Feast Days
My tribe is of the free church variety. Beyond Advent and Easter, we don’t follow a church calendar or celebrate Feast Days, and liturgical patterns are largely unpracticed in our services. I guess it is not a matter of right and wrong, but more of following traditions that seem best to our group without criticism of others doing faith differently. Actually, I’ve come to truly enjoy all the variations there are in Jesus followers.
One thing lost in our lane is the shared sense of history of faith and of the faithful beyond the occasional nods to biographies of faith folks who came before us. Liturgical groups regularly recognize saints and prominent believers to give encouragement and offer lessons from them to the present.
I recently learned that I missed the Feast Day for George Muller back in September. He is celebrated by many as a champion of the poor through intercession and action. And I’ll bet plenty of believers don’t know him at all, but will be encouraged by his life and work.
Born in 1805 in a small Prussian village, George went to university where he chose to follow Jesus and to take him seriously. As a young believer, George expectantly prayed about everything, without advertising his needs, and watched for God to work. Jesus said to ask, seek and knock, and so he did just that.
George planned on being a missionary abroad, but he and Mary, his wife, found themselves in gritty Bristol, England to lead a church, then went on to found a school for missions, education for adults and children, and the distribution of Bibles. Following a cholera epidemic in his region, an increasing number of orphaned children prompted Muller to open an orphanage.
He prayed for months for people and support needed and God answered with enough to open a home in Bristol for children on the streets. The stories of God meeting the needs of the children in the nick of time punctuate every phase of the ministry. In college I read of one time there was no food to serve the kids, so George sat the group at the empty tables then said a prayer of thanks for the (not-yet-present) food. A noise outside proved to be a milk wagon broken down in front of the house with no ability to go further and at the same time the local baker delivered bread because he had a dream he should bake for the children. Need solved.
Over the next few years, one home became three, rowdy enough to rally the NIMBY opponents of Bristol to get the kids to move. So, Muller prayed. He found land suitable for a large home on acreage. The only obstacle was the then-monumental cost which was over $1.5M in today’s dollars.
While sharing the dream, but without telling of the needed money, the full amount came in less than a year. Ashley Down Orphanage opened in 1849 with 300 kids, but soon it was too small. Eventually, one by one, five huge homes were built and over 2,000 children at a time were housed and fed, taught and loved, also trade-trained, ready for their world.
The stories from Muller’s life and Ashley Down fill books, but boil down to a Jesus-follower who dared to ask God for what was needed to fulfill a dream in his corner of the kingdom.
Andrew Murray, in his retelling of Muller’s life and work, shares Muller’s advice late in his life after holding a ringside seat to watching God work.
1. Be slow to take new steps in the Lord’s service, or in your business, or in your families: weigh everything well; weigh all in the light of the Holy Scriptures and in the fear of God.
2. Seek to have no will of your own, in order to ascertain the mind of God regarding any steps your propose taking, so that you can honestly say you are will willing to do the will of God, if he will only please to instruct you.
3. But when you have found out the what the will of God is, seek for his help, and seek it earnestly, perseveringly, patiently, believingly, expectantly; and you will surely in his own time and way obtain it.
When I read of people like George Muller, I’m thankful and humbled. Honestly, I’m also a bit intimidated looking at George’s life and efforts, but one lesson believers must learn along their journey is that effective ministry is not a matter of size but simple willingness to follow the nudge of the Spirit. Like Francis Schaeffer’s book title, No Little People, No Little Places, God has stuff for us to do in our corner of his vineyard.
Feast Days remind us that that was their day and they did the best they could following what they sensed God leading them to do. Now is our time. In my classroom at Bend High where I taught Social Studies, I had a sign that read,
History says, “We were, now you are.”
The message spoke to me as much as to students.
What will you do when it’s your turn to step up? Let’s take a page out of old George’s playbook and seek God’s help to provide what you need and more than you ever imagined.
Let’s have some music for the week…
Jokes? Sure, we got ‘em, with little girls front and center
One Sunday after church Mom asked her very young daughter what the lesson was about.
Her daughter answered, "Don't be scared, you'll get your quilts." Needless to say, Mom was perplexed.
Later in the day, the Pastor stopped by for tea. Mom asked him what that morning's Sunday school lesson was about.
He said, "Be not afraid, Thy comforter is coming."
__________
Little Girl: "Daddy, what do you have to do to become a doctor?"
Daddy: "You have to do well in school, take a lot of math and science, get into an excellent college, then go to med school, and follow that with an internship. Then you can start your own practice. Honey, as smart as you are, you can be anything you want to be."
Little Girl (after some thought): "What do you have to do to be queen?"