An Amazing Faith

Norman Harrison in His in a Life of Prayer tells how Charles Inglis, while making the voyage to America a number of years ago, learned from the devout and godly captain of an experience which he had had but recently with George Muller of Bristol. It seems that they had encountered a very dense fog. Because of it the captain had remained on the bridge continuously for twenty four hours, when Mr. Muller came to him and said, “Captain, I have come to tell you that I must be in Quebec on Saturday afternoon.” When informed that it was impossible, he replied: “Very well. If the ship cannot take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement for fifty seven years. Let us go down into the chart room and pray.”

The captain continues the story thus: “I looked at that man of God and thought to myself, What lunatic asylum could that man have come from. I never heard such a thing as this. ‘Mr. Muller,’ I said, ‘do you know how dense this fog is?’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life.’ He knelt down and prayed one of those simple prayers, and when he had finished I was going to pray; but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to pray. ‘Firstly,’ he said, ‘because you do not believe God will, and secondly, I believe God has, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.’ I looked at him, and George Muller said, ‘Captain, I have known my Lord for fifty seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to get an audience with the King. Get up and open the door, and you will find that the fog has gone.’ I got up and the fog was indeed gone. George Muller was in Quebec Saturday afternoon for his engagement.”

—From I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes by Glenn Clark

In this wonderful story, we see all the ingredients of effective prayer: the cultivation of faith over a lifetime based on a belief that God is actively involved in our daily lives so that Muller’s prayer request could be offered simply and with the expectation it would be answered. We miss the point if we focus too much on the miraculous outcome of the prayer, but I have no doubt that it occurred and was simply icing on the cake.

Muller had obviously spent a lifetime keeping his eye on God and believing in God’s power to intervene in his daily life, and for his betterment. That cultivation allowed him to pray as he did and to stop the captain from praying. Did you notice that the story describes the captain as “devout and godly”? But apparently not devout enough or godly enough to pray boldly to God in faith because he evidently did not expect God to intervene so dramatically in his daily life. Perhaps he did not have that experience because he did not have that expectation.

Muller, on the other hand, had come to expect God’s help in allowing him keep his appointments, presumably from prior experience, and so he  believed that this was one aspect of God’s will for him in his life. He thus prayed as he did and expected his prayer to be answered. God did so, and in spades.

How are you working on your faith as you live out your days?