Elizabeth Elliot Devotions

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A Tiny Treasure in Heaven
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


"Whatever thy grief or trouble be, take every drop in thy cup from the hand of Almighty God. He with whom 'the hairs of thy head are all numbered,' knoweth every throb of thy brow, each hardly drawn breath, each shoot of pain, each beating of the fevered pulse, each sinking of the aching heart. Receive, then, what are trials to thee, not in the main only, but one by one, from His all-loving hands; thank His love for each; unite each with the sufferings of thy Redeemer; pray that He will thereby hallow them to thee. Thou wilt not know now what He thereby will work in thee; yet, day by day, shalt thou receive the impress of the likeness of the ever-blessed Son, and in thee, too, while thou knowest it not, God shall be glorified."

--E. B. Pusey

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What's Out There?
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


Time magazine once reported the discovery of the most massive object ever detected in the universe. The odd thing is nobody knows what it is. The Kitt Peak telescope picked up two quasars ("intensely bright bodies so far away that the light they emit travels for billions of years before reaching the earth") which seemed to be identical, an occurrence astronomers consider about as likely as finding two people with identical fingerprints. Something called a "gravitation lens" seemed to be bending the light (get that!) from a single quasar in such a way as to produce two identical images. Nothing astonishing about that--Einstein predicted it more than seventy years ago, and Arthur Eddington confirmed it a few years later.

The great question is just exactly what is acting as a gravitational lens. Whatever it is, it has to have the mass of a thousand (1,000) galaxies. If it's a black hole, it is "at least a thousand times as large as the Milky Way (which consists of hundreds of billions of stars, including the sun)." Got that? I was bemused by the statement, "Astrophysicists find it difficult to explain how so tremendous a black hole could have formed." I guess they do. They're turning over a third possibility, much too arcane for me to peer into at all, but it has to do with the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

The most numbing of the facts of this story for me is that people go to such elaborate lengths to avoid mentioning one vastly prior fundamental possibility that (surely?) stares them in the face: creation.

How much faith does it take to believe in God? Less, I venture to say--a great deal less--than to believe in the Unconscious generating the Conscious, Mindlessness creating Mind, Nothing giving birth to Something.

What we know of God we have seen in His Son. He in whom we are asked to trust is Love, creative Love; thinking of us, I suppose, before He thought of gravitational lenses; giving Himself in sacrificial love long before He gave us His own breath of life--for the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world.

My Lord and my God. Forgive my faithlessness.

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The Incarnation is a Thing Too Wonderful
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


Some things are simply too wonderful for explanation--the navigational system of the Arctic tern, for example. How does it find its way over twelve thousand miles of ocean from its nesting grounds in the Arctic to its wintering grounds in the Antarctic! Ornithologists have conducted all sorts of tests without finding the answer. Instinct is the best they can offer--no explanation at all, merely a way of saying that they really have no idea. A Laysan albatross was once released 3,200 miles from its nest in the Midway Islands. It was back home in ten days.

The migration of birds is a thing too wonderful.

When the angel Gabriel told Mary, "You will be with child and give birth to a son," she had a simple question about the natural: How can this be, since I am a virgin?!

The answer had to do not with the natural but with something far more mysterious than the tern's navigation--something, in fact, entirely supernatural: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke 1:35, NIV). That was too wonderful, and Mary was silent. She had no question about the supernatural. She was satisfied with God's answer.

The truth about the Incarnation is a thing too wonderful for us. Who can fathom what really took place first in a virgin's womb in Nazareth and then in a stable in Bethlehem!

At the end of the book of Job, instead of answering his questions, God revealed to Job the mystery of Who He was. Then Job despised himself. "I have uttered what I did not understand,/ things too wonderful for me, which I did not know" (Job 42:3, RSV).

In one of David's "songs of ascents" he wrote, "My heart is not proud, O Lord,/ my eyes are not haughty;/ I do not concern myself with great matters/ or things too wonderful for me./ But I have stilled and quieted my soul; / like a weaned child with its mother,/ like a weaned child is my soul within me" (Psalm 131:1,2, NIV).

