Elizabeth Elliot Devotions

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The Calm Spirit of Christ
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Today is moving day. There will be plenty of reason for fretting and stewing, impatience, and turbulence. I am one who seems to feel that unless I do things or unless they are done my way, they will not be done right, and the day will disintegrate. But I have been watching the sea--very turbulent this morning because of a tropical storm hundreds of miles away--and I remember Him whose word was enough to calm it.

Speak that word to me today, dear Lord: peace. Let your calm spirit, through the many potentially rough minutes of this day, in every task, say to my soul, Be still. Even this day's chaos, with all its clutter and exertion, will be ordered by your quiet power if my heart is subject to your word of peace. Thank You, Lord.

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Constructive Love
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Today will be full of turmoil, for we are moving. Decisions to be made, complicated sorting and packing to be done, hard physical work, confusion and misunderstanding. I will be tempted to "manage" things which are not mine to manage, to be impatient and anxious and vindictive--I can see it coming! But there is a quiet, steadying power--the love of Christ, and "this love of which I speak is slow to lose patience, looks for a way of being constructive" (l Cor 13:4 JBP). It is not in me. That brand of love is not a part of my nature. So I simply ask for it. Lord, your love alone, at work in me, behaves like that.

Love through me, Love of God.
Make me like thy clear air
Through which, unhindered, colors pass
As if it were not there.
--(Amy Carmichael, Toward Jerusalem)

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Responsibility
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet

An important sign of maturity is the acceptance of responsibility. One quits depending on everybody else and acknowledges that certain duties are his alone. If he doesn't do them, nobody will. Every day there is, for example, a "cross" to take up. Who else is going to carry it? It is mine. It lies in my pathway, and unless I accept it--and accept it gladly for Christ--I simply am not following Him. He has made it perfectly clear that there are two prerequisites to following, that is, to being his disciple: denying oneself, and taking up one's cross. To know yourself is to know your cross. Francois Mauriac says, "to flee one's sorrow and evade and ignore one's cross is the whole occupation of the world; but that occupation is at the same time a fleeing from one's own self"--or, we may say, from our proper and assigned responsibility. We may not always see a particular task laid before us, but one thing is sure: to trust Him is a task, proper to every Christian, assigned to us every minute of every hour of every day, and to flee this task is worldly, irresponsible, and immature.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?" (Ps 27:1 AV).

"I will trust, and not be afraid" (Is 12:2 AV).

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It Is Hard to Enter
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


The kingdom of god stands over against all other kingdoms--that is, against all other authorities, sources of power, objects of trust. It is hard to enter the kingdom of God--not because an angel is set to keep us out, not because God would surround Himself with a highly selected elite, but because the condition for admittance is renunciation of all other kingdoms.

The wealthy stranger who ran up to Jesus, knelt, and inquired how he might receive eternal life "went away with a heavy heart" (Mk 10:22 NEB). He did not want to pay the price of entrance--a shift in the source of his trust, from money (which seemed concrete and dependable) to this "Good Master" who asked everything visible and dependable in exchange for what was invisible and seemingly very undependable.

Every day we are asked which kingdom we choose. Is it, in the last analysis, "thine" or "mine" which I most desire? What is it that my most earnest prayers are directed toward?

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Seed and Yeast
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


When we see things we believe need to be changed, most of us are impatient to see them done at once. The kingdom of God does not operate spectacularly, with a sudden rush of irresistible force, but rather like seed and yeast. These are small and wholly unimpressive and go to work only when buried. They need an appropriate medium in which to generate change, but the life-principle is there, latent but powerful, ready to begin the slow and marvelous process of transformation.

Our prayers for change--in people, in situations--are summed up in the old petition, "Thy kingdom come"--but when we ask for that we are asking for what may seem an excruciatingly drawn-out business. We will need the patience of the farmer and the baker who, having done the one thing needful, then quietly (and with calm faith) wait for the thing to happen.

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Able to Receive
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


A young woman asked recently why it is that godly professors in her seminary are on opposite sides of certain doctrinal fences. A partial answer is that we know only in part. None of us sees the whole truth, and what we do see is "through a glass darkly." We are at different stages of the journey.

