George Mueller and Soul Happiness

The German Christian George Mueller, who established ministries to homeless children in the nineteenth century, wrote the following in his diary on May 9, 1841. I recently read Mueller’s diary and found this particular entry very helpful to me personally.

“It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished . . .

Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as a habitual thing, to give myself to prayer after having dressed myself in the morning. Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed . . .

The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of public ministry of the Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for a while making confession or intercession or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it . . .

By breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart.”

A good word for all of us this Lord's Day from a praying giant of the faith.

More tonight from Greensboro, North Carolina. I'm preaching this morning at 10:30 a.m. at Calvary Baptist, McLeansville, North Carolina, just outside of Greensboro, Terry Larsen, pastor. Come see us if you can!

In His Grace,

Wade