Elizabeth Elliot Devotions

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Wounds Can Change Your Heart
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Living in a world broken by sin, we suffer wounds of many kinds. Perhaps the most painful are not the physical ones but those of the heart. No one has power to hurt us more deeply than somebody we love, somebody we counted on to understand and support us. But there are two ways to receive wounds. One leads to larger life. The other leads straight to death, that is to destruction--of those we influence as well as of ourselves.

By grace we can receive the wounds of our friends as our Master received them--in the strength and for the glory of our heavenly Father. Being sinners ourselves, however, we need to be brought low at the cross. Nothing will do this better than some piercing heart-wound, provided we seek Christ because of it and pray Him to purify us.

There is another way--the world's way. It is anger, resentment, retaliation, retreat into pride and self-justification. These are quite natural, and quite lethal. The choice is ours.

"The wound which is borne in God's way brings a change of heart too salutary to regret, but the hurt which is borne in the world's way brings death" (2 Cor 7:10 NEB).

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The Arbiter is Peace
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


When there are disputes or differences of any sort between people, there are four possible results: estrangement, an armed truce, compromise, or reconciliation. The first of these is the reason for a good many divorces. The second accounts for many unhappy marriages. The third may seem the best that can be hoped for. The fourth is what Christians are called to, always. In marital disputes, or those between labor and management, an arbiter is sometimes called in, often after much wrangling and bitterness. An arbiter has absolute power to judge and decide.

There is another arbiter, too often forgotten. "Let Christ's peace be arbiter in your hearts; to this peace you were called" (Col 3:15 NEB).

Wouldn't it make an astonishing difference in our fellowship with one another if we would let that peace arbitrate, if we would remember the promised parting gift of Christ, "My peace I give you," and the command to live at peace with all?

But, we ask, how? How does it work? The context in Colossians shows us:

You are God's chosen race, his saints; he loves you, and you should be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with one another; forgive each other as soon as a quarrel begins. The Lord has forgiven you; now you must do the same. Over all these clothes, to keep them together and complete them, put on love. (Col 3:12-14 JB)

Are we willing to follow Him here? He will help us if we are. He will calm the troubled waters.

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Exert Yourselves
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet

The vigor of our response reveals how much we care about something. If a man is stung by a bee, he cares. It takes very little time for him to respond. When taxes are raised, howls of complaint follow rather quickly. The winner of a state lottery presents himself without delay.

Salvation is a free gift. It includes everything that makes for life and godliness, here and hereafter. What is it worth? It's beyond calculation, priceless. We share in the very being of God. Um hmm, we say. How do we get it? Oh--by faith. Yes. Very simple. Accept Jesus. The price is all paid. My sins are forgiven. I'm on the "Hallelujah Train."

All true. That is the gospel. But that is not all. Gifts must be received, possessed, and fostered. God's choice and calling, we must clinch. This is an aspect of the gospel which many Christians (Protestants in particular) have overlooked. The apostle Peter writes, "Exert yourselves to clinch God's choice and calling....Thus you will be afforded full and free admission into the eternal kingdom" (2 Pt 1:10, 11 NEB). How do I "exert myself"? Peter tells us: "Try your hardest to supplement your faith with virtue (right action and thinking), virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with fortitude," etc. (2 Pt 1:5-7). Check that passage. It is still true that nothing can wash away my sin but the blood of Jesus. It is also true that God gives us responsibility--that is, the obligation to respond. How much do we care? The vigor of our response will reveal how much.

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How Far to Go
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


We say that we are willing to follow Jesus. Peter said he would go with Him to prison and to death, not expecting that either would likely be required. Let us settle it once and for all--to follow Him will mean death. Not crucifixion in the literal sense, probably, but the coming to the end of ourselves, our expectations, our dreams. He must bring us to that end in order to bring us to the beginning of the Christ-life. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live," was Paul's testimony (Gal 2:20 AV).

But does this mean none of my hopes will be fulfilled? Is it all wilderness and sorrow? The people of Israel must have asked this while en route to Canaan. Must we follow so far? And when they were desperate for water, God led them to Marah where the water was bitter. Terrible disappointment. But then--the miracle of the tree that made it sweet!

How far shall we go with Him who calls us to fellowship with Himself? Shall we stop dead in our tracks if the water is bitter? Shall we turn tail and run if we glimpse a cross? "Whoever cares for his own safety is lost" (Mt 16:25 NEB). Think of missing the miracle of the water. Think of missing the resurrection.

