I just want to add my own testimony, that I, a complete midget of the faith, with only a mustard seed leap, at the very start of my  Christian walk, proved God true in the same way, repeatedly! And, not for a great orphanage work, just for me and my little child. Though I knew nothing of Mueller, I knew Matthew 6:33. So I too asked no one but God. And what exciting things He did! Right from when I first started trusting Him for these things, to example, after example, after example.

The important point: It wasn’t about me, nor was it about George Mueller. It was about Him whom we all can trust! All I (as Mueller) had to do was believe what God said and act upon it in obedient trust!

 Linked to…