Elisabeth Elliot Quotes & Sayings

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

[Amy Carmichael's] great longing was to have a "single eye" for the glory of God. Whatever might blur the vision God had give her of His work, whatever could distract or deceive or tempt other to seek anything but the Lord Jesus Himself she tried to eliminate. — Elisabeth Elliot

Maturity starts with the willingness to give oneself. — Elisabeth Elliot

God's command 'Go ye, and preach the gospel to every creature' was the categorical imperative. The question of personal safety was wholly irrelevant. — Elisabeth Elliot

The devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. He will not allow quietness. — Elisabeth Elliot

Faith has to be exercised in the midst of ordinary, down-to-earth living. — Elisabeth Elliot

Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all. I was dying to talk to Jim and about Jim. 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. — Elisabeth Elliot

There are those who insist that it is a very bad thing to question God. To them, "why?" is a rude question. That depends, I believe, on whether it is an honest search, in faith, for His meaning, or whether it is the challenge of unbelief and rebellion. — Elisabeth Elliot

True faith goes into operation when there are no answers. — Elisabeth Elliot

The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse, but in the end it's going to be a lot better and a lot bigger. — Elisabeth Elliot

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? — Elisabeth Elliot

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. — Elisabeth Elliot

New Year's Day is a good time to fix one's eyes on the only One who knows what the year is to hold. — Elisabeth Elliot

We must quit bending the Word to suit our situation. It is we who must be bent to that Word, our necks that must bow under the yoke. — Elisabeth Elliot

What God gives in answer to our prayers will always be the thing we most urgently need, and it will always be sufficient. — Elisabeth Elliot

To me, a lady is not frilly, flouncy, flippant, frivolous and fluff-brained, but she is gentle, she is gracious, she is godly and she is giving. You and I have the gift of femininity ... the more womanly we are, the more manly men will be and the more God is glorified. Be women, be only women, be real women in obedience to God. — Elisabeth Elliot

She stood, as it were, with her face to God and her back to the people, waiting to receive His word for the 'chose people.' She had a vision of holy living. She would not deviate from that no matter how well-established, rational, and practical the ways of older missions seemed to be. — Elisabeth Elliot

Holiness has never been the driving force of the majority. It is, however, mandatory for anyone who wants to enter the kingdom. — Elisabeth Elliot

Very often (nearly always, I'm afraid) when I come to church my feelings are uppermost in my mind. This is natural. We are human, we are "selves," and it takes no effort at all to feel. But worship is not feeling. 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. Finding myself scattered in all directions and in need of corralling like so many skittish calves, I kneel before the service begins and ask to be delivered from a vague preoccupation with myself and my own concerns and to be turned, during this short hour, to God. — Elisabeth Elliot

When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love Him. — Elisabeth Elliot

TO understand the meaning of womanhood we have to start with God. If He is indeed "Creator of all things visible and invisible" He is certainly in charge of all things, visible and invisible, stupendous and miniscule, magnificent and trivial. God has to be in charge of details if He is going to be in charge of the overall design. — Elisabeth Elliot

Christ is sufficient. We do not need "support groups" for each and every separate tribulation. The most widely divergent sorrows may all be taken to the foot of the same old rugged cross and find there cleansing, peace, and joy. — Elisabeth Elliot

It is when we come to the Lord in our nothingness, our powerlessness and our helplessness that He then enables us to love in a way which, without Him, would be absolutely impossible. — Elisabeth Elliot

Insistence that both lead means there won't be any dance. — Elisabeth Elliot

The way you keep your house, the way you organize your time, the care you take in your personal appearance, the things you spend your money on, all speak loudly about what you believe. The beauty of thy peace shines forth in an ordered life. A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul. — Elisabeth Elliot

Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal. — Elisabeth Elliot

What we don't have now we don't need now. Possibly His very withholding is in order that the boy may learn, at this crucial juncture in his life, to turn to God in prayer for a deeply felt need. — Elisabeth Elliot

The willingness to sacrifice that springs from a loving heart rather than the desire for spiritual distinction is surely acceptable to God. But, as in the case of Abraham's offering of his son Isaac, the sacrifice itself is not always finally required. What is required is obedience. — Elisabeth Elliot

No one whose first concern is feeling good can be a disciple. We are called to carry a cross and to glorify God. — Elisabeth Elliot

Is it more important to understand than to obey? Is it more important to me to know than to believe? — Elisabeth Elliot

Jesus loved the will of His Father. He embraced the limitations, the necessities, the conditions, the very chains of His humanity as He walked and worked here on earth, fulfilling moment by moment His divine commission and the stern demands of His incarnation. Never was there a word or even a look of complaint. — Elisabeth Elliot

We have ample evidence that the Lord is able to guide. The promises cover every imaginable situation. All we need to do is to take the hand he stretches out. — Elisabeth Elliot

