George Müller and the Empty Cupboard in Bristol

In 1844, George Müller sat at the head of a long table in Bristol, England, surrounded by three hundred orphans. The plates were set. The cups stood in place. But there was no food in the kitchen — not a crust of bread, not a drop of milk.

Müller bowed his head and prayed aloud: "Dear Father, we thank You for what You are going to give us to eat."

A knock came at the door. A baker stood outside, explaining he had been unable to sleep the night before and felt compelled to rise at two in the morning to bake fresh bread for the children. Minutes later, a milk cart broke down directly in front of the orphanage, and the driver offered his entire load rather than let it spoil.

Over the course of his lifetime, Müller cared for more than ten thousand orphans in five large houses along Ashley Down Road. He never once asked another human being for a penny. He never took a loan. He simply believed that the God who calls into being things that were not would provide — and provision arrived, meal after meal, decade after decade.