Recently, I have been rereading one of my favorite Christian books- “The Autobiography of George Muller”. I consider Muller a hero of the faith whose life is an example of what walking by faith looks like. George Muller was a faithful servant of the Lord who used his life to make an eternal difference in the world. Muller is most well-known for founding an orphanage that cared for over 10,000 orphans in his lifetime. Muller never solicited funds for the ministry but simply relied upon the Lord to provide the needed funds. Through prayer and childlike faith, Muller looked to God as his faithful provider and was not disappointed.
Though Muller was very active in his public service to the Lord, Muller recognized the importance of getting alone with God and spending time in God’s Word and in prayer. Muller recognized that his fellowship with the Lord in private would enable him to minister for the Lord in public.
In one of his journal entries, Muller recounted the importance of spending time in God’s Word and prayer every day in order to provide spiritual nourishment for his own soul that would give him the strength to serve the Lord and others.
Consider the following excerpt from Muller’s autobiography: “The primary business I must attend to every day is to fellowship with the Lord. The first concern is not how much I might serve the Lord, but how my inner man might be nourished. I may share the truth with the unconverted; I may try to encourage believers; I may relieve the distressed; or I may, in other ways, seek to behave as a child of God; yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened- in my inner man day by day, may – result in this work being done in a wrong spirit.
The most important thing I had to do was to read the Word of God and to meditate on it. Thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, and instructed.
Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible. But I often spent a quarter of an hour to an hour on my knees struggling to pray while my mind wandered. Now I rarely have this problem. As my heart is nourished by the truth of the Word, I am brought into true fellowship with God. I speak to my Father and to my Friend (although I am unworthy) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.
It often astonishes me that I did not see the importance of meditation upon Scripture earlier in my Christian life. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time unless he eats, so it is with the inner man. What is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God-not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe. No, we must consider what we read, ponder over it, and apply it to our hearts.
When we pray, we speak to God. This exercise of the soul can be best performed after the inner man has been nourished by meditation on the Word of God. Through His Word, our Father speaks to us, encourages us, comforts us, instructs us, humbles us, and reproves us. We may profitably meditate, with God’s blessing, although we are spiritually weak. The weaker we are, the more meditation we need to strengthen our inner man. Meditation on God’s Word has given me the help and strength to pass peacefully through deep trials. What a difference there is when the soul is refreshed in fellowship with God early in the morning! Without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day can be overwhelming.”
Muller’s example of spending time alone with God in prayer and in the Word should remind us of the importance of taking time in our busy schedules to nourish our souls through the Word of God and prayer before engaging in our duties for the day. When our inner man is nourished and strengthened, then we are able to go about our duties in the right spirit and with the right motive!
~Pastor Aaron Francis