Sometimes I sympathize with the author of Psalm 119--"Gusts of anger seize me as I think of evil men who forsake Thy law"--and wish I could force people to accept what I see as truth. Jesus did not force them. "With many such parables He would give them His message, so far as they were able to receive it" (Mk 4:33 NEB). There may be some who are willing but not able to receive, others able but not willing. Only God can be sure who's who. We are to be faithful in transmitting the message and willing to respect the hearer. If God grants him freedom of will to receive or reject, so must I. If he is as yet unable to receive it, I must entrust him to God, remembering the narrow limits of my own understanding as well.

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Enable Thy Servants
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Many of our prayers are for a quick and easy solution. God is more glorified in his people when they exhibit his grace under pressure. When Peter and John had been discharged by the rulers, elders, and doctors of the Jewish law with orders not to speak again in the name of Jesus, the Christians prayed about it--"They raised their voices as one man and called upon God." Their prayer was not, "Make these people stop persecuting Thy servant," but, remembering the word of prophecy concerning how the Messiah was to be treated, they asked God only to notice what was happening to his servants and to enable them to speak with boldness (Acts 4:29 NEB).

We, too, may bring any difficult situation to our heavenly Father, laying it before his eyes, and asking not for instant escape but for "enablement"--for strength to sustain the burden and do what we ought to do without the fear of man.

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Pedestals
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


A student asked me whether I thought it was a problem that we tend to place missionaries on pedestals. My answer was that indeed we do, but servants of the Lord ought to be models of the truth they proclaim. Paul was bold enough to say, "Be followers of me" (l Cor 4:16).

At the same time let us always remember that the "excellency of the power" (2 Cor 4:7 AV) is never ours but God's. It is foolish to imagine that the missionary, or whoever the hero is, is sinless. God uses sinners--there is no one else to use.

Pedestals are for statues. Usually statues commemorate people who have done something admirable. Is the deed worth imitating? Does it draw me out of myself, set my sights higher? Let me remember the Source of all strength ("The Lord is the strength of my life," says Ps 27:1 AV) and, cheered by the image of a human being in whom that strength was shown, follow his example.

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Limitations Are Gifts
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Yesterday as I was reading my brother Tom's book, The Achievement of C.S. Lewis, I was admiring again the scope of his knowledge, his ability to comprehend another's genius, and his wonderful command of English. By contrast my own limitations seemed severe indeed. They are of many kinds--analytical, critical, articulatory, not to mention educational. But my limitations, placing me in a different category from Tom Howard's or anyone else's, become, in the sovereignty of God, gifts. For it is with the equipment that I have been given that I am to glorify God. It is this job, not that one, that He gave me.

For some, the limitations are not intellectual but physical. The same truth applies. Within the context of their suffering, with whatever strength they have, be it ever so small, they are to glorify God. The apostle Paul actually claimed that he "gloried" in infirmities, because it was there that the power of Christ was made known to him.

If we regard each limitation which we are conscious of today as a gift--that is, as one of the terms of our particular service to the Master--we won't complain or pity or excuse ourselves. We will rather offer up those gifts as a sacrifice, with thanksgiving.

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Notes From a Grandmother's Diary
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


April 30. I speak today at a theology conference on "Masculinity and Femininity Under God," attempting to show how the question is primarily a theological one for the Christian, not a trivial question of physiology, or merely sociology ("lifestyle," "changing roles," etc.), politics or pragmatics. It must, like all other created matter, mean something. I wonder who had "ears to hear"? I fly after the conference from Philadelphia to New Orleans where Walt and my daughter Val meet me, he looking handsome but harried, she radiant, great with child.

May 1. The little cottage in the cane fields is a truly happy home, though the work God has given Walt in the two small churches is well designed to put iron into his soul. Not everybody loves everybody else yet!

Today is their first anniversary. I sit on the sofa and watch Val go through her Lamaze exercises for childbirth, coached and assisted by Walt who attended the classes with her. They are breathing exercises, consisting mainly of alternate panting and puffing in certain prescribed rhythms, an excellent means of distracting a woman's attention from her pain. The concepts of masculinity and femininity find lovely expression here--the man cherishing, protecting, helping, caring for the woman who carries his child; the woman responding to him with all her heart, her body heavy with promise, preparing herself to suffer pain. They have all things in readiness: a room, emptied, painted and furnished, a crib ready to receive; tiny clothes in ordered piles, a white eyelet bag to take to the hospital, containing a diaper or two, a diminutive blue shirt (for a boy) and a rosebud-sprigged gown (it might be a girl, though I think not).

