The Transformed Thief
George Müller
The grim-faced Prussian tax collector confronted his ten-year-old son. "You have taken money which is not your own, George."
The boy squirmed under his father's gaze. "No, Papa," he stammered. "I took no money."
"This time I set a trap," the father explained. "I thought you had been sneaking from my tax collections, so I counted a sum and left it in this room. Some of it is gone. Now the cat couldn't have taken it."
"You made a mistake, Papa," the boy pleaded.
"I made no mistake. If you will not admit it, then I must search you."
The tax collector went through his son's pockets and found nothing. George smiled smugly.
"Now remove your shoes," his father commanded.
"My foot hurts. It will pain my foot."
"Remove them, I said."
The boy reluctantly removed his shoes.
"Now hand them to me."
The boy obeyed. The smile had frozen uncertainly on his face.
"Ah, here it is. Now, to the woodshed with you."
"But Papa, I'm sorry. I promise not to steal again."
George Muller took his punishment. But he did
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steal again, and again, and again — until his life was changed by Christ.
His mother died when he was fourteen and away at school. The night that she was dying, being unaware of her illness, George was playing cards. He spent the next day, a Sunday, at a tavern with some friends.
A short while later he was confirmed in a Lutheran church. His father had given him a handsome fee to pay the clergyman. But wily George gave the clergy-man only a twelfth of the amount.
"I will do better," he promised himself as he participated in the service. But his resolution proved to be in vain.
The following year, his father was transferred to the town of Schoenebeck, Prussia. He left George at the old home alone to supervise some repairs and to study with a clergyman, since George had decided to study for the ministry. But while the tax collector was gone, George was busy with other business. He collected money which the villagers owed his father for taxes, then took a trip which he later called "six days of sin."
When his money was exhausted, he moved into an expensive hotel, stayed a week, then sneaked out without paying the bill. He moved to another hotel, stayed for a week of fun, then prepared to escape thought a window. But this time he was caught. At the age of sixteen, the tax collector's son was in jail where he stayed for twenty-four days.
After his father bailed him out, he entered school at Nordhausen, Prussia. To the delight of his teacher he studied from four in the morning until ten at night. The teacher held him up to the class as a young man with great promise in the ministry. But George Muller's drinking
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and debauchery continued. He had twinges of guilt when he partook of the Lord's supper. "But one or two days after partaking I was as bad as ever," he wrote in his journal.
When he was twenty, he was recommended to the University of Halle and granted the privilege of preaching. It was at Halle that he realized he must reform if a parish was to ever choose him as pastor. At that time he looked upon the ministry merely as a good living, not as a service to needy humanity.
He met a fellow student named Beta who seemed to live an exemplary Christian life. George chose Beta as a close friend, thinking that he could improve his life with a Christian companion.
But Beta was a backslider and had entered into George's friendship only because he thought George would introduce him to more pleasures.
In August, 1825, George Muller, Beta, and two other students, pawned some of their belongings to get enough money for a few days of travel. When one of the students suggested Switzerland, the wily George had a plan ready. He simply sat down and forged the necessary letters from their parents with which to get passports.
On the trip George carried the purse. And, thief that he was, he manipulated the funds so that his companions paid part of his own expenses.
Back at the university, Beta was stricken with remorse and made a full confession of his sins to his father. He then invited George to attend a cottage meeting at the home of a friend.
They went together. "I had never before seen anyone on his knees in prayer," commented George, who later was to become world famous for his own power in prayer.
George felt awkward at the meeting with its strange atmosphere. He even apologized for being there.
"Come as often as you please; house and heart are open to you," the host invited him pleasantly.
After two hymns, a chapter in the Bible was read. Then another hymn, and while the host prayed, an inward joy and peace was springing up in George Muller's heart. On the way home, he excitedly told Beta, "All our former pleasures are as nothing compared to what we experienced tonight."
Christ had touched George Muller's heart at the cottage meeting, and from henceforth he lived a transformed life.
Later he moved to England, where he became widely known as the man of faith. He founded five orphan homes in Bristol with shelter for two thousand children. During his lifetime he cared for 9,975 orphans and received one and a half million dollars by faith alone. Before his death he estimated he had received fifty thousand specific answers to prayer.
This was the man who never saw a Christian kneel in prayer until he was twenty-one.
