a different jim.

i am halfway through my copy of shadow of the almighty. i've underlined a lot of quotes. a lot. a whole lot. i'm going to put some here. i won't be commenting on them, because... i can't follow jim elliot! whatever. but i'll start with two quotes from elisabeth, the author. his wife.

she doesn't like people talking about how cool jim was (which means she'd hate my blog...), so she ends the preface by saying:

"Was his life extraordinary? I offer these pages so that the reader may decide for himself. If his answer is yes - if he finds herein the 'stamp of Christ,' and decides that this is extraordinary - what shall we say of the state of Christendom?"

yeah...

it is sad to marvel at the quotes of someone who is just another human like me. being captivated by Christ and not bothered by nonsense should be the norm in my life.

but i do like that she includes some words about people being impressed by martyrs. i mentioned a few weeks ago when i started re-reading this that i wasn't really moved by that part of the story.

"Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him, after all, so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first?"

two elisabeth quotes, and i'm moving on. the rest are from jim. hopefully you're not like me, and you'll read these and think "yeah i wrote that in MY journal this morning..."

this is long, but well worth your time. ALSO, there are two quotes about his thoughts on Christmas. which make me feel way better about MINE. i get a lot of grief for hating Christmas trees, and twinkly lights, and songs about bells and snowflakes. i like Jesus. i like Christmas. i hate all the extras. and so did jim elliot! so maybe you think i'm a super lame person, but we're talking about jim elliot here. a martyr. i'm just saying.

"Lord, make my way prosperous, not that I achieve high station, but that my life may be an exhibit to the value of knowing God."

"God is still on His throne, we're still on His footstool, and there's only a knee's distance between!"

"I lack the fervency, vitality, life in prayer which I long for. I know that many consider it fanaticism when they hear anything which does not conform to the conventional, sleep-inducing eulogies so often rising from Laodicean lips; but I know too that these same people can acquiescently tolerate sin in their lives and in the church without so much as tilting one hair of their eyebrows. Cold prayers, like cold suitors, are seldom effective in their aims."

"Missionaries are very human folks, just doing what they are asked. Simply a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt Somebody."

"No one warns young people to follow Adam's example. He waited till God saw his need. Then God made Adam sleep, prepared for his mate, and brought her to him. We need more of this 'being asleep' in the will of God. Then we can receive what He brings us in His own time, if at all. Instead we are set as bloodhounds after a partner, considering everyone we see until our minds are so concerned with the sex problem that we can talk of nothing else when bull-session time comes around."

"The Word of God is not bound! It's free to say what it will to the individual and no one can outline it into dispensations which cannot be broken. Don't get it down 'cold,' but let it live - fresh, warm, and vibrant - so that the world is not binding ponderous books about it, but rather is shackling you for having allowed it to have free course in your life."

(ok...one comment here. he wasn't a fan of studying theology, which is the opposite of me. but his point is still good...)

"Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never retreats."

"Of the flesh and its false emotions I have quite had my fill. Of Jesus I cannot seem to get enough. Thank God, though, He does not thwart the soul's desire for Himself, but only whets the desire, intensifying, sublimating."

"Father, save them, I pray; grace only makes me differ."

"All I have asked has not been given, and the Father's withholding has served only to intensify my desires. He knows that the 'hungrier' one is, the more appreciative he becomes of food, and if I have gotten nothing else from this year's experience He has given me a hunger for Himself I have never experienced before. He only promises water to the thirsty, salvation to the unsatisfied (I do not say dissatisfied), filling to those famished for righteousness."

"...we best learn patience by practicing it."

"Because I cannot see, nor even assuredly feel, His satisfaction with me, I cannot doubt the leading simply because of the dark. The leading is nonetheless real, the pathway has simply been into a place I didn't expect or ask for."

"Lord Jesus, I thank Thee that Thou didst banish the very principle of distance on that Cross. Thou wast forsaken, thrust away from God, that Thou shouldst bring me near. GRACE! All grace."

"How deaf must be the deafness of the ear which has never heard the story; how blind the eye that has not looked on Christ for light; how pressed the soul that has no hope of glory; how hideous the fate of man who knoweth only night! God arouse us to care, to feel as He Himself does for their welfare."

"Joy and peace can only come in believing, and that is all I can say to Him tonight. Lord, I believe. I don't love, I don't feel, I don't understand, I can only believe. Bring Thou faith to fruition, Great Harvest Lord. Produce in me, I pray."

"By His grace I shall not have His second best."

"Discouragement is a Satanic tool that seems to fit my disposition and the Enemy knows it...Well, all my doubts and fears (hinges on which swing the gates of Hell) cannot prevail to take Him from His throne nor stop Him from the building of His Church."

"Personally, I wasn't 'saved' all at once, but took some years coming into my present settled convictions about the truth of God. So why should I demand that conversion be immediate in others? Christ healed men differently. Some...He spoke a word, and there was a lightning-fast reaction. Others He touched, spat upon, made clay, spoke to and questioned...Let not him who accepts light in an instant despise him who gropes months in shadows. It took the Twelve three years to apprehend what was being shown them. The natural, so often illustrative of the spiritual, teaches that healing and growth, yea, even birth, are processes, and I think we altar-callers often perform abortions in our haste to see 'results.'"

"We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with. But we are 'harmless,' and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the Cross. We are 'sideliners' - coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own."

"I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. If he can keep us hearing radios, gossip, conversation, or even sermons, he is happy. But he will not allow quietness. For he believes Isaiah where we do not. Satan is quite aware of the power of silence. The voice of God, though persistent, is soft."

"And now men talk of Christ-mass - weird monstrosity and mixture of bright lights, reindeer, tissue paper and scraggly evergreens; jumbled mobs, bargain-baited, 'striving after wind', singing 'Silent Night' - but what know they of Immanuel?"

"...do away with all waverings, bewilderment, and wonder. You have bargained for a cross. Overcome anything in the confidence of your union with Him, so that contemplating trial, enduring persecution or loneliness, you may know the blessings of the 'joy set before.' 'We are the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.' And what are sheep doing going into the gate? What is their purpose inside those courts? To bleat melodies and enjoy the company of the flock? No. Those sheep were destined for the altar. Their pasture feeding had been for one purpose, to test them and fatten them for bloody sacrifice. Give Him thanks, then, that you have been counted worthy of His altars. Enter into the work with praise."

"I blush to think of things I have said, as if I knew something about what Scripture teaches."

"One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime."

"Just today I was thinking of how God loves in spite of all my sin and has promised to bring us to the 'desired haven.'...He loves through all these things - makes them seem too worthless even to be thought upon. I know them. God knows them. I confess them. He forgives them. Oh that I might praise Him worthily!"

"I see clearly now that anything, whatever it is, if it be not on the principle of grace, it is not of God. Here shall be my plea in weakness; here shall be my boldness in prayer; here shall be my deliverance in temptation; at last, here shall be my translation. Not of grace? Then not of God."

"I think there is nothing so startling in all the graces of God as His quietness."

"The practice at Christmas has gotten to be such a commercialized hoax that I will be sincerely glad when all good Christians abandon it. The excitement of the weekend left us all weary-eyed and untalkative at supper tonight. Seems to me we would have a better attitude toward the whole thing if someone would write a realistic poem on the 'Night After Christmas,' to counterbalance the magical effects of the imaginative 'Night Before.'

and this is his most famous quote:

"One of the great blessings of heaven is the appreciation of heaven on earth. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."