A close and fretful inquiry into how spiritual things "work" is an exercise in futility. Even wondering how "natural" things are going to work if you bring God into them--how God will answer a prayer for money, for example, or how your son-in-law is going to find a house for eight in southern California (on a pastor's salary) is sometimes an awful waste of energy. God knows how. Why should I bother my head about it if I've turned it over to Him? If the Word of the Lord to us is that we are "predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with his purpose" (Ephesians 1:11, NIV), we may apprehend this fact by faith alone. By believing that God means just what He says, and by acting upon the word (faith always requires action), we apprehend it--we take hold of it, we make it our own. We cannot make it our own by mere reason--"I don't see how such-and-such an incident can possibly have anything to do with any divine 'plan.'"

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The Incarnation is a Thing Too Wonderful
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


Why should we see how! Is it not sufficient that we are told that it is so? We need not see. We need only believe and proceed on the basis of that assured fact.

Mary's acceptance of the angel's answer to her innocent question was immediate, though she could not imagine the intricacies and mysteries of its working in her young virgin body. She surrendered herself utterly to God in trust and obedience.

Do you understand what is going on in the invisible realm of your life with God? Do you see how the visible things relate to the hidden Plan and Purpose? Probably not. As my second husband Addison Leitch used to say, "You can't unscrew the Inscrutable." But you do see at least one thing, maybe a very little thing, that He wants you to do. "Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult [other translations say too hard, too wonderful] for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven.... nor is it beyond the sea.... no, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it" (Deuteronomy 30:11-14, NIV).

Let it suffice you, as it sufficed Mary, to know that God knows. If it's time to work, get on with your job. If it's time to go to bed, go to sleep in peace. Let the Lord of the Universe do the worrying.


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The Supremacy of Christ
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


Last October I received a copy of the Auca (now known as Waorani) translation of the New Testament. The orthography has been greatly altered since my day, so I can't read much of it now, but leafing through the pages I thought long, long thoughts. I had had nothing to do with the translation. I was with the Aucas only two years, during which Rachel Saint and I worked on reducing the language to writing, but we had barely begun to translate a few Bible stories when my daughter Valerie and I returned to Quichua work.

Sometimes I am asked to speak to young people who are toying with the idea of being missionaries. They want to know how I discovered the will of God. The first thing was to settle once and for all the supremacy of Christ in my life, I tell them. I put myself utterly and forever at His disposal, which means turning over all the rights: to myself, my body, my self-image, my notions of how I am to serve my Master. Oswald Chambers calls it "breaking the husk of my individual independence of God." Until that break comes, all the rest is "pious fraud." I tell these earnest kids that the will of God is always different from what they expect, always bigger, and, ultimately, infinitely more glorious than their wildest imaginings.

But there will be deaths to die. Paul found that out--daily, he said. That is the price of following the way of the cross--of course. If our object is to save others we must be clear that we cannot save ourselves. Jesus couldn't either.

This scares people. Yet what is there to fear when Christ holds first place in our lives? Where, other than in the will of the Father, shall we expect to find significance, security, and serenity?

God's guidance for me has been so different from my early notions--I was to be a jungle missionary for life! The complete futility, humanly speaking, of all the language work I did (Colorado, Quichua, and Auca, for various reasons, all came to nothing) was a deep lesson in the supremacy of Christ. Whom had I set out to serve? May He not do as He wills, then, with His servant and with that servant's work? Is anything offered to Christ ever wasted? I thought about the sacrifices of Old Testament times. When a man brought a lamb, the priest laid it on the altar, slit its throat, and burned it. The offering, then, was accepted. But what was left of it? Amy Carmichael, Irish missionary to India and author of forty books, taught me the implications of a living sacrifice. She wrote:

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The Supremacy of Christ
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart

 
"'But these strange ashes, Lord, this nothingness,
This baffling sense of loss?'
Son, was the anguish of my stripping less
Upon the torturing cross?
Was I not brought into the dust of death,
A worm, and no man, I;
Yea, turned to ashes by the vehement breath
Of fire, on Calvary?
O son beloved, this is thy heart's desire:
This, and no other thing'
Follows the fall of the Consuming Fire
On the burnt offering.
Go on and taste the joy set high, afar,--
No joy like that to thee;
See how it lights the way like some great star.
Come now, and follow me."