Savior Christ, I want to go the whole way. Keep me from faltering today. Show the tree that transforms bitter water, and help me to live in its shade.

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Learning the Father's Love
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet

When my brother Dave was very small, we spent a week at the seaside in Belmar, New Jersey. In vain my father tried to persuade the little boy to come into the waves with him and jump, promising to hold him safely and not allow the waves to sweep over his head. He took me (only a year older) into the ocean and showed Dave how much fun it would be. Nothing doing. The ocean was terrifying. Dave was sure it would mean certain disaster, and he could not trust his father. On the last day of our vacation he gave in. He was not swept away, his father held him as promised, and he had far more fun than he could have imagined, whereupon he burst into tears and wailed, "Why didn't you make me go in?"

An early lesson in prayer often comes through an ordeal of fear. We face impending adversity and we doubt the love, wisdom and power of our Father in heaven. We've tried everything else and in our desperation we turn to prayer--of the primitive sort: here's Somebody who's reputed to be able to do anything. The great question is, can I get Him to do what I want? How do I twist His arm, how persuade a remote and reluctant deity to change His mind?

When the people of Israel were encamped in Pi-hahiroth and saw the Egyptians coming after them, they felt they were looking death in the face and it was all Moses' fault--"as if there weren't enough graves in Egypt that you brought us out here to die!"

"Don't be afraid," said Moses. "Stand by. The Lord will fight for you if you'll just be quiet."

You know the story of deliverance--the sea was rolled back, Israel marched through it dry shod, and when the Egyptians pursued them the sea swamped their horses, their chariots, and the whole army. "Not even one of them remained." The song of victory Moses and Israel sang reveals their recognition not only of the strength, majesty and wonder-working of the Lord, but of His loving-kindness, immeasurably beyond anything they had dared to hope.

Poor Dave! His father could have forced him to come into the water, but he could not have forced him to relax and enjoy it. As long as the child insisted on protecting himself, saving the life he was sure he would lose, he could not trust the strong love of his father. He refused to surrender. In this simple story we hear echoes of the most ancient story, of the two who, mistrusting the word of their Father, fearing that obedience to Him would ultimately bar them from happiness, chose to repudiate their dependence on Him. Sin, death, destruction for the whole race were the result.

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Learning the Father's Love
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Learning to pray is learning to trust the wisdom, the power, and the love of our Heavenly Father, always so far beyond our dreams. He knows our need and knows ways to meet it that have never entered our heads. Things we feel sure we need for happiness may often lead to our ruin. Things we think will ruin us (the chariots of Egypt, the waters of the sea, or the little waves in Belmar!), if we believe what the Father tells us and surrender ourselves into His strong arms, bring us deliverance and joy.

The only escape from self-love is self-surrender. "Whoever loses his life for Me will find it" (Matthew 16:25, NIV). "Dwell in my love. If you heed my commands, you will dwell in my love, as I have heeded my Father's commands and dwell in His love. I have spoken thus to you, so that my joy may be in you, and your joy complete" (John 15:9-11, NEB). My father knew far better than his small, fearful, stubborn son what would give him joy. So does our Heavenly Father. Whenever I have resisted Him, I have cheated myself, as my little brother did. Whenever I have yielded, I have found joy.

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A Word for Fathers
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


While visiting Columbia Bible College in South Carolina, I found in the library a little book called Father and Son, written by my grandfather, Philip E. Howard. He writes:

"Do you remember that encouraging word of Thomas Fuller's, a chaplain of Oliver Cromwell's time? It's a good passage for a father in all humility and gratitude to tuck away in his memory treasures:

"'Lord, I find the genealogy of my Savior strangely checkered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations. (1) Rehoboam begat Abijah; that is, a bad father begat a bad son. (2) Abijah begat Asa; that is, a bad father begat a good son. (3) Asa begat Jehoshaphat; that is, a good father a good son. (4) Jehoshaphat begat Joram; that is, a good father a bad son. I see, Lord, from hence that my father's piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me. But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son.'"

In another chapter Grandpa Howard tells this story.