May 4. Today is "due date." Hopes high. A few minor aches that might become pains subside, along with our hopes. If only it could be today, Val would be able to be back home from the hospital on Mother's Day and show off her baby to the eager people at church, some of whom seem much more excited than she. And of course the sooner the baby arrives, the longer his grandmother will be able to help before she has to go off to Minnesota.

May 5. Trying to put together a speech for Minnesota is a difficult business when we are all in suspense. "If we could just get this baby we could get down to business and prepare sermons and things," Walt says.

May 7. Trip to the doctor in New Orleans--a five-hour round trip--for Val's regular weekly check up. Everything fine. No progress. That was his dismaying report.

pg 1 of 4

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Notes From a Grandmother's Diary
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


May 9. The Lord of creation knows all about why it seems to us important that the baby come now. Would it throw off the universe if he were to allow this one child to be born today? Is it too much to ask? What does he know that makes it essential that we wait? Such are the questions I was trying to squelch as I walked in the cane field this afternoon, praying. Sovereign Lord, we await thy time. "My times are in thy hand." Thy will be done, in earth, in this corner of the earth, in this young woman, as it is in heaven.

May 12. Every morning I wake with the mockingbirds (and it's a breath-taking concert they perform, beginning at five o'clock in the live oak by my window, chirping, tweeting, whistling, trilling, chipping, warbling, trying out tunes, pulling out different stops) and wonder, Will it be today? This is a question Christians ought to be asking every morning about a very different but much longer-awaited event. "Come, Lord Jesus." I go downstairs and start fixing breakfast. Val appears, fresh as a spring stream, no pains, no signs, no complaints. She is eager for the baby but calm in her trust.

. . . It is noon, and still the mockingbird sings, praising God and it seems, mocking me. I sit at a desk near the air conditioner, writing a speech on "The Requirements of Privilege" which I am to deliver to graduating seniors, knowing well that the greatest thing that can be required of anyone is trust in the living God. I am not meeting that requirement very satisfactorily if I sit and stew over the way He times things.

May 14. At the doctor's office in New Orleans. It is 10:25 A.M., exactly twenty-four hours since we arrived here for Val's appointment, at which "no progress" was again his report. We drive home, arriving at 10:00 P.M. At 1:15 A.M. Val wakes me. "I'm having them, Mama. Pains every five minutes. I guess we'd better go." Val and Walt are both serene and happy as we drive east. We have clean diapers, a sheet and a pair of freshly boiled scissors in the back of the pickup, just in case. The CB radio is working. As we drive past the cranes, tool shops, tugboats, derricks and welding shops of Morgan City, many pickup trucks are parked outside the bars--a world of men who operate on a different set of hours. Diesel Hammers, Offshore Welders, Ocean Systems Diving Service read the signs along the main drag.

Val times her pains with a watch, writes down the intervals and the duration. Three minutes, five minutes, eleven minutes, seven minutes.

pg 2 of 4

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Notes From a Grandmother's Diary
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


"Honey, you're amazing," Walt says. "I love you."

We reach the Huey P. Long Bridge going into New Orleans. The moon shines, a thin sliver with a bright star balanced on its point.

"You all right, honey?" Walt says.

"I'm fine!" Val smiles. She puts her feet in my lap, her head in Walt's. "Praise the Lord, it's happening!" she says.

"You're terrific!"

"But I'm so happy!"

We reach Walt's parents' house. Walt tries the door, finds the chain fastened, but almost at once a light goes on in the bedroom. His mother lets us in. I go to bed, Val and Walt decide to go for a walk. At eight I awaken, find everyone asleep. Oh dear, I think, a false alarm. But soon they waken and I am assured that things are still moving. At ten Val calls the doctor. "Come on over," he says. So here we are....

She comes out of the office, smiling a little wistfully.

"He said to go on home. It could be today, maybe tomorrow, maybe Monday."

