In our quest to reduce clutter and dis-accumulate years of accumulation, Lynda and I pulled a few books from obscure shelves in the basement family room, and will read them next. These are all “non-keepers”, books we will discard. One of these books was George Mueller. Not too long ago we read that aloud in the evenings.

I’ve known about George Mueller and his life of faith for a long time. I’ve read about him in various books and articles. I included him in a chapter of Acts Of Faith, my book about Bible people and Christians who had special faith experiences. But I had never read a biography of him.

This was a short book, possibly geared towards teens, though actually a good read for adults. It covered Mueller’s growing up in Germany, his wild youth period, his conversion, and his growth as a baby Christian. He gave up a prospective marriage to a woman who did not appreciate his desire to be a missionary.

He made contact with a missionary society that wanted him to work among the Jewish people in England. He went there, but it didn’t work out. He became co-pastor of a church. Before long, he started a Bible distribution ministry. Not long after that, he took notice of orphans in Bristol and their plight in the workhouses. He decided to develop orphanages, which he had seen in Germany but were a new concept in England. Over the years, he developed multiple orphanages, first in the heart of Bristol, then on the outskirts.

The act of faith? He did all this without ever soliciting donations. Not for renting property. Not for staffing the orphanages. Not for provisioning them. Not for buying property and building multiple orphanages on it. He prayed for the needs and trusted God to supply.

The book concentrated on the orphanage years. There were times when they had nothing for breakfast, and a bread truck broke down in front of the orphanage. There were times when a 5 pound bill was due, and an envelope came in the morning mail from someone they didn’t know. Mueller had faith when he needed a shilling and was trustworthy with it. God then gave him faith for tens of thousands of pounds and trustworthiness with that.

The book was an easy read. Not terribly long, but long enough so that by the end I felt like I understood Mueller’s life fairly well. Now I’m sure that, in a short book, much was left out. I want to read a fuller biography of this.

I highly recommend this book, which I give 5-stars. But this little paperback is long out of print. If you can’t find this, grab any bio of Mueller and dig in.

This book is not a keeper. However, we might give it to our grandchildren to read. It’s quite readable at that age.