Logos StaffWe’ve gathered 30 of the most inspiring Elisabeth Elliot quotes. Share your favorites to celebrate the life and legacy of a woman who made an incalculable impact on Christianity around the world.
On June 14, 2015, Elisabeth Elliot passed away. She was a living testimony to the power of God’s grace, forgiveness, and unconditional love. As a young missionary, she traveled to Ecuador where she soon married fellow missionary Jim Elliot. Sensing the call to share the gospel with an unreached people group, Jim and four other missionaries made contact with the Aucas, a tribe living in the Ecuadorian jungles. Due to a tragic misunderstanding, all five were speared to death.
Elisabeth and the other widows remained in Ecuador where they continued the work of their husbands, sharing the gospel with the very people who were involved in their husbands’ murders. The martyrdom of these men, and the remarkable story of the village’s transformation, led to a an influx of young Christians entering missionary service in the middle of the twentieth century. Elisabeth went on to write numerous influential books on her husband’s life, her own ministry, and Christian living. She died at the age of 88.
Elisabeth Elliot quotes
“The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian makes me a different kind of woman.”
“Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.”
“I have one desire now – to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.”
“God never withholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God’s refusals are always merciful—’severe mercies’ at times, but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts’ desire except to give us something better.”
“Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts.”
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.”
“There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for.”
“I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts. Its easy to talk oneself into a decision that has no permanence—easier sometimes than to wait patiently.”
“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God . . . or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.”
“To be a follower of the Crucified means, sooner or later, a personal encounter with the cross. And the cross always entails loss.”
“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.”
“When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love him.”
“The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse, but in the end it’s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.”
“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.”
“We never know what God has up His sleeve. You never know what might happen; you only know what you have to do now.”
“By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.”
“It is God to whom and with whom we travel, and while He is the end of our journey, he is also at every stopping place.”
“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.”
“It is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself.”
“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.”
“The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”
“Until the will and the affections are brought under the authority of Christ, we have not begun to understand, let alone to accept, his lordship.”
“If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.”
“Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal.”
“Don’t dig up in doubt what you planted in faith.”
“You can never lose what you have offered to Christ.”
“God has promised to supply our needs. What we don’t have now we don’t need now.”
“The work of God is done on God’s timetable. His answers to our prayers come always in time—his time. His thoughts are far higher than ours, his wisdom past understanding.”
We hope you were blessed and encouraged by these 30 Elisabeth Elliot quotes. Here are a few additional related posts you might enjoy:
- 38 John Piper Quotes on the Life Not Wasted
- 30 Awesome Quotes from Charles Spurgeon
- Why “Fruitless” Ministries Are Never Truly Hopeless
Kyle Beutler
Mark Brians
Jennifer Grisham