Elisabeth Elliot - Be Still My Soul

2003 by Elisabeth Elliot

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Repackaged edition published 2017

Ebook edition created 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-3460-2

Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture marked LB is taken from The Living Bible , copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture marked NEB is taken from the The New English Bible . Copyright 1961, 1970, 1989 by The Delegates of Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture marked NIV is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Scripture marked NKJV is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked Phillips is taken from The New Testament in Modern English, revised editionJ. B. Phillips, translator. J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Scripture marked RSV is taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Contents

Dedication and Acknowledgments

We have become friends with many people over the years through our travels. You may live far away, yet you are not far from our hearts. We have come to know other friends only through the mailbox-radio listeners, newsletter subscribers, and conference attendees. Thank you for bringing us joy and for telling us when we were mentioned in your prayers.

This book is dedicated to all of you, with thanksgiving.

Thanks also to Don Cooper of Servant Publications for publishing a number of my books and for being a good friend to us. (Lars has fond memories of their time together at the Frankfurt book fair in Germany, where Don was disturbed that my thrifty husband had brought a ninety-eight-cent can of smoked kippers from the States for his lunch, while he had to pay fifteen dollars for a mere hot dog, chips, and soda pop.)

Then there is Kathy Deering, who edited my newsletter for many years and who compiled the books taken from it. With gratitude, I also want to mention Linda Meyers, Kay Hill, Kathy Gilbert, Pat Cresoe, Jeannie Illges, and Jan Wismer, who have all had a part in helping over the years.

Elisabeth Elliot
Magnolia, Massachusetts

Christ-Bearers

I have spent my life plumbing the depths of what it means to be a Christian. I am, as of this morning, still learning. One thing I learned a long time ago is that we have to receive the life of Christ ourselves before we can live it. We have to live it before we can give it to others. Receive, live, give. The theologians call this incarnation, and it applies as much to us as Christians as it does to our Lord Himself.

Before Jesus was born, a young virgin named Mary responded to a heavenly summons and allowed Gods Spirit to become flesh. She gave her body to be the chalice into which the life of God was poured. A chalice is a cup. What Mary did is what you and I are meant to do, every one of us, every day, no matter where we are or what the circumstancesto carry Christ into this world. We are like chalices, empty vessels willing and ready to be filled with the life of God. Cleaned out in the process, we are poured out for others. Our lives illustrate what God is like much more by what we are and do than by what we say. We incarnate Christ by taking up our crosses and following Him, doing exactly as Jesus did when He was obedient to the Father.

The word incarnation means taking on flesh or being manifested in a human body. It comes directly from two words meaning in the flesh or the enfleshing. God, who is Spