Culture and Context

30 Inspiring Elisabeth Elliot Quotes

Logos Staff6 min readJune 15, 2015

elisabeth elliot quotes

We’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. Click To Tweet Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them. Click To Tweet I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it. Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet

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. Click To Tweet There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for. Click To Tweet 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… Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet To be a follower of the Crucified means, sooner or later, a personal encounter with the cross. And the cross always entails loss. Click To Tweet Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you. Click To Tweet One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime. Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love him. Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet

We never know what God has up His sleeve. You never know what might happen; you only know what you have to do now. Click To Tweet By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere. Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet It is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself. Click To Tweet 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… Click To Tweet

The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances. Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd. Click To Tweet Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal. Click To Tweet Don't dig up in doubt what you planted in faith. Click To Tweet You can never lose what you have offered to Christ. Click To Tweet God has promised to supply our needs. What we don’t have now we don’t need now. Click To Tweet 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. Click To Tweet

We hope you were blessed and encouraged by these 30 Elisabeth Elliot quotes. Here are a few additional related posts you might enjoy:

Tagged asElisabeth Elliot Elisabeth Elliot quotes Jim Elliot

Written by

Logos Staff

Logos is the largest developer of tools that empower Christians to go deeper in the Bible.

View all articles

Your email address has been added

Written by Logos Staff

Church Media Is More Important Than Ever

Facebook Twitter Reddit Pinterest LinkedIn

What Is a Chaplain? Thoughts from ‘That Guy’