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Over the years, a book that I have often returned to for encouragement is Elisabeth Elliot’s Secure in the Everlasting Arms.
Below are several of my favorite quotes:
“The eternal God is your refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
(Deuteronomy 33:27)
“We have a calming word in Psalm 138:8,
‘The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever – do not abandon the works of your hands.’
That word stands.
He will fulfill.
His love endures.
He will not abandon.
We are meddling with God’s business when we let all manner of imaginings loose, predicting disaster, contemplating possibilities instead of following, one day at a time, God’s plain and simple pathway. When we try to meet difficulties prematurely we have neither the light nor the strength for them yet.
‘As thy days so shall thy strength be’ was Moses’ blessing for Asher – in other words, your strength will equal your days. God knows how to apportion each one’s strength according to that day’s need, however great or small.”
“Faithfulness today is the best preparation
for the demands of tomorrow.”
“Can we wholeheartedly surrender to God, leaving quietly with Him all the ‘what ifs’ and ‘but what abouts’?
Will we truthfully say to Him,
‘Anything You choose for me, Lord – to have to be, to do, or to suffer. I am at Your orders. I have no agenda of my own’?
It comes down to Trust and Obey, ‘for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus,’ as the old gospel song goes.
Our future may look fearfully intimidating, yet we can look up to the Engineer of the Universe, confident that nothing escapes His attention or slips out of the control of those strong hands.”
“But I trust in you, O LORD;
I say, ‘You are my God.
My times are in your hand.’”
(Psalm 31:14-15 ESV)
“Thomas Carlyle said,
‘Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by action.’
There is wonderful therapy in taking oneself by the scruff of the neck, getting up, and doing something. While you are doing, time passes quickly. Time itself will in some measure heal, and ‘light arises in the darkness’ – slowly, it seems, but certainly.
I myself have been hauled out of the Slough of Despond by following the advice of the simple Saxon legend inscribed in an old English parsonage: ‘Doe the nexte thynge.’”
“…and as your days, so shall your strength be.”
(Deuteronomy 33:25b ESV)
“The ancients were commended for a solid faith full of hope and based on a strong certainty. We might take an invaluable lesson from them: Obedience to God is our job. The results of that obedience are God’s.”
“If God were small enough to be understood He would not be big enough to be worshipped.”
(Evelyn Underhill)