About the Book
"Longing" by Karen Kingsbury follows the story of Ashley Baxter, a young woman struggling with her faith and relationships. As she navigates the challenges of love, loss, and forgiveness, Ashley learns valuable lessons about the power of hope, perseverance, and the importance of family. Ultimately, she discovers that with God's grace, anything is possible.
Jim Elliot
EARLY LIFE
Jim Elliot began his life in Portland, Oregon in the USA. His mother, Clara, was a chiropractor and his father, Fred, was a minister. They married and settled in Seattle, WA where they welcomed their first son, Robert in 1921.
Later they relocated the family to Portland where Herbert arrived in 1924, Jim in 1927, and Jane in 1932.
Jim knew Christ from an early age and was never afraid to speak about Him to his friends. At age six Jim told his mother, âNow, mama, the Lord Jesus can come whenever He wants. He could take our whole family because Iâm saved now, and Jane is too young to know Him yet.â
THE YEARS THAT CEMENTED HIS DESIRE TO SERVE THE LORD IN MISSIONS
Jim entered Benson Polytechnic High School in 1941. He carried a small Bible with him and, an excellent speaker; he was often found speaking out for Christ. He and his friends were not afraid to step out and find adventure. One thing Jim didnât have time for in those early years were girls. He was once quoted as telling a friend, âDomesticated males arenât much use for adventure.â
In 1945 Jim traveled to Wheaton, IL to attend Wheaton College. His main goal while there was to devote himself to God. He recognized the importance of discipline in pursuing this goal. He would start each morning with prayer and Bible study. In his journal he wrote, âNone of it gets to be âold stuffâ for it is Christ in print, the Living Word. We wouldnât think of rising in the morning without a face-wash, but we often neglect the purgative cleansing of the Word of the Lord. It wakes us up to our responsibility.â
Jimâs desire to serve God by taking His gospel to unreached people of the world began to grow while at Wheaton. The summer of 1947 found him in Mexico and that time influenced his decision to minister in Central America after he finished college.
Jim met Elisabeth Howard during his third year at Wheaton. He did ask her for a date which she accepted and then later cancelled. They spent the next years as friends and after she finished at Wheaton they continued to correspond. As they came to know each other there was an attraction, but Jim felt he needed to unencumbered by worldly concerns in order to devote himself completely to God.
In addition to his hope to one day travel to a foreign country to share Christ with the unchurched of the world, he also felt the need to share with people in the United States. On Sundays while at Wheaton he would often ride the train into Chicago and talk to people in the train station about Christ. He often felt ineffective in his work as the times of knowingly leading people to Christ were few. He once wrote, âNo fruit yet. Why is that Iâm so unproductive? I cannot recall leading more than one or two into the kingdom. Surely this is not the manifestation of the power of the Resurrection. I feel as Rachel, âGive me children, or else I die.ââ
After college with no clear answer as to working for the Lord in a foreign country, Jim returned home to Portland. He continued his disciplined Bible study as well as correspondence with Elisabeth Howard whom he called Betty.
They both felt a strong attraction to each other during this time, but also felt that the Lord may have been calling them to be unmarried as they served Him.
In June of 1950 he travelled to Oklahoma to attend the Summer Institute of Linguistics. There he learned how to study unwritten languages. He was able to work with a missionary to the Quichuas of the Ecuadorian jungle. Because of these lessons he began to pray for guidance about going to Ecuador and later felt compelled to answer the call there.
Elisabeth Elliot wrote in Shadow of the Almighty:
âThe breadth of Jimâs vision is suggested in this entry from the journal:
August 9. âGod just now gave me faith to ask for another young man to go, perhaps not this fall, but soon, to join the ranks in the lowlands of eastern Ecuador. There we must learn: 1) Spanish and Quichua, 2) each other, 3) the jungle and independence, and 4) God and Godâs way of approach to the highland Quichua. From thence, by His great hand, we must move to the Ecuadorian highlands with several young Indians each, and begin work among the 800,000 highlanders. If God tarries, the natives must be taught to spread southward with the message of the reigning Christ, establishing New Testament groups as they go. Thence the Word must go south into Peru and Bolivia. The Quichuas must be reached for God! Enough for policy. Now for prayer and practice.