The afternoon wears away. Val naps, walks, counts pains, takes a shower. In the evening we go to the hospital.

May 15. 12:40 A.M. I sit in "The Stork Club," the waiting room for expectant fathers. No one else is here. I have just spent forty minutes "spelling" Walt in the labor room, massaging, counting seconds to help Val with her breathing routines, listening to the thrilling amplification of the baby's heartbeat on the monitor. "I understand why they told us this would be the hardest work we'd ever do," Val said.

2:00 A.M. I watch as Walt holds her during one of the hard ones, her head thrown back, anguish on her face, she gasping and puffing according to his quiet instructions. "Honey, you're great!" he says. "You're going to make it!"

3:35 A.M. The doctor arrives at the hospital. Walt goes to don the green garb for the delivery room. Now he comes to the waiting room.

"That daughter of yours!" (I see tears on his cheeks) "She's something! Twenty-seven hours, but she's hanging in there." The nurse calls him.

4:15 A.M. Walt comes to the door (I am no longer alone in the waiting room--a young man and his parents-in-law are there) and beckons me to the hall. He hugs me. "It's a boy. Walter Dorman Shepard III. Hear him? Listen! You can hear him cry down the hall. That's him! That's our son!"

pg 3 of 4

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Notes From a Grandmother's Diary
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


A nurse comes down the hall wheeling a cart. There he is, a tiny, determined face with a dimple in the chin (his mother and father have that dimple, and his grandfather Jim Elliot had it too). We follow the nurse to the nursery where she pushes back the curtains so we can watch her weigh and measure him. We go to Val's room and in a few minutes the nurse brings in the living bundle. The room is quiet.

Mother and child.

The father, bending over them both.

Then he reads the beautiful service for the "Churching of Women" from the Prayer Book:

"O Almighty God, we give thee humble thanks for that thou hast been graciously pleased to preserve, through the great pain and peril of childbirth, this woman, thy servant, who desireth now to offer her praises and thanksgivings unto thee....

"Grant, we beseech thee, O heavenly Father, that the child of this thy servant may daily increase in wisdom and stature, and grow in thy love and service, until he come to thy eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord." We all join in the Amen.

The grandmother is thinking also of the lovely words written by Amy Carmichael of India for the children she rescued:

Through life's troubled waters steer them,

Through life's bitter battle cheer them.

Father, Father, be thou near them.

And the grandmother also makes up her mind to try not to talk about this little boy to people who don't ask, and to talk moderately to those who do. But alas, here she is putting it all into words. All? No, she left out quite a lot. And nobody had to read all the way to the end if he didn't want to.

pg 4 of 4

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Where There Is Injury
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Have you ever found the taste of revenge sweet? Does there lurk in your heart, as in mine at times, a desire for at least the milder forms of revenge if you have been hurt--a desire to see the person apologize, an urge to remind him that he was nasty to you, or even the temptation to pay him back somehow? It was not God's plan that man should take revenge. That He has reserved for Himself, and when we seize that power we are taking a huge risk. It is, in another form, the risk Adam and Eve took when they ate the forbidden fruit--arrogating to themselves powers, lethal burdens, for which they were never designed.

What if God paid us for our sins? What if He were not Love? His mercy is everlasting and has brought us salvation and forgiveness. Remembering that, and how we ourselves have offended Him times without number, shall we dare to retaliate when someone sins against us? Think of the measure of forgiveness God has offered us. Think of the price. Think what the cross means. Then pray the prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace--
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon....
For it is in forgiving that we are forgiven,
It is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

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Let Thy Words Be Few
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


A Christian businessman who served on the board of a college with my father told me what sort of board member my father was. He would wait until others had had their say and would then rise. He felt it was important to stand, though others did not usually do so, in order to be heard clearly. With a few well-chosen words he would then state his own position. He could be counted on to say more in these few words, and to say it more clearly and simply, than any of the others. My friend said he found himself waiting for what my father would say.

I knew from our home training how valuable time was to him. He was deeply conscientious not to waste it, whether it was his own or (especially) others'.

He did not like to waste words. They were tools to be used skillfully and carefully.

"God is in heaven and thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few" (Eccl 5:2 AV).

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