I want to put it down right here that I have certainly "tasted the joy." I cannot imagine a more wonderfully blessed life than mine. Faithfulness of a loving Father--that's what I've found, every day of every week of every year, and it gets better. How I do hope those prospective missionaries will believe me!

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Lord of All Seasons
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


A few years ago I spoke to a group of women in Florida about Jesus Christ being "Lord of All Seasons." The topic was their choice, and I found myself, as usual, tested along the very lines on which I was going to speak. During the previous week, Lars and I had learned that all twenty-eight of the nice new (and very expensive) windows we had installed in our new house leaked. I was anxious about many things--my mother's health, my coming grandchild, a new word processor which I wasn't sure I was smart enough to learn to use, and (alas!) a tooth which seemed about to fall out. What a list of varied things to worry about.

But Jesus died for me! He's risen and coming again! He has given me an inheritance that nothing can "destroy or spoil or wither" (1 Peter 1:4, NEB) and a Kingdom which is unshakable (Hebrews 12:28). That's the gospel. Has it anything to do with leaking windows, computers, grandchildren, teeth? Well, I told myself, if it hasn't, you've got no business getting up in front of those women and opening your mouth at all. If I can't give thanks, trust, and worship the Lord in every "season," in the face of any set of facts which may touch my life, I am not really a believer. It is here, in my corner of God's earth, that I am assigned my lessons in the School of Faith.

P.S. Later: They fixed the windows for us, but then we found that all four of the outside doors needed to be fixed. God hadn't finished with us yet.

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God's Curriculum
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart



One day recently something lit a fuse of anger in someone who then burned me with hot words. I felt sure I didn't deserve this response, but when I ran to God about it, He reminded me of part of a prayer I'd been using lately: "Teach me to treat all that comes to me with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all."

Where could that kind of peace come from? Only from God, who gives "not as the world gives."

His will that I should be burned? Here we must tread softly. His will governs all. In a wrong-filled world we suffer (and cause) many a wrong. God is there to heal and comfort and forgive. He who brought blessing to many out of the sin of the jealous brothers against Joseph means this hurt for my ultimate blessing and, I think, for an increase of love between me and the one who hurt me. Love is very patient, very kind. Love never seeks its own. Love looks to God for his grace to help.

"It was not you who sent me here but God," Joseph said to his brothers. "You meant to do me harm; but God meant to bring good out of it" (Genesis 45:8, 50:20, NEB).

There is a philosophy of secular education which holds that the student ought to be allowed to assemble his own curriculum according to his preferences. Few students have a strong basis for making these choices, not knowing how little they know. Ideas of what they need to learn are not only greatly limited but greatly distorted. What they need is help from those who know more than they do.

Mercifully, God does not leave us to choose our own curriculum. His wisdom is perfect, His knowledge embraces not only all worlds but the individual hearts and minds of each of His loved children. With intimate understanding of our deepest needs and individual capacities, He chooses our curriculum. We need only ask, "Give us this day our daily bread, our daily lessons, our homework." An angry retort from someone may be just the occasion we need in which to learn not only longsuffering and forgiveness, but meekness and gentleness; fruits not born in us but borne only by the Spirit. As Amy Carmichael wrote, "A cup brimful of sweetness cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, no matter how suddenly jarred" (From her book IF published by Christian Literature Crusade).

God's curriculum for all who sincerely want to know Him and do His will will always include lessons we wish we could skip. But the more we apply ourselves, the more honestly we can say what the psalmist said: "I, thy servant, will study thy statutes. / Thy instruction is my continual delight; / I turn to it for counsel. / I will run the course set out in thy commandments, / for they gladden my heart" (Psalm 119:23, 24, 32, NEB).