THE ECUADOR YEARS
In February 1952 Jim finally left America to travel to Ecuador with Pete Fleming. In May Elisabeth moved to Quito and though they didnât feel the need to get engaged she and Jim did begin a courtship.
In August Jim left Elisabeth in Quito and travelled with Pete to Shell Mera. At the Mission Aviation Fellowship headquarters in Shell Mera, Jim and Pete learned more about the Acua Indians, a people group that was largely unreached and very savage.
Leaving Shell Mera, Pete and Jim moved on to Shandia where Jim was captivated by the Quichua. He felt very strongly that this was exactly where God intended for him to work to spread the Gospel.
While Jim was in Shandia, Elisabeth was working to learn more about the Colorado Indians near Santa Domingo. In January of 1953 he went to Quito and she met him there and they were finally engaged. They married in October of that year and their only child Valerie was born in 1955.
They settled in Shandia and continued their work with the Quichua Indians. It was Jimâs desire to be able to reach the Waodoni tribe that lived deep in the jungles and had little contact with the outside world. A Waodoni woman who had left the tribe was taken in by the missionaries and helped them to learn the language.
Jim, along with Pete, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and their pilot Nate Saint began to search by plane in hopes of finding a way to contact the Waodoni. The found a sandbar in the middle of the Curaray River that worked as a landing strip for the plane and it was there that they first made contact with the Waodoni. They were elated to be able to finally be able to attempt to share the love of Christ with this people group.
After their first meeting, one of the tribe, a man they called George lied to the tribe about the menâs intentions. This lie led the Waodoni warriors to plan an attack for when the missionaries returned. The men did return on January 8, 1956 and were surprised by ten members of the tribe who massacred the missionaries.
Jimâs short life that was filled with the desire to share Godâs love can be summed up by a quote that is attributed to him. âHe is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.â
The Difficult Habit of Quiet
The habit of quiet may be harder today than ever before. Donât get me wrong: itâs always been hard. The rise and spread of technology, however, tends to crowd out quiet even more. Now that we can carry the whole wide and wild world in our pockets, itâs that much harder to keep the world at bay. Our phones always promise another update to see, image to like, website to visit, game to play, text to read, stream to watch, forecast to monitor, podcast to download, headline to scan, article to skim, score to check, price to compare. That kind of access, and semblance of control, can begin to make quiet moments feel like wasted ones. Who could sit and be still while so much life rushes by? Even if we donât immediately pick up our phones, weâre often still held captive by them, wondering what new they might hold â what we might be missing. As hard as quiet might be to come by, however, itâs still a life-saving, soul-strengthening habit for any human soul. The God who made this wide and wild world, and who molded our finite and fragile frames, says of us, âIn quietness and in trust shall be your strengthâ (Isaiah 30:15). In days filled with noise, do you still find time to be this kind of strong? Or has stress and distraction slowly eroded your spiritual health? How often do you stop to be quiet? What God Does with Quiet What kind of quietness produces strength? Not all quietness does. We could sell our televisions, give away our phones, move to the countryside, and still be as weak as ever. No, âin quietness and in trust shall be your strength.â The quiet we need is a quiet filled with God. Quietness becomes strength only when our stillness says that we need him. Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! (Psalm 46:10) This still, trusting quietness defies self-reliance. Quietness can preach reality to our souls like few habits can. It says that he is God, and we are not; he knows all, and we know little; he is strong, and we are weak. Quietness widens our eyes to the bigness of God and the smallness of us. It brings us low enough to see how high and wise and worthy he is. You can begin to see why quietness can be so hard. Itâs deeply (sometimes ruthlessly) humbling. For it to say something true and beautiful about God, it first says something true and devastating about us. Our quietness says, âWithout him, you can do nothing.â Our refusal to be quiet, on the other hand, says, âI can do a whole lot on my ownâ â and that feels good to hear. It just robs us of the real strength and help we might have found. God strengthens the quiet with his strength, because quietness turns weakness and neediness into worship (2 Corinthians 12:9â10). We get the strength and help and joy; he gets the glory. But You Were Unwilling The context of Isaiahâs words, however, is not inspiring, but sobering. God says to his people, âIn returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.