Quotes from Elisabeth Elliot

The Word of God I think of as a straight edge, which shows up our own crookedness. We can't really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture.

We never know what God has up His sleeve. You never know what might happen; you only know what you have to do now.

I took it for granted that there must be a few men left in the world who had that kind of strength. I assumed that those men would also be looking for women with principle. I did not want to be among the marked-down goods on the bargain table, cheap because they'd been pawed over. Crowds collect there. It is only the few who will pay full price. You get what you pay for.

Don't dig up in doubt what you planted in faith.

The way we live ought to manifest the truth of what we believe. A messy life speaks of a messy and incoherent faith.

Freedom begins way back. It begins not with doing what you want but with doing what you ought - that is, with discipline.

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering.

She is free not by disobeying the rules but by obeying them.

Amy Carmichael's] great longing was to have a single eye for the glory of God. Whatever might blur the vision God had give her of His work, whatever could distract or deceive or tempt other to seek anything but the Lord Jesus Himself she tried to eliminate.

The willingness to be and to have just what God wants us to be and have, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else, would set our hearts at rest, and we would discover the simpler life, the greater peace.

Single life may be only a stage of a life's journey, but even a stage is a gift. God may replace it with another gift, but the receiver accepts His gifts with thanksgiving. This gift for this day. The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived—not always looked forward to as though the "real" living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.

When ours are interrupted, his are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable).

The world cries for men who are strong; strong in conviction, strong to lead, to stand, to suffer.

I am convinced that the human heart hungers for constancy. In forfeiting the sanctity of sex by casual, nondiscriminatory making out and sleeping around, we forfeit something we cannot well do without. There is dullness, monotony, sheer boredom in all of life when virginity and purity are no longer protected and prized.

One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime. Nor is surrender to the will of God (per se) adequate to fullness of power in Christ. Maturity is the accomplishment of years, and I can only surrender to the will of God as I know what that will is.

If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.

Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all. I was dying to talk to Jim and about Jim. 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.

It is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself.

To me, a lady is not frilly, flouncy, flippant, frivolous and fluff-brained, but she is gentle, she is gracious, she is godly and she is giving. You and I have the gift of femininity... the more womanly we are, the more manly men will be and the more God is glorified. Be women, be only women, be real women in obedience to God.

We are not asked to SEE, said Amy. Why need we when we KNOW? We know--not the answer to the inevitable Why, but the incontestable fact that it is for the best. It is an irreparable loss, but is it faith at all if it is 'hard to trust' when things are entirely bewildering?

Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal.

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.

I believe a woman, in order to be a good wife, must be (among other things) both sensual and maternal.

Women still dream and hope, pin their emotions on some man who doesn't reciprocate, and end up in confusion.