"A sensitive, timid little boy, long years ago, was accustomed to lie down to sleep in a low 'trundle-bed,' which was rolled under his parents' bed by day and was brought out for his use by night. As he lay there by himself in the darkness, he could hear the voices of his parents, in their lighted sitting-room across the hallway, on the other side of the house. It seemed to him that his parents never slept; for he left them awake when he was put to bed at night, and he found them awake when he left his bed in the morning. So far this thought was a cause of cheer to him, as his mind was busy with imaginings in the weird darkness of his lonely room.

"After loving good-night words and kisses had been given him by both his parents, and he had nestled down to rest, this little boy was accustomed, night after night, to rouse up once more, and to call out from his trundle-bed to his strong-armed father, in the room from which the light gleamed out, beyond the shadowy hallway, 'Are you there, papa?' And the answer would come back cheerily, 'Yes, my child, I am here.' 'You'll take care of me tonight, papa, won't you?' was then the question. 'Yes, I'll take care of you, my child,' was the comforting response. 'Go to sleep now. Good night.' And the little fellow would fall asleep restfully, in the thought of those assuring good-night words.

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A Word for Fathers
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


"A little matter that was to the loving father; but it was a great matter to the sensitive son. It helped to shape the son's life. It gave the father an added hold on him; and it opened up the way for his clearer understanding of his dependence on the loving watchfulness of the All-Father. And to this day when that son, himself a father and a grandfather, lies down to sleep at night, he is accustomed, out of the memories of that lesson of long ago, to look up through the shadows of his earthly sleeping place into the far-off light of his Father's presence, and to call out, in the same spirit of childlike trust and helplessness as so long ago, 'Father, you'll take care of me tonight, won't you?' And he hears the assuring answer come back, 'He that keepeth thee will not slumber. The Lord shall keep thee from all evil. He shall keep thy soul. Sleep, my child, in peace.' And so he realizes the twofold blessing of a father's goodnight words."

That story, says Grandpa, came from his own father-in-law, my great-grandfather, Henry Clay Trumbull. I have a hunch that Trumbull was that little boy, and the father my great-great-grandfather.

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A Note to Fathers
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Are you depriving your son of his sonship? "Hey! Hold it. What?..." Hebrews 12:7 says, "Can anyone be a son who is not disciplined by his father? If you escape the discipline in which all sons share, you must be bastards and no true sons" (NEB). Do you love your son or daughter enough to say no and hold to it? Would you, by cowardliness that fears to make a rule (perhaps because "nobody else" believes in it) treat your child as though you cared no more about him than you would care about a bastard?

But there are some words of caution. "Fathers, don't over-correct your children, or make it difficult for them to obey the commandment. Bring them up with Christian teaching in Christian discipline" (Ephesians 6:4, PHILLIPS).

This reminds me of the way in which the Lord teaches us. He is so patient with us who are so "slow-of-heart." The Shepherd does not make it hard for the sheep to walk in the right paths. He is always trying to make it easier for them, but they balk, they wander off, they don't listen. Children as well as adults are like sheep. They go astray. Fathers are meant to be shepherds. Don't overcorrect. "You fathers must not goad your children to resentment, but give them the instruction, and the correction, which belong to a Christian upbringing" (same verse, NEB). It's balance that is needed. Correct them, teach them. Don't go to extremes. Ask God for wisdom. It's too big a job for any ordinary human being. Look at God as a Father. How does He deal with us? Try to follow His pattern.

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One Cause of Collapse
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


One excuse that is a catch-all for any failure to do our jobs is "burn-out." It's an occupational hazard in just about every occupation modern man has ever heard of. Strangely enough, we never heard about burn-out until the past couple of decades, but now everybody suffers from it. Exhaustion--physical, mental, emotional--is endemic. Why?

One reason is lack of humility. In our anxiety to compete, to prove ourselves, to be a success as the world defines it, we are wearied and overburdened. If we sought instead only the greatness of the kingdom, we would become childlike. The truly important things are hidden from the clever and intelligent and are shown to those who are willing to come and be shown, to put on the yoke Christ bears, which is the will of the Father.

We need to learn to walk side by side with Him, bearing humbly and gently the yoke He places on us, not the unbearable burdens of competition and recognition and something called fulfillment. If we do this, any burden He allows--of loss or pain or insult or responsibility or heartbreak--will be both bearable and light, for the weight is shared with Him. No yoke laid on us in this way will cause us to burn out or collapse. This yoke itself will in fact be the very means of our finding rest. There is no form of recreation or relaxation or therapy to compare with the rest, the gentle ease, of Christ's yoke. "Come," He says to us, "and learn of Me."

