Thoughts on Waiting from Elisabeth Elliot

I began to learn to wait.  Patient waiting does not come naturally to most of us, but a great deal is said about it in the Bible.  It is an important discipline for anyone who wants to learn to trust.

I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the hear to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts.

Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all.  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.

S. D. Gordon, in his Quiet Talks on Prayer, describes waiting.  It means:

Steadfastness, that is holding on;
patience, that is holding back;
expectancy, that is holding one's self in readiness to go or do;
listening, that is holding quiet and still so as to hear.

How long, Lord, must I wait?
Never mind, child.  Trust me.

~ taken from Elisabeth Elliot's book, Passion and Purity

~Brittany

Relinquishment for Spiritual Growth

I have been very blessed and encouraged as I have been reading Elisabeth Elliot's book, Passion and Purity.  This section really stood out to me last night.

The growth of all living green things wonderfully represents the process of receiving and relinquishing, gaining and losing, living and dying.  The seed falls into the ground, dies as the new shoot springs up.  There must be a splitting and a breaking in order for the bud to form.  The bud “lets go” when the flower forms.  The calyx lets go of the flower.  The petals must curl up and die in order for the fruit to form.  The fruit falls, splits, relinquishes the seed.  The seed falls into the ground…

There is no onging spiritual life without this process of letting go.  At the precise point where we refuse, growth stops.  If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul.

It is easy to make a mistake here.  “If God gave it to me,” we say, “it’s mine.  I can do what I want with it.”  No.  The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of—if we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory.

Think of the self that God has given as an acorn.  It is a marvelous little thing, a perfect shape, perfectly designed for its purpose, perfectly functional.  Think of the grand glory of an oak tree.  Gods intention for us is, “…the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”  Many deaths must go into our reaching that measure, many letting-goes.  When you look at the oak tree, you don’t feel that the “loss” of the acorn is a very great loss.  The more you perceive God’s purpose in your life, the less terrible will the losses seem.

There must be relinquishment.  There is no way around it.  The seed does not “know” what will happen.  It only knows what is happening—the falling, the darkness, the dying.  Lilias Trotter wrote those profound words quoted earlier: “The first step into the realm of giving is…not manward but Godward: an utter yielding of our best.  So long as our idea of surrender is limited to the renouncing of unlawful things, we have never grasped its true meaning: that is not worthy of the name for ‘no polluted thing’ can be offered.”

~Brittany

"The disposition... to leave the dearest objects of our hearts in the sublime keeping of the general and unspecific belief that God is now answering our prayers in His own time and way, and in the best manner, involves a present process of inward crucifixion which is obviously unfavorable to the growth and even the existence of the life of self."

- T.C.Upham, Inward Divine Guidance -

~ taken from Elisabeth Elliot's book Passion and Purity ~

~Brittany

"The heart set to do the Father's will need never fear defeat."

~ Elisabeth Elliot ~

from her book Passion and Purity

~Brittany

A few quotes from Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot

I just began reading Elisabeth Elliot's book "Passion and Purity" yesterday and am already finding myself incredibly challenged by it.  I thought I would share a few of the quotes in the book that really spoke to me, that I hope will be a blessing to you as well.  

~Breanna

"...Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise..." 

~The Book of Common Prayer

"'The life lost on the Cross was not a sinful one- the treasure poured forth there was God-given, God-blessed treasure, lawful and right to be kept: only that there was the life of the world at stake.'(Lillias Trotter) What kind of a God is it who asks everything of us?  The same God who'...did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all; and with this gift how can he fail to lavish upon us all he has to give?' He gives all.  He asks all."

"One morning I was reading the story of Jesus' feeding of the five thousand.  The disciples could find only five loaves of bread and two fishes.  'Let me have them,' said Jesus.  He asked for all.  He took them, said the blessing, and broke them before He gave them out.  I remembered what a chapel speaker...had said: 'If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it is because pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will satisfy only a little lad.'"