â But you were unwilling . . . (Isaiah 30:15â16) Quietness would have made them strong, but they wouldnât have it. Assyria was bearing down on Judah, threatening to crush them as it had crushed many before them. And how do Godâs people respond? âAh, stubborn children,â declares the Lord, âwho carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction.â (Isaiah 30:1â2) Even after watching him deliver them so many times before, they cast his plan aside and made their own. They sought help, but not from him. They went back to Egypt (of all places!) and asked those who had enslaved and oppressed them to protect them. And they didnât even stop to ask what God thought. They did, and did, and did, at every turn refusing to stop, be quiet, and receive the strength and support of God. I would rush to help you, God says, but you were unwilling. You werenât patient or humble enough to receive my help. âHow often do we choose activity over quietness, distraction over meditation, âproductivityâ over prayer?â Why would they refuse the sovereign help of God? Deep down, we know why. Because they felt safer doing what they could do on their own than they did waiting to see what God might do. How often do we do the same? How often do we choose activity over quietness, distraction over meditation, âproductivityâ over prayer? How often do we try to solve our problems without slowing down enough to first seek God? Consequences of Avoiding Quiet Self-reliance is, of course, not as productive as it promises to be â at least not in the ways we would want. The peopleâs refusal to be quiet and ask God for help not only cut them off from his strength, but also invited other painful consequences. First, the sin of self-reliance breeds more sin. Again, God says in verse 1, ââAh, stubborn children,â declares the Lord, âwho carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.â The more we refuse the strength of God, the more we invite temptations to sin. Quiet keeps us close to God and aware of him. A scarcity of quiet pushes him to the margins of our hearts, making room for Satan to plant and tend lies within us. Second, their refusal to be quiet before God made them vulnerable to irrational fear. Because they fought in their own strength, the Lord says, âA thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall fleeâ (Isaiah 30:17). A lone soldier will send a thousand into a panic. The whole nation will crumble and surrender to just five men. In other words, you will be controlled and oppressed by irrational fears. Youâll run away when no oneâs chasing you. Youâll lose sleep when thereâs nothing to worry about. And right when youâre about to experience a breakthrough, youâll despair and give up. Fears swell and flourish as long as God remains small and peripheral. Quiet time with God, however, scatters those fears by enlarging and inflaming our thoughts of him. The weightiest warning, however, comes in verse 13: those who forsake Godâs word, Godâs help, Godâs way invite sudden ruin. âThis iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant.â Confidence in self drove a crack in the strongholds around them â a crack that grew and spread until the walls collapsed on top of them. All because they refused to embrace quiet and trust God. âIn quietness and trust would be our strength; in busyness and pride will be our downfall.â For Judah, ruin meant falling into the cruel hands of the Assyrians. The walls will fall differently for us, but fall they will, if we let busyness and noise keep us from dependence. In quietness and trust would be our strength; in busyness and pride will be our downfall. Mercy for the Self-Reliant In the rhythms of our lives, do we make time to be quiet before God? Do we expect God to do more for us while we sit and pray than we can do by pushing through without him? If verse 15 humbles us â âBut you were unwilling . . .â â verse 18 should humble us all the more. As Judah hurries and worries and strategizes and plans and recruits help and works overtime, all the while avoiding God, how does God respond to them? What is he doing while they refuse to stop doing and be quiet? Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:18) While we refuse to wait for him, God waits to be gracious to us. Heâs not watching to see if heâll be forced to show us mercy; he wants to show us mercy. The God of heaven, the one before time, above time, and beyond time, waits for us to ask for help. He loves to hear the sound of quiet trust. Blessed â happy â are those who wait for him, who know their need for him, who ask him for help, who find their strength in his strength, who learn to be and stay quiet before him. Article by Marshall Segal
