PRAYING PATIENTLY FIFTY-TWO YEARS

George Mueller, that prince of intercessors with God, began to pray for a group of five personal friends. After five years one of them came to Christ. In ten years, two more of them found peace in the same Savior. He prayed for twenty five years, and the fourth man was saved. For the fifth Mr. Mueller prayed until the time of his death, and this friend came to Christ a few months afterwards.

For this latter friend, George Mueller had prayed patiently for almost fifty-two years. When we behold such perseverance in prayer, we feel that we have scarcely touched the fringe of real importunity in our intercession for others.

– Earnest Worker

[Reproduced with permission from Encylopedia of 7700 Illustrations, by Paul Lee Tan,

Assurance Publishers, Rockville, MD, 1984. #4585]

[Editor’s note: George Mueller (1805 -1898) was a missionary to England who set out to demonstrate that God hears and answers prayers. Three weeks after his marriage he and his wife decided to depend on God alone to supply their needs – never again to approach people about them – a decision he maintained for the rest of his 68 years. No matter how pressing the need, George simply renewed his prayers, and either food or money always came – for the total need of some 2,000 orphans housed in five (paid for) buildings, assistance for nearly 200 missionaries, support of about 100 schools with 9,000 students, and publication and distribution of about 4 million tracts and tens of thousands of Bibles. George said he knew of some 50,000 specific answers to prayer… requests to God alone. These answers included some seven and a half million dollars – believed to be more than any other person had obtained from God.]

This material is published by the Faith Committee of the Character Council of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Reproduction and Adaptation is encouraged.