“Then you must come back with me tomorrow afternoon. They are having another meeting,” said Beta with a look of amazement in his eyes.
George did go back the next day, and the day after that, too. Before the week was over, George Müller was kneeling beside his bed asking God to forgive him his sins so that he could become a true Christian.
All of this was an abrupt about-face for George. Many of his friends from Der Grüner Tisch found it impossible to believe it was not some elaborate trick. But as the days went by, even they had to admit that something was strangely different about George. He certainly wasn’t the old George Müller they had spent so many nights at the ale house with. This George didn’t want to drink beer with them anymore. He didn’t want to go to parties. He didn’t want to borrow money. He didn’t even want to tell funny stories about his narrow escapes. All he seemed to want to do now was read the new Bible he had bought for himself and ask people questions about God and what they thought of religion. And he was always going off to those strange meetings where people read sermons when it wasn’t even Sunday!
George’s friends were revolted by the change. George was acting worse than any divinity student they knew, and they made sure to tell him so. But their remarks had no effect. George had found the most exciting thing in the world, and he wasn’t going to give it up for anyone. Of course, meeting Ermegarde at each meeting he attended was an added bonus. George came to look forward to her flattering talk and dazzling smile.
It took George only six weeks of going to the meetings and reading his Bible to come to a remarkable conclusion—one that would define the rest of his life. He concluded that he should be a missionary. It was all very clear to him. There were people in the world who had never heard of God, Jesus Christ, or the gospel message, and George Müller was going to search them out and tell them the good news. Once he’d made his decision, he couldn’t wait to tell Ermegarde. Since Ermegarde had attended the same meetings he had, he reasoned that she surely would share the same goal.
The couple found a few moments together after the meeting on the following Saturday. Ermegarde patted the seat beside her at the harpsichord. “Come and sit with me, George. I want to hear you play a hymn,” she said coyly.
“I don’t want to play right now, Ermegarde,” he replied. “I have something to talk to you about.”
George sat down beside her and held her hand. “Ermegarde, I have decided to become a missionary,” he said, relieved to finally have his plan out in the open.
Ermegarde gasped. “Why George, whatever made you think of such a ridiculous thing? I could never be a missionary’s wife!” Her face turned bright red as she realized what she’d said. George had not officially asked her yet.
There was a long moment of silence. George was the first to break it. “Well, I think you would make a very good missionary’s wife. We could learn together, don’t you think?” he asked hopefully.
Ermegarde turned up her nose. “You can’t be serious. I could never be a missionary. Missionaries are poor; they wear drab clothes and ride in carriages I wouldn’t be seen dead in. I’m sorry, George Müller, but it’s the mission field or me. I would gladly be your wife, but I would never be the wife of a missionary. You have a good mind. Be a lawyer or a doctor, and leave being a missionary for other people who don’t have anything better to do!” With that she stood up and stomped out of the room.
George went home that night feeling very dejected. He liked Ermegarde. He might even love her. He wasn’t sure. She was pretty and funny and, up until tonight, he’d thought, spiritually minded. But now she had left him with a choice, a choice he agonized over for several weeks. In the end, George told Ermegarde he was going to continue his quest to become a missionary, and if she did not want to marry a missionary, obviously she did not want to marry him.
Although it was a difficult decision to come to, George felt much better once he’d announced it. He began to read every paper and report he could find about missionaries. Soon, much to his delight, he was invited to hear a real missionary speak. The man was Herman Ball, and he came from a wealthy family. Instead of living the kind of rich, lazy life he could easily have afforded, Herman Ball chose to work in Poland among the Jews in the ghettos of Warsaw.
When George heard Herman Ball speak, he was inspired. He knew exactly what he should do! He should transfer from Halle University to the missionary training school Herr Wagner had told him about. Then he should go off and be a missionary, just like Herman Ball. But first he needed to tell someone about his new life and career change: his father.
It was now summertime, and the Prussian countryside was in full bloom. As George Müller looked out the coach window, he hardly noticed. He had other things on his mind. He fingered the papers tucked in his coat pocket. He tried to imagine what his father would say when he was asked to sign the papers that would transfer his son to the missionary training school. Surely, he reasoned, his father would not be too upset. After all, George had given up stealing, cheating, and lying. That was something. At least George thought it was. Even the fact he was asking his father to sign the papers instead of forging his signature, as he usually did, was a sign of a big change in George. Despite this reasoning, George had a gnawing feeling that every crack of the coachman’s whip was taking him closer to a confrontation with his father.
“You want me to what?” Johann Müller bellowed, his eyes bulging in frenzied anger. “Have you gone mad? What is wrong with you, boy?”
George explained there was nothing wrong with him anymore. In fact, he felt things were more right with him than they had ever been in his entire life. He had stopped drinking, gambling, and partying, all things his father had nagged him for years to give up, and in their place he went to church three times a week, read his Bible each day, and prayed regularly. On top of all this, in the past six months he’d pulled his grades up to the highest level. “You always wanted me to be a Lutheran pastor. Now I want to be a missionary. That isn’t so different. Both are callings that honor God,” George added at the end.
