Wait, be still, trust, and obey!

This past weekend I received a letter in the mail from my friend Damaris. God has been using this friend countless times to speak truth in my life. In the letter she took time to write out some quotes from one of my favorite books “Keep a Quiet Heart” by Elizabeth Elliot. These exact words were convicting to me a year and a half ago when I read the book and are just as convicting and encouraging today. I pray if you’re in a season of waiting, you find the wise and biblical advise from Elizabeth Elliot to be encouraging to you as well!

“The tests of our willingness to wait patiently for the Lord come almost daily. Waiting requires patience- a willingness calmly to accept what we have or have not, where we are or where we wish we were, whomever we live or work with. To want what we don’t have is impatience, for one thing, and it is to mistrust God. Is He not in complete control of all circumstances, events and conditions?...

It is here and now that we must win our victories and suffer defeats. Spiritual victories are won in the quiet acceptance of ordinary events, which are God’s “bright servants” standing all around us….

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. (John 14:27) What sort of peace has He to give us? A peace which was constant in the midst of ceaseless work (with few visible results), frequent interruptions, impatient demands, few physical comforts; a peace which was not destroyed by the arguments, the faithlessness, and the hatred of the people. Jesus has perfect confidence in His Father… Nothing touches me without my Father’s permission. Can I not then wait patiently? He will show the way…

If I am willing to be still in my master’s hand, can I not then be still in everything?... If I mean to be obedient and submissive to the Lord because He is my Lord, I must not forget that whatever He allows to happen becomes, for me, His will at that moment. Look to Him for the outcome….

His message to me everyday is wait, be still, trust, and obey!!!"

-Elizabeth Elliot, “Keep a Quiet Heart” p. 134-136

Psalm 25:4- "Make me to know your ways O, Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long."

When we cannot see our way
Let us trust and still obey
He who bids us forward goes
Cannot fail the way to show
Though the sea be deep and wide
Though a passage seem denied,
Fearless let us still proceed,
Since the Lord vouchsafes to lead