This hard place in which you perhaps find yourself is the very place in which God is giving you opportunity to look only to Him, to spend time in prayer, and to learn long-suffering, gentleness, meekness - in short, to learn the depths of the love that Christ Himself has poured out on all of us. — Elisabeth Elliot

Does God ask us to do what is beneath us? This question will never trouble us again if we consider the Lord of heaven taking a towel and washing feet. — Elisabeth Elliot

Prayer lays hold of God's plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit's prayer. — Elisabeth Elliot

Eternity shall be at once a great eye-opener and a great mouth-shutter. -Jim Elliot — Elisabeth Elliot

The principles of gain through loss, of joy through sorrow, of getting by giving, of fulfillment by laying down, of life out of death is what the Bible teaches, and the people who have believed it enough to live it out in simple, humble, day-by-day practice are people who have found the gain, the joy, the getting, the fulfillment, the life. — Elisabeth Elliot

We are women, and my plea is Let me be a woman, holy through and through, asking for nothing but what God wants to give me, receiving with both hands and with all my heart whatever that is. — Elisabeth Elliot

The one who loves knows better than anyone else how to conduct himself, how to serve the one he loves. Love prescribes an answer in a given situation as no mere rule can do. — Elisabeth Elliot

We are not asked to SEE," said Amy. "Why need we when we KNOW?" We know
not the answer to the inevitable Why, but the incontestable fact that it is for the best. "It is an irreparable loss, but is it faith at all if it is 'hard to trust' when things are entirely bewildering? — Elisabeth Elliot

To those of us who are not theologians, does it matter whether a thing is ordained or merely allowed? Are events that seem out of control caused by God? Or does He allow them to occur at the hands of human beings? You can spend a lot of time pondering that one and end up pretty much where you started. In either case, the purpose remains the same - our sanctification. God is in the business of making us walking, breathing examples of the invisible reality of the presence of Christ in us. — Elisabeth Elliot

The gate is narrow but not the life. The gate opens out into largeness of life. — Elisabeth Elliot

The willingness to be and to have just what God wants us to be and have, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else, would set our hearts at rest, and we would discover the simpler life,
the greater peace. — Elisabeth Elliot

But, in the words of a Portuguese proverb, "God writes straight with crooked lines", and He is far more interested in getting us where He wants us to be than we are in getting there. He does not discuss things with us. He leads us faithfully and plainly as we trust Him and simply do the next thing. — Elisabeth Elliot

The world is full of noise. Might we not set ourselves to learn silence, stillness solitude? — Elisabeth Elliot

If she had been born a hundred years later, she would very likely have been encouraged to be angry, told she had a right to express her anger and her sorrow and her bewilderment and her rage, and generally to disintegrate. These were not the expectations of her friends and family. Nothing could have been further from her expectations of herself. Instead, she threw herself into serving others. — Elisabeth Elliot

A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy. — Elisabeth Elliot

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. — Elisabeth Elliot

We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive his poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others. — Elisabeth Elliot

The Bible doesn't explain everything necessary for our intellectual satisfaction, but it explains everything necessary for our obediance. — Elisabeth Elliot

Things happen which would not happen without prayer. Let us not forget that. — Elisabeth Elliot

Psychology describes. The Bible prescribes. 'Turn from evil. Let that be the medicine to keep you in health.' Pr 3:7,8. — Elisabeth Elliot

Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God's story never ends with 'ashes. — Elisabeth Elliot

so the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts ... — Elisabeth Elliot

You yourself will be given light in exchange for pouring yourself out for the hungry; you yourself will get guidance, the satisfaction of your longings, and strength, when you "pour yourself out," when you make the satisfaction of somebody else's desire your own concern; — Elisabeth Elliot

He says no in order that He may, in some way we cannot imagine, say yes. All His ways with us are merciful. His meaning is always love. — Elisabeth Elliot

Our Heavenly Healer often has to hurt us in order to heal us. We sometimes fail to recognize His mighty love in this, yet we are firmly held always in the Everlasting Arms. — Elisabeth Elliot

Eve's daughters are as flowers and none can ever say they are through unfolding. And what man can predict the consummate end of such a life when its ultimate center is Sharon's Rose? — Elisabeth Elliot

Experience has taught me that the Shepherd is far more willing to show His sheep the path than the sheep are to follow. He is endlessly merciful, patient, tender, and loving. If we, His stupid and wayward sheep, really want to be led, we will without fail be led. Of that I am sure. — Elisabeth Elliot

What a cynic would call a coincidence, Amy called a clear answer, and more than an answer
a sign of the love of the Lord. — Elisabeth Elliot

It is impossible to love deeply without sacrifice. — Elisabeth Elliot

Blessings taken for granted are often forgotten. — Elisabeth Elliot

Sometimes we want things we were not meant to have. Because he loves us, the Father says no. Faith trusts that no. Faith is willing not to have what God is not willing to give. Furthermore, faith does not insist upon an explanation. It is enough to know His promises to give what is good-he knows so much more about us than we do. — Elisabeth Elliot