“Honor! Don’t talk to me about honor.”
George could hear his father’s voice rising to a dangerous pitch. For a moment he wondered whether he would be beaten as he’d been so often as a child. But he was twenty-one years old now. Surely his father would not beat him.
“What is the fifth commandment? Tell me that.” demanded his father.
George sighed. “Honor your father and mother,” he said, sensing where his father was headed with this line of questioning.
Sure enough, Johann Müller thrust his face close to his son’s and asked, “And did you honor your dear mother? Did you? What about the day she died? When I went to fetch you at Halberstadt they told me you were at a party, drinking and playing cards. You didn’t come back until 2 a.m., and your mother was dead by then. How is that honoring your mother?”
George could feel his father’s hot breath against his cheeks. He did not answer, and Johann Müller let the question hang in the air for a moment before pressing on. “And now, you think you are honoring me with this wild scheme? What will my friends say? ‘Poor Johann Müller, he paid for his son to go to school until he was twenty-one. Halle University, no less! A bright lad, too, top of the class. Yes, he was going to be a Lutheran pastor, a good position with a good salary and respect, and then he threw it all away and became a missionary with not even a penny in his pocket.’” Mr. Müller viciously spat out the word missionary. “Do you think I invested all this money in your education so you could do this to me? God help me, George, I’ll disown you if you do this to me.”
Then his father did something George would never have predicted. He burst into tears. “Don’t do this, George, I beg of you. Don’t do this.” He sobbed deeply as he clung to his son’s coat sleeve.
George sat on the edge of his chair. He did not know which was worse, his father ranting or his father sobbing.
After a minute or so, his father pointed to the library door. “Go,” he gasped between sobs. “Get out of my sight.”
George quietly got up and left the room. The confrontation he’d feared had occurred.
Over the next two days, George did everything possible to change his father’s mind. He knew that unless his father signed the papers he could not transfer into the missionary training school. Despite his son’s best efforts, George’s father was unmoved. He made his position perfectly clear to his son. He had spent a lot of money on George’s education, and he expected results. Most notably, he wanted to eventually see his son in a good, well-paying position in a Lutheran church. George could not guarantee such a result. He had promised to do whatever God asked of him and so could not be bound by his father’s wishes. So, on the morning before he was due to go back to Halle University, George knocked on the library door.
“Come in,” his father said. When he saw it was George, he added impatiently, “Well, what is it?”
George took a deep breath. “I have come to a decision,” he said, holding his hands behind his back so his father would not see they were shaking.
“So you’ve come to your senses at last?” Johann Müller growled.
“Actually, Father, I feel very clear-headed. I have decided that it would not be right for me to take any more money from you, since I cannot guarantee I will do what you want or that I can pay you back in kind or in a good reputation.” George could see his father’s face turning bright red, but he could not stop quite yet. “Since you will not sign the papers for me to go to the missionary training school, I will remain at Halle until I get my degree. But in so doing, I will not take one more penny of your money, not for tuition, not for books, not for food. Not one penny,” and then he added boldly, “ever!”
Johann Müller looked at his oldest son with narrow, blazing eyes. “So be it,” he hissed. “Now get out of my sight.”
George turned and left the room. As he shut the door behind him, he knew he’d also closed a door in his life. Whatever his faults, his father had always given him an allowance, bailed him out of jail, and sent extra money when he needed more books. Now he, George Müller, student at the University of Halle and soon-to-be missionary, had shut the door on his father’s money, now and forever.
Later that day, as George sat in the stagecoach rumbling back towards Halle, he felt strangely relieved. The sense of looming confrontation he’d felt on the journey home had been replaced with a sense of expectation. He had been given no choice but to cut the ties with his earthly father. Now all he had was his heavenly Father to provide for him. As the villages and fields slipped by, George wondered how it would all work out.
Chapter 4
Too Childish for a Grown Man
George Müller drummed his fingers on his desk. “Money,” he mumbled to himself, barely audibly, “I need money.” A year ago he wouldn’t have been sitting in his room worrying about the money he needed. He would have been out doing something about it. There had always been a way to get what he needed. There was someone he could borrow from, something he could pawn. He could even getting lucky playing a few rounds of cards. But not now. Now George was a Christian and would not use any of his old tricks or schemes to raise the money he needed. There had to be some other way, but what was it? He’d tried to find work at several businesses, but all the jobs had been promised to students long before they left for summer vacation.
As he gazed out the window at the trees now laden with golden leaves, George had a strange idea. At first he resisted it. It was too childish for a grown man and much too simple for a university student. It would be foolish to kneel down and ask God to send him the money he needed. He had never heard of anyone doing that! God wasn’t interested in what George Müller ate for dinner or whether he had textbooks to study from. Or was He? Finally, George decided to try it anyway. He slipped to his knees and leaned his elbows on the edge of his bed. “Dear God,” he began, wondering whether he was making a fool of himself. “You know the situation I’m in, and You know what I need. I ask You to provide for me. Amen.”
