Wednesday, June 13, 2007

The Life and Labors of George Mueller


I finally finished reading "The Life and Labors of George Muller" written by his wife, Mrs. Muller. I became acquainted with the book when our church hosted Jim Ellif as a conference speaker and he highly recommended it. George Muller never overtly asked for money for his orphanages, only allowed donations to come from people by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. In his lifetime, he fed, clothed and housed over 10,000 orphans, and believes to have seen over 50,000 prayers answered. This is a mighty prayer warrior from which many of us could learn.

That being said, the book is written by the late Mrs. Muller, and it has an air of antiquity in the language which made it more difficult for me to read. It didn't seem to "flow" as some other books do and it's tendency to go from one historical account to another in a chapter made it harder to follow the chronology of his life. Don't get me wrong, it is filled with valuable lessons from a godly man, but it won't top my "must read" list. A more contemporary writing of the same princliples can be found, in my opinion, in Randy Alcorn's book, The Treasure Principle.

3 comments:

Gretchen said...

Oooh, is the Treasure Principle really good? I just finished another one of Randy Alcorn's books.

I know what you mean about "air of antiquity" which makes it a bit more difficult to read. I'm with you. However, I think it is good for us to challenge ourselves with some tougher reading to help develop our own language skills and learn a new side to our own language. Don't you feel like you really accomplished something? It will probably pay off in your own personal writing -- being able to more easily reach for the word you want. Do you know what I mean?

Donette said...

Gret,
The Treasure Principle is convicting, very convicting. But yes, I would whole-heartedly recommend it to EVERYONE to read. It's a quick read, too!

I agree that more difficult language can be good for our own language skills, and I feel great literature does exactly that. But since this book is written in a very common tone, it was more difficult to glean that particular advantage from it. You can easily tell that a loving wife who wanted to document her husand's extraordinary life wrote this memoir, not a professional author.

Is that a kind way to put down someone's writing skills? :^0

Gretchen said...

Yes, very well put.

Gentle yet sincere. :)

I just began Oliver Twist and I am already blown away as I re-emmerse myself into Dickens by his unbelievable handle on our language.

I am a baby, comparatively. I'm just happy to follow his dry wit and burst out laughing from time to time.