Quotes from Elisabeth Elliot

Whatever dark tunnel we may be called upon to travel through, God has been there.

As a bird easily comes to terms with the necessity of bearing wings when it finds that it is, in fact, the wings that bear up the bird--up, away from the world, into the sky, into freedom--so the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts, her special calling--wings, in fact, which bear her up into perfect freedom, into the will of God.

Faith is not a feeling. Faith is willed obedience in action.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should enjoy things made for us to enjoy. What is not at all fitting or proper is that we should set our hearts on them. Temporal things must be treated as temporal things - received, given thanks for, offered back, but enjoyed. They must not be treated like eternal things.

St. Augustine said, The very pleasures of human life men acquire by difficulties. There are times when the entire arrangement of our existence is disrupted and we long then for just one ordinary day - seeing our ordinary life as greatly desirable, even wonderful, in the light of the terrible disruption that has taken place. Difficulty opens our eyes to pleasures we had taken for granted.

The love of God is not a sentiment. It is a willed and inexorable love that will command nothing less than the very best for us. The love of God wills our joy. I think of the love of God as being synonymous with the will of God.

Missionary work in a place where Christ has never been named is sometimes less arduous than in places where, though named, He has not been honored by lives of holy obedience.

The God who controls the wheeling galaxies and who spoke before the foundation of the world must be the God who holds the smallest circumstance of your life in His hands.

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.

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.

If we love someone more than we love God, it is worse than inordinate - it is idolatry. When God is first in our hearts, all other loves are in order and find their rightful place.

A willing acceptance of all that God assigns and a glad surrender of all that I am and have constitute the key to receiving the gift of a quiet heart. Whenever I have balked, the quietness goes. It is restored, and life immeasurably simplified, when I have trusted and obeyed.