Keep praying and believing (1)

During his lifetime, nineteenth-century British evangelist George Muller “prayed in” more than $7.5 million to feed the orphans in his care—more than $113 million in today’s terms. He didn’t believe in broadcasting his financial needs, yet he always had enough to pay his grocery bill—because God supernaturally provided. However, Muller’s faith was stretched in other ways. For example, he prayed regularly over a list of five men he earnestly desired to see won to Christ. The first man gave his life to Christ after five years, the second and third after ten years, and the fourth after twenty-five years. But here’s the clincher: Muller prayed for the fifth man’s conversion for a whopping fifty-two years! In fact, the man made a profession of faith in Christ a few months after Muller’s funeral. Would you pray about something for fifty-two years without some visible sign of an answer? You should, and you must! In Muller’s own words, “God delights to increase the faith of His children. We ought, instead of wanting no trials before victory, no exercise for patience, to be willing to take them from God’s hands as a means. Trials, obstacles, difficulties, and sometimes defeats are the very food of faith.” If you’re praying and asking God, “Will You?” His answer is, “I will!” Psalm 91:15 tells us, “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him” (NKJV). And in Jeremiah 33:3, God says, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (NKJV). So the word for you today is—keep praying and believing.