Christianity teaches righteousness, not rights. It emphasizes honor, not equality. A Christian's concern is what is owed to the other, not what is owed to himself. — Elisabeth Elliot

His enthusiasm and willingness to use what he learned made him get ahead in Spanish. — Elisabeth Elliot

Are we so childish (I do not say childlike) as to think that a God who could scheme a Jesus-plan would lead poor pilgrims into situations they could not bear? — Elisabeth Elliot

Have we the humility to thank our Father for the gift of pain? — Elisabeth Elliot

God will not protect you from anything that will make you more like Jesus. — Elisabeth Elliot

A woman ought to be honest with a man who shows interest in her. — Elisabeth Elliot

Choices will continually be necessary and
let us not forget
possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them. — Elisabeth Elliot

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. — Elisabeth Elliot

The women of the Band were learning that if the Lord of Glory took a towel and knelt on the floor to wash the dusty feet of His disciples, then no work, even the relentless and often messy routine of caring for squalling babies, is demeaning. To offer it up to the Lord of Glory transforms it into a holy task. — Elisabeth Elliot

It takes a while for revelry to turn to reverence, and much repetition of truth to eventual turn young zeal into habitual channels for good. — Elisabeth Elliot

To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then and 'be safe'?" That's the only alternative, really. But locking ourselves up and never facing another person won't fix what's really going on in our souls. — Elisabeth Elliot

Lord, break the chains that hold me to myself; free me to be Your happy slave - that is, to be the happy foot washer of anyone today who needs his feet washed, his supper cooked, his faults overlooked, his work commended, his failure forgiven, his griefs consoled or his button sewed on. Let me not imagine that my love for You is very great if I am unwilling to do for a human being something very small. — Elisabeth Elliot

Action that is clearly right needs no justification. — Elisabeth Elliot

Discipline, for the Christian, begins with the body. We have only one. It is this body that is the primary material given to us for sacrifice. We cannot give our hearts to God and keep our bodies for ourselves. — Elisabeth Elliot

If God, like a father, denies us what we want now it is in order to give us some far better thing later on. The will of God, we can rest assured, is invariably a better thing. — Elisabeth Elliot

I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it. — Elisabeth Elliot

I will offer to Him both my tears and my exultation. Nothing we offer to Him will be lost. — Elisabeth Elliot

It seems disrespectful to me to see ladies in church in very short skirts or skimpy, sleeveless tops. I would imagine that it could be distracting to men who are trying to keep their minds on God. — Elisabeth Elliot

The Word of God I think of as a straight edge, which shows up our own crookedness. We can't really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture. — Elisabeth Elliot

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

Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands. — Elisabeth Elliot

The way we live ought to manifest the truth of what we believe. A messy life speaks of a messy and incoherent faith. — Elisabeth Elliot

If the life of a man or woman on earth is to bear the fragrance of heaven the winds of God must blow on that life, winds not always balmy from the south, but fierce winds from the north that chill the very marrow. — Elisabeth Elliot

He is always doing something
the very best thing, the thing we ourselves would certainly choose if we knew the end from the beginning. He is at work to bring us to our full glory. — Elisabeth Elliot

Discipline is the wholehearted yes to the call of God. When I know myself called, summoned, addressed, taken possession of, known, acted upon, I have heard the Master. I put myself gladly, fully, and forever at His disposal, and to whatever He says my answer is yes. — Elisabeth Elliot

It is God to whom and with whom we travel, and while He is the end of our journey, He is also at every stopping place. — Elisabeth Elliot

God will never disappoint us. He loves us and has only one purpose for us : holiness, which in His kingdom equals joy. — Elisabeth Elliot

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

The world cries for men who are strong; strong in conviction, strong to lead, to stand, to suffer. — Elisabeth Elliot

A wedding is a celebration of marriage, of an institution ordained by God at the creation of man, to be entered into with solemnity as well as with joy. — Elisabeth Elliot

All our problems are theological ones, William Temple said. All of them have to do with our relationship to God and his to us, and this is precisely why it makes sense to come to God with them. — Elisabeth Elliot

It is always possible to be thankful for what is given rather than to complain about what is not given. One or the other becomes a habit of life. — Elisabeth Elliot

Cold prayers, like cold suitors, are seldom effective in their aims. — Elisabeth Elliot

When you don't know what to do, do the thing in front of you. — Elisabeth Elliot

Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them. — Elisabeth Elliot

The work of God is done on God's timetable. His answers to our prayers come always in time
His time. His thoughts are far higher than ours, His wisdom past understanding. — Elisabeth Elliot

A man must at times be hard as nails: willing to face up to the truth about himself, and about the woman he loves, refusing compromise when compromise is wrong. But he must also be tender. No weapon will breach the armor of a woman's resentment like tenderness. — Elisabeth Elliot