Elisabeth Elliot
Either we are adrift in chaos or we are individuals, created, loved, upheld and placed purposefully, exactly where we are. Can you believe that? Can you trust God for that?Collection: Believe
In whatever God does in the course of our lives, he gives us, through the experience, some power to help others.Collection: Helping Others
We never know what God has up His sleeve. You never know what might happen; you only know what you have to do now.Collection: Might
Unless a man is prepared to ask a woman to be his wife, what right has he to claim her exclusive attention? Unless she has been asked to marry him, why would a sensible woman promise any man her exclusive attention? If, when the time has come for a commitment, he is not man enough to ask her to marry him, she should give him no reason to presume that she belongs to him.Collection: Commitment
Are you afraid? Remember the "fear nots" of the Bible.Collection: Christian
I will offer to Him both my tears and my exultation. Nothing we offer to Him will be lost.Collection: Tears
Worry is the antithesis of trust. You simply cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive.Collection: Worry
The way we live ought to manifest the truth of what we believe. A messy life speaks of a messy and incoherent faith.Collection: Believe
I took it for granted that there must be a few men left in the world who had that kind of strength. I assumed that those men would also be looking for women with principle. I did not want to be among the marked-down goods on the bargain table, cheap because they’d been pawed over. Crowds collect there. It is only the few who will pay full price. "You get what you pay for.Collection: Men
Have we the humility to thank our Father for the gift of pain?Collection: Pain
Muddled thinking inevitably results in muddled livingCollection: Thinking
O God, I confess I am not worthy to rock that little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of a child and its mother. How is it that I without any merit have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? Oh, how gladly will I do so. Though the duty should be even more insignificant and despised, neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor will distress me for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight.Collection: Mother
One step at a time, over the years, as I sought to plumb the mystery of suffering (which cannot be plumbed), I began to see that there is a sense in which everything is a gift. Even my widowhood.Collection: Years
Loneliness itself is material for sacrifice. The very longings themselves can be offered to Him who understands perfectly. The transformation into something He can use for the good of others takes place only when the offering is put into his hands.Collection: Loneliness
But the question to precede all others, which finally determines the course of our lives is What do I really want? Was it to love what God commands, in the words of the collect, and to desire what He promises? Did I want what I wanted, or did I want what He wanted, no matter what it might cost?Collection: Promise
But the things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God.Collection: Silent
Praise and glory to God for whom nothing is too hardCollection: Praise
If you have lost your life, remember that He promises that you will find it.Collection: Promise
Do you often feel like parched ground, unable to produce anything worthwhile? I do. When I am in need of refreshment, it isn't easy to think of the needs of others. But I have found that if, instead of praying for my own comfort and satisfaction, I ask the Lord to enable me to give to others, an amazing thing often happens - I find my own needs wonderfully met. Refreshment comes in ways I would never have thought of, both for others, and then, incidentally, for myself.Collection: Prayer
Here lies the tremendous mystery - that God should be all-powerful, yet refuse to coerce. He summons us to cooperation. We are honored in being given the opportunity to participate in his good deeds. Remember how He asked for help in performing his miracles: Fill the water pots, stretch out your hand, distribute the loaves.Collection: Powerful
Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first?Collection: Dying
Maturity starts with the willingness to give oneself.Collection: Maturity
Loneliness comes over us sometimes as a sudden tide. It is one of the terms of our humanness, and, in a sense, therefore, incurable. Yet I have found peace in my loneliest times not only through acceptance of the situation, but through making it an offering to God, who can transfigure it into something for the good of others.Collection: Loneliness
The process of shaping the child, shapes also the mother herself. Reverence for her sacred burden calls her to all that is pure and good, that she may teach primarily by her own humble, daily example.Collection: Mother
The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived – not always looked forward to as though the “real” living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.Collection: Real
Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God’s story never ends with ’ashes.Collection: Stories
Stand true to your calling to be a man. Real women will always be relieved and grateful when men are willing to be men.Collection: Real