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Little Things
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


When we were growing up our parents taught us, by both word and example, to pay attention to little things. If you do a thing at all, do it thoroughly: make the sheets really smooth on the bed, sweep all the comers and move all the chairs when you sweep the kitchen, roll the toothpaste tube neatly and put the cap back on, clean the hair out of your brush each time you use it, hang your towel straight on the rod, fold your napkin and put it into the silver ring before you leave the table, never wet your finger when you turn pages. They kept promises made to us as faithfully as they kept those made to adults. They taught us to do the same.

You didn't accept an invitation to a party and then not turn up, or agree to help with the Vacation Bible School and back out because a more interesting activity presented itself. The only financial debt my parents ever incurred was a mortgage on a house, which my father explained was in a special class because it was real estate which would always have value.

When I went to boarding school the same principles I had been taught at home were emphasized. There was a hallway with small oriental rugs which we called "Character Hall" because the headmistress, Mrs. DuBose, could look down that hall from the armchair where she sat in the lobby and spot any student who kicked up the comer of a rug and did not replace it. She would call out to correct him, "It's those tiny little things in your life which will crack you up when you get out of this school!" In the little things our character was revealed. Our response would make or break us. "Don't go around with a Bible under your arm if you didn't sweep under the bed," she said, for she would have no pious talk coming out of a messy room.

"Great thoughts go best with common duties. Whatever therefore may be your office regard it as a fragment in an immeasurable ministry of love" (Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott, b. 1825).

It is not easy to find children or adults who are dependable, careful, thorough, and faithful. So many lives seem honeycombed with small failures, neglectful of the little things that make the difference between order and chaos. Perhaps it is because they are so seldom taught that visible things are signs of an invisible reality; that common duties may be "an immeasurable ministry of love." The spiritual training of souls must be inseparable from practical disciplines, as Jesus so plainly taught; "The man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great; the man who is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in great. If then you cannot be trusted with money, that tainted thing, who will trust you with genuine riches! And if you cannot be trusted with what is not yours, who will give you what is your very own?" (Luke 16:10-12, JB). (The footnote to "your very own" says, "Jesus is speaking of the most intimate Possessions a man can have; these are spiritual.")

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What Do You Mean By Submission?
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


       
People are always asking me this. What is this business of "submission" you're always talking about? We're not really very comfortable with this. Seems kinds of negative. Sounds as though women are not worth as much as men. Aren't women supposed to exercise their gifts? Can't they ever open their mouths?

I wouldn't be very comfortable with that kind of submission either. As a matter of fact, I'm not particularly comfortable with any kind, but since it was God's idea and not mine, I had better come to terms with what the Bible says about it and stop rejecting the whole thing just because it is so often misunderstood and wrongly defined. I came across a lucid example of what it means in 1 Chronicles 11:10, NEB: "Of David's heroes these were the chief, men who lent their full strength to his government and, with all Israel, joined in making him king." There it is. The recognition, first of all, of God-given authority. Recognizing it, accepting it, they then lent their full strength to it, and did everything in their power to make him--not them--king.

Christians--both men and women--recognize first the authority of Christ. They pray "Thy will be done." They set about making an honest effort to cooperate with what He is doing, straightening out the kinks in their own lives according to His wishes. A Christian woman, then, in submission to God, recognizes the divinely assigned authority of her husband (he didn't earn it, remember, he received it by appointment!. She then sets about lending her full strength to helping him do what he's supposed to do, be what he's supposed to be--her head. She's not always trying to get her own way. She's trying to make it easier for him to do his job. She seeks to contribute to his purpose, not to scheme how to accomplish her own.

If this sounds suspiciously like some worn-out traditionalist view, or (worse) like a typical Elisabeth Elliot opinion, test it with the straightedge of Scripture. What does submission to Christ mean? "Wives, submit yourself to your husbands, as to the Lord." Compare and connect.