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How to Do the Job You Don't Really Want To Do
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Certain aspects of the job the Lord has given me to do are very easy to postpone. I make excuses, find other things that take precedence, and, when I finally get down to business to do it, it is not always with much grace. A new perspective has helped me recently:

The job has been given to me to do.
Therefore it is a gift.
Therefore it is a privilege.
Therefore it is an offering I may make to God.
Therefore it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him.
Therefore it is the route to sanctity.

Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God's way. In this job, not in some other, God looks for faithfulness. The discipline of this job is, in fact, the chisel God has chosen to shape me with--into the image of Christ.

Thank you, Lord, for the work You have assigned me. I take it as your gift; I offer it back to you. With your help I will do it gladly, faithfully, and I will trust You to make me holy.

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Spiritual Playpens
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Love is the way to maturity. Selfishness stunts growth and keeps us in a spiritual playpen. The world is full of emotional babies, crawling over each other, screaming, "Mine! This I want, and this I shall have, and never mind what it does to anybody else!" What a relief, what peace, when one who has reached spiritual adulthood, who by love has grown out of himself, comes along. He freely gives up his own aims and ambitions, his safety and his cherished plans, his possessions, his feelings, anything at all that will help and says my life for yours. Such a one comes as a rescuer.

To give myself up is the last thing I think of doing. It looks like weakness. In God's eyes, though, it is power.

"We who share His weakness shall by the power of God live with Him in your service" (2 Cor 13:4 NEB).

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The Source and the Course
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


"If the spirit is the source of our life, let the Spirit also direct our course" (Gal 5:25 NEB).

It is only reasonable that He who gives and sustains our life (the Source) should be the One we would want to follow (whose Course we would choose). But we are not very reasonable creatures, I'm afraid.

Which side am I on--the self or the Spirit? I don't always know. But I can check myself out by studying the list of the kind of behavior that belongs to the lower nature (fornication, impurity, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, quarrels, contentious temper, envy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, party intrigues, jealousies, drinking bouts, orgies) and comparing it to the list of the "harvest of the Spirit" (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, self-control). If I pinpoint from those two lists what characterizes my behavior today, it's easy enough to identify the source.

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Hoping Under the Lord Jesus
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


When Paul was in prison, he wrote a very beautiful letter to the Christians in Philippi, a letter full of joy, love, and tenderness. It contains many little human touches which give us glimpses of a Paul who is quite different from the popular image. Here we see not a stern and redoubtable theologian-authority figure, but a kind man with a simple and thoroughly childlike trust. His heart is warm and open to these dear friends who are so important to him as he lies in chains in his cell, his every human feeling utterly submitted to the Lord for whom he is glad to suffer. Naturally he hungers for news of them and hopes Timothy will be able to bring it. Even such a common human desire is placed matter-of-factly under the authority of his Master.

"I hope under the Lord Jesus to send Timothy."

If it is possible, if it works out, if it is God's will--even this small detail he offered to the Lord Jesus for his permission, like the psalmist who prayed, "Lord, all my desire is before Thee" (Ps 38:9 AV).

Let our hopes for today be under the Lord Jesus--screened by Him who loves us and can work them all out if they are good for us and for all concerned.

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Surrender Every Thought
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


"Although of course we lead normal human lives, the battle we are fighting is on the spiritual level. The very weapons we use are not those of human warfare but powerful in God's warfare for the destruction of the enemy's strongholds. Our battle is to bring down every deceptive fantasy....We fight to capture every thought until it acknowledges the authority of Christ" (2 Cor 10:4-6 JBP).

As I was praying this morning these words were in my mind. There were other things in my mind as well, things which had certainly not acknowledged the authority of Christ. I had been praying for months: Lord, have mercy on So-and-So. There was evidence that He was answering that prayer, and, far from being thankful for that, I found in my heart Jonah's anger. Why should God be merciful to the people of Nineveh or to this person? They didn't deserve it!

Right then and there the spiritual battle was drawn. Whose side was I on anyway? Everything that was opposed to God and his purposes had to be surrendered. I had been trying to explain to God why my own feelings ought to be considered, why his were all wrong. That, too, had to be captured, made to acknowledge Christ's authority. A surrendered mind is not one which is no longer in operation. It is, rather, a mind freed from rebellion and opposition. To be Christ's captive is to be perfectly free.

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