...more E. Elliot wisdom

"Happy the race of men, if that love were to rule your hearts which rules the heavens!" wrote Boethius from the dungeon where he awaited his death in the fifth century. I wanted to be ruled by that Love, but found myself in danger of being ruled by a lesser.

...

I wanted to know Christ. ...this ambition was going to cost me something. I began slowly to learn that Christ can be known only in the path of obedience. "Every man who knows my commandments and obeys them is the man who really loves me, and every man who really loves me will himself be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and make myself known to him."

Obedience proves love, and love opens the heart to knowledge. Never a day goes by that does not bring fresh opportunities to know Him - if only we will do what He says. It is easy enough to give assent to the principle, once it is pointed out. It is not so easy to recognize our chance to put it into practice, especially when that chance comes in an unpalatable form. This huge unfulfilled desire - a means for knowing Christ? I could not see it that way.

...

"What do you want more than anything else in the world?"

Jim Elliot was the first answer that sprang to mind. But I had not forgotten my ten-year commitment (God help me, I could not change it). Hoping I spoke the truth, I answered, "To know You, Lord."

"Do you want My will, at any cost?"

The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. I couldn't pull any wool over God's eyes. Was it yes to this question?

"Yes, Lord."

...

(In her college days, before Jim, she had written this...)

Perhaps some future day, Lord, Thy strong hand
Will lead me to the place where I must stand
Utterly alone.

Alone, O Gracious Lover, but for Thee;
I shall be satisfied if I can see
Jesus only.

I do not know Thy plan for years to come,
My spirit finds in Thee its perfect home,
Sufficiency.

Lord, all my desire is before Thee now,
Lead on, no matter where, no matter how -
I trust in Thee.

...

C.S. Lewis wrote,

"In awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the "lord of terrible aspect," is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist's love for his work and despotic as a man's love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father's love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes."

...

...for the Lord of Hosts is absolutely sovereign. He holds power over the universe, He hold authority over my life - not because He usurps the rights with which He endowed me in creation, but because I had specifically asked Him to be Lord of my life. I had prayed as earnestly as a child and a teenager and a woman can pray, Thy will be done. The coming of this transcendent authority into one's life is bound to be an active thing, an immense disruption at times.

...

Yet I have come to understand even sufering, through the transforming power of the Cross, as a gift, for in this broken world, in our sorrow, He gives us Himself; in our loneliness He comes to meet us, as in George Matheson's He came as the Love that would never let him.

In His death Jesus Christ gave us life. The willingness of the Son of God to commit Himself into the hands of criminals became the greatest gift ever given - the Bread of the world, in mercy broken, thus the worst thing that ever happened became the best thing that ever happened.

...

(And another journal entry from her college days.)

Lord, I do once more acknowledge, with all my heart, that I am Thine. No claim have I upon this life, past, present, or future. I am all, all Thine own. Thou hast said, "Fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine... I will be with thee... I am the Lord thy God... I have loved thee... I am with thee." Therefore, O dear Lord and Master, Redeemer, Lover, Friend, Beloved, do Thou work out Thine entire will in my life henceforth at any cost, in the time that is left to me on this earth. How short that may be I do not know at all, but I trust Thee. "Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart." "He shall preserve thy soul."

(excerpts taken from chapters 5, 6, & 7 of The Path of Loneliness)