Quote of the Day

One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime.

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts. Its easy to talk oneself into a decision that has no permanence – easier sometimes than to wait patiently.

Quote of the Day

Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We are to worship ''in spirit and in truth.'' Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them. 

  

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy. 

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world. 

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

I do not perfectly understand what you say about prayer, but it reminds me of Mrs.----'s expressing surprise at my praying.  She said she did not, because Christ was all round her.   But it is no less a fact that Christ Himself spent hours in prayer, using language when He did so.  

Elizabeth Prentiss

Quote of the Day

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though “legions of angels” might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us- not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next. 

  

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

In space, astronauts experience the misery of having no reference point, no force that draws them to the center. Where there is no "moral gravity"- that is, no force that draws us to the center- there is spiritual weightlessness. We float on feelings that will carry us where we were never meant to go; we bubble with emotional experiences that we often take for spiritual ones; and we are puffed up with pride. Instead of seriousness, there is foolishness. Instead of gravity, flippancy. Sentimentality takes the place of theology. Our reference point will never serve to keep our feet on solid rock. Our reference point, until we answer God's call, is merely ourselves. We cannot possibly tell which end is up.

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

It is Christ who is to be exalted, not our feelings. We will know Him by obedience, not by emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment. “And love means following the commands of God.” “Do you love Me?” Jesus asked Peter. “Feed My lambs.” He was not asking, “How do you feel about Me?” for love is not a feeling. He was asking for action.

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

Many times in my life God has asked me to wait when I wanted to move forward.  He has kept me in the dark when I asked for light.  I like to see progress.  I look for evidence that God is at least doing something. If the Shepherd leads us beside still waters when we were hoping for whitewater excitement, it is hard to believe that anything vital is taking place.  God is silent.   The house is silent.  The phone doesn't ring.  The mailbox is empty.  The stillness is hard to bear - and God knows that.  He knows our frame and remembers that we are made of dust….Of course for most of us this test of waiting does not take place in a silent and empty house, but in the course of regular work and appointments and taxpaying and grocery buying and trying to have the car fixed and get the storm windows up; daily decisions have to go on being made, responsibilities fulfilled families provided for, employers satisfied.  Can we accept patience-taxing ordinary things alongside the four-alarm fires of our lives?................

The longer I live, the more fully I am convinced that the Lord is in charge of everything on this complicated Earth and that nothing happens without His permission.  It's one of the great advantages of old age to be so completely sure of that.  God almighty is sovereign.  He is the One who is paramount, autonomous, unlimited, supreme…the absolute ruler of everything.

It seems to me that our modern church life, with its emphasis on cozy friendship with God, has deprived us somewhat of an awe-filled appreciation for His sovereignty.  It's not that we take issue with it, exactly.  We recognize His hand at work at startling or spectacular moments.  We extol His power to save when He has just protected us from a car accident, we marvel at His glory when we visit the Grand Canon, and we remember the mystery of His ways when somebody dies.  However, as we plod through the ordinary middle ground of our lives, the long distances between the punctuation marks of exultation and desolation, we fail to appreciate God's sovereignty.  We find it particularly hard to comprehend, much less believe, that a good God could still be in charge when our ordinary life is a relentless string of difficulties or when disasters strike.

He is "Most High over the earth" (Psalm 83:18), He is most high over our ordinary muddles and He is most high over what may seem to be catastrophes.  He is most high over international affairs…and all the human squabbles that have ever cropped up.  He is in charge of destruction and He is in charge off salvation.

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

Psalm 16:5 is one of my life verses now. 'Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup and have made my lot secure.' My 'lot' is what happens to me - my share of that which comes by the will of the Power that rules my destiny. My lot includes the circumstances of my birth, my upbringing, my job, my hardships, the people I work with, my marital status, hindrances, obstacles, accidents and opportunities. Everything constitutes my lot. Nothing excepted......

One morning my computer simply would not obey me. What a nuisance. I had my work laid out, my timing figured, my mind all set. My work was delayed, my timing thrown off, my thinking interrupted. Then I remembered. It was not for nothing. This was part of the Plan (not mine, His). 'Lord, You have assigned me my portion and my cup.' Now if the interruption had been a human being instead of an infuriating mechanism, it would not have been so hard to see it as the most important part of the work of the day. But all is under my Father's control: yes, recalcitrant computers, faulty transmissions, drawbridges that happen to be up when I am in a hurry. My portion. My cup. My lot is secure. My heart can be at peace. My Father is in charge. How simple!......God came down and lived in this world as a man. He showed us how to live in this world, subject to its vicissitudes and necessities, that we might be changed, not into angels or storybook princesses, not wafted into another world, but changed into saints in this world. The secret is Christ in me, not a different set of circumstances.

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

It is not the level of our spirituality that we can depend on. It is God and nothing less than God, for the work is God's and the call is God's and everything is summoned by Him and to His purposes, the whole scene, the whole mess, the whole package - our bravery and our cowardice, our love and our selfishness, our strengths and our weaknesses. The God who could take a murderer like Moses and an adulterer like David and a traitor like Peter and make of them strong servants of His is a God who can also redeem savage Indians, using as instruments of His peace a conglomeration of sinners who sometimes look like heroes and sometimes like villains, for "we are no better than pots of earthenware to contain this treasure [the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ], and this proves that such transcendent power does not come from us, but is God's alone"(2 Cor. 4:7, NEB).

We are not always sure where the horizon is. We would not know which end is up were it not for the shimmering pathway of light falling on the white sea. The One who laid the earth's foundations and settled its dimensions knows where the lines are drawn. He gives all the light we need for trust and for obedience.

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote Of The Day

It is Christ who is to be exalted, not our feelings. We will know Him by obedience, not by emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment. “And love means following the commands of God.” “Do you love Me?” Jesus asked Peter. “Feed My lambs.” He was not asking, “How do you feel about Me?” for love is not a feeling. He was asking for action.

Elisabeth Elliot