God, Make Me a Looker

"My faith, he said, is the same faith which is found in every believer. Try it for yourself and you will see the help of God, if you trust in Him."

So ends the book George Muller: Delighted in God by Roger Steer.

This past week my pastor taught on active faith expressed in works. I don't know that I would have had ears to hear his words quite so well had I not been soaking in the richness of George Muller's biography for the past few weeks. Multiple times while reading a physical sob rose in my throat and tears filled my eyes. It was not wonder at the faith of Muller (though that was there), but wonder at the God in whom he trusted and the gift of faith on which he acted.

Many nights I would dog-ear my page, close the book, set it beside me, and lay my head on my pillow begging God for a shred of his faith. Just one bit of it, I asked. But why? Why only one bit? Why not be a detective for faith? Sniffing it out, finding it, and taking it captive, looking for it?

Muller said after receiving a gift of one thousand pounds, "I was as calm and quiet as if I had only received one shilling. For my heart was looking out for answers to my prayers."

My heart was looking for answers to my prayers.

God, I'm praying, make me a looker and a finder. Make me a seer, a hunter, and gatherer of answers to my prayers. Let me not need to pick up every rock or look under every stone—make the answers to my prayers every small thing: breathing, seeing, trusting, believing, knowing.

. . .

I sat across from two friends today, on their back porch. As I shared the burdens and beauties of my heart, the careful complexities of life, they reminded me of where I was a year ago and how they shouldered different burdens with me then. For a moment I was acutely aware of the porch on which we sat, the sound of birds in the trees behind us, the stream trickling quietly below us, the blue sky above us, the water in my water glass, the friends across from me: it was as if every sense of mine was awakened in a split second and I could see.

I read in Chronicles last night, "He did it with all his heart and he prospered," and I weep because it was right after reading George Muller's response to man who asked if he had a reserve fund:

"That would be the greatest folly. How could I pray if I had reserves? God would say, "Bring them out; bring out those reserves, George Muller." Oh no, I have never thought of such a thing! Our reserve fund is in Heaven. God the living God is our sufficiency. I have trusted Him for one sovereign; I have trusted him for thousands, and I have never trusted in vain. Blessed is the man who trusts in him."

And I think of Jeremiah's words about the man who trusts in man, who makes flesh his strength: he will not see prosperity when it comes.

God, make me a seer. Make me a looker. My reserve is in Heaven and not just my financial reserve, but my reserve of faith. Every measure of faith I do not have today, you have stored up for me, buckets and piles and mountains of it, ready to give it to those who ask in faith without doubt with all their hearts.

Make me a looker, a seer, and one who weeps for joy at the thousands of answers to prayer you give in every moment of life.