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Where Will Complaining Get You?
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


When we were in Dallas for a visit, we were the guests of our dear friend Nina Jean Obel. As we sat one morning in her beautiful sunshiny yellow and pale-green kitchen, she reminded us of how, in the story in Deuteronomy 1, when the Israelites were within fourteen days of the Promised Land, they complained. Complaining was a habit which had angered Moses, their leader, to the point where he wished he were dead. "How can I bear unaided the heavy burden you are to me, and put up with your complaints?" he asked. They headed for Horeb, but when they reached the hill country of the Amorites they refused to believe the promises and insisted on sending spies to see what sort of a land it was. The spies came back with a glowing report, but the people didn't believe that either. Never mind the lovely fruit the land offered. There were giants in the land; they'd all be killed. There were huge fortifications towering to the sky. How would they ever conquer them?

It was the neurotic's attitude. No answer would do. No solution offered was good enough. The promises of God, the direction of Moses, the report of the spies--all unacceptable. The people had already made up their minds that they didn't like anything God was doing. They "muttered treason." They said the Lord hated them. He brought them out only to have them wiped out by the Amorites. O God, what a fate. O God, why do you treat us this way? O God, how are we going to get out of this? It's your fault. You hate us. Moses hates us. Everything and everybody's against us.

Nina Jean said she made up her mind that if complaining was the reason God's people were denied the privilege of entering Canaan, she was going to quit it. She set herself a tough task: absolutely no complaining for fourteen days. It was a revelation to her--first, of how strong a habit it had become, and second, of how different the whole world looked when she did not complain. I get the impression when I'm around Nina Jean that the fourteen-day trial was enough to kick the habit. I've never heard her complain.

It's not just the sunshine and the colors that make her kitchen a nice place to be. It's that Nina Jean is there. I'd like to create that sort of climate for the people I'm around. I've set myself the same task.

Copyright 1995, used with permission, all rights reserved.

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Humdudgeons or Contentment
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart

 
The word humdudgeon is a new one to me and I like the sound of it. It means "a loud complaint about a trifle." Heard any of those lately around your house? One mother thought of an excellent antidote: all humdudgeons must be presented not orally but in writing, "of two hundred words or more." There was a sudden marked reduction in whining and complaining.

Parents, by example, teach their children to whine. No wonder it is so difficult to teach them not to! Listen to conversations in the elevator, at the hairdresser's, at the next table in the restaurant. Everybody's whining about everything--weather, health, the president, the IRS, the insurance mess, traffic, the kids.

Human life is full of trouble, which doesn't come from the dust, said Job's friend Eliphaz, nor does it sprout from the ground. Man is born to trouble. Compare your list of troubles with one famous man's:

   1. He had a difficult childhood
   2. Less than one year of formal schooling
   3. Failed in business at age 31
   4. Defeated for legislature at 32
   5. Failed again in business at 33
   6. Elected to the legislature at 34
   7. His fiancee died when he was 35
   8. Defeated for speaker at 38
   9. Defeated for electorate at 40
  10. At 42 married a woman who became a burden, not a help
  11. Only one of four sons lived past age 18
  12. Defeated for congress at 43
  13. Elected to congress at 46
  14. Defeated for congress at 48
  15. Defeated for senate at 55
  16. Defeated for vice president at 56
  17. Defeated for senate at 58
  18. Finally elected president.

He was Abraham Lincoln, of course. When I look at his list of setbacks, I wonder if I've ever had a problem.

Adler said, "It is a categorical demand of the neurotic's lifespan that he should fail through the guilt of others and thus be free of responsibility." That sobered me. Is my response to failure instantly to lay the blame on somebody else? Is there always an excuse, a complaint, an inner whine!

A spirit of calm contentment always accompanies true godliness. The deep peace that comes from deep trust in God's lovingkindness is not destroyed even by the worst of circumstances, for those Everlasting Arms are still cradling us, we are always "under the Mercy." Corrie ten Boom was "born to trouble" like the rest of us, but in a German concentration camp she jumped to her feet every morning and exuberantly sang "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus!" She thanked the Lord for the little parade of ants that marched through her cell, bringing her company. When Paul and Silas were in prison, they prayed and sang. It isn't troubles that make saints, but their response to troubles.

