George Müller's Empty Plates

On the morning of October 15, 1844, George Müller sat at the head of a long table in his orphanage at Ashley Down, Bristol. Three hundred children waited with empty bowls before them. There was no food in the kitchen. Not a single penny remained in the accounts.

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

The children heard a knock at the door. A local baker stood outside, explaining that he had been unable to sleep the night before and felt compelled to bake enough bread for every child in the house. Minutes later, a milk cart broke down directly in front of the orphanage. The driver, unable to continue his route, offered all his milk rather than let it spoil.

Over sixty years, Müller fed and housed over ten thousand orphans without ever making a single public appeal for funds. He simply prayed — and recorded over fifty thousand specific answers in his journals.