Elisabeth Elliot (1926 – 2015) attended Wheaton College where she studied classical Greek. It was her desire to work in the mission’s field as a Bible translator. It was at Wheaton where she met Jim Elliot, who would become her first husband. The two served as missionaries in Ecuador, where tragically Jim was murdered by the Aucan Indians; the very tribe Jim worked tirelessly to share the gospel. Amazingly, Elisabeth decided to spend two years as a missionary to the very tribe who murdered her husband.
After spending several more years as a missionary in South America she returned to the United States and became a much in demand speaker, touring the country, well into her seventies. She was the author of over twenty books and for thirteen years hosted a daily radio show, Gateway to Joy.
Her courageous faith, timeless teachings, and wonderful books, have made Elisabeth one of the most influential Christian women since the 1950’s.
Below are many of her wonderful and insightful quotes that I pray will challenge you to a deeper walk with Jesus.1
“Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.”
“Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person’s seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next.”
“Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.”
“Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you.”
“One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime.”
“Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We are to worship ‘in spirit and in truth.’ Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them.”
“By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.”
“We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive his poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others.”
“It is Christ who is to be exalted, not our feelings. We will know Him by obedience, not by emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment. ‘And love means following the commands of God.’ ‘Do you love Me?’ Jesus asked Peter. ‘Feed My lambs.’ He was not asking, ‘How do you feel about Me?’ for love is not a feeling. He was asking for action.”
“If my life is surrendered to God, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!”
“Worry is the antithesis of trust. You simply cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive.”
“Discipline, for the Christian, begins with the body. We have only one. It is this body that is the primary material given to us for sacrifice. We cannot give our hearts to God and keep our bodies for ourselves.”
“We have ample evidence that the Lord is able to guide. The promises cover every imaginable situation. All we need to do is to take the hand he stretches out.”
“A whole lot of what we call ‘struggling’ is simply delayed obedience.”
“Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now!”
“God has promised to supply all our needs. What we don’t have now, we don’t need now.”
“We can’t really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture.”
“Ordinary work, which is what most of us do, most of the time, is ordained by God every bit as much as is the extraordinary.”
“You are loved with an everlasting love. And underneath are the everlasting arms.”
“I’m convinced that there is nothing that can happen to me in this life that is not precisely designed by a sovereign Lord to give me the opportunity to learn to know Him.”
“The disciplined Christian will be very careful what sort of counsel he seeks from others. Counsel that contradicts the written Word is ungodly counsel. Blessed is the man that walketh not in that.”
“Fear arises when we imagine that everything depends on us.”
“Money holds terrible power when it is loved.”
“Everything if given to God can become your gateway to joy.”
1 All of the following quotes are from the websites below:
Inspirational Quotes by Elisabeth Elliot
49 Elisabeth Elliot Quotes | ChristianQuotes.info
https://www.azquotes.com/author/17940-Elisabeth_Elliot
Elisabeth Elliot Quotes (Author of Through Gates of Splendor)
https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/40-inspiring-quotes-from-elisabeth-elliot.html