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Humdudgeons or Contentment
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


Even miracles can't make us holy. Paul reminded the Corinthians that the Israelites were all guided by the same cloud, all had the experience of passing through the sea, all ate the same supernatural food, and all drank the same supernatural drink. "In spite of this, most of them failed to please God and their corpses littered the desert" (1 Corinthians 10:5, JB). The reason for His displeasure came down to a single root: discontent, which included "wicked lusts for forbidden things (idols and illicit sex, for which 23,000 were killed in one day) and complaining because they wanted things perfectly legitimate in themselves which God had not given--leeks and onions and garlic and cucumbers and fish--and stood at their tent doors, parents and children together wailing "Here we are, wasting away, stripped of everything; there is nothing but manna for us to look at!" Numbers 11:6, JB). Many were struck with a plague and died.

When Paul's flesh was tormented by a sharp thorn, he naturally wanted it removed. He made this request known to God, but the answer was No. God didn't change Paul's physical condition, He changed his spiritual one. He gave him what he needed more than healing. He gave him the high ministry of heaven called grace. Paul not only accepted the answer, he learned even to be very thankful for weakness itself, for "power comes to its full strength in weakness."

Everything about which we are tempted to complain may be the very instrument whereby the Potter intends to shape His clay into the image of His Son--a headache, an insult, a long line at the check-out, someone's rudeness or failure to say thank you, misunderstanding, disappointment, interruption. As Amy Carmichael said, "See in it a chance to die," meaning a chance to leave self behind and say YES to the will of God, to be "conformable unto His death." Not a morbid martyr-complex but a peaceful and happy contentment in the assurance that goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives. Wouldn't our children learn godliness if they saw the example of contentment instead of complaint? acceptance instead of rebellion? peace instead of frustration?

May ours be the spirit of the seventeen-year-old Lady Jane Grey, who prayed this prayer in her prison cell before she was beheaded in 1554:

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Humdudgeons or Contentment
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart

       
O merciful God, be Thou unto me
A strong Tower of defence,
I humbly entreat Thee.
Give me grace to await Thy leisure,
And patiently to bear
What Thou doest unto me;
Nothing doubting or mistrusting
Thy goodness towards me;
For Thou knowest what is good for me
Better than I do.
Therefore do with me in all things
What Thou wilt;
Only arm me, I beseech Thee,
With Thine armor,
That I may stand fast;
Above all things taking to me
The shield of faith;
Praying always that I may
Refer myself wholly to Thy will,
Abiding Thy pleasure, and comforting myself
In those troubles which it shall please Thee
To send me, seeing such troubles are
Profitable for me; and I am
Assuredly persuaded that all Thou doest
Cannot but be well; and unto Thee
Be all honor and glory. Amen.

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Several Ways to Make Yourself Miserable
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: Keep A Quiet Heart


   1. Count your troubles, name them one by one--at the breakfast table, if anybody will listen, or as soon as possible thereafter.
   2. Worry every day about something. Don't let yourself get out of practice. It won't add a cubit to your stature but it might burn a few calories.
   3. Pity yourself. If you do enough of this, nobody else will have to do it for you.
   4. Devise clever but decent ways to serve God and mammon. After all, a man's gotta live.
   5. Make it your business to find out what the Joneses are buying this year and where they're going. Try to do them at least one better even if you have to take out another loan to do it.
   6. Stay away from absolutes. It's what's right for you that matters. Be your own person and don't allow yourself to get hung up on what others expect of you.
   7. Make sure you get your rights. Never mind other people's. You have your life to live, they have theirs.
   8. Don't fall into any compassion traps--the sort of situation where people can walk all over you. If you get too involved in other people's troubles, you may neglect your own.
   9. Don't let Bible reading and prayer get in the way of what's really relevant--things like TV and newspapers. Invisible things are eternal. You want to stick with the visible ones--they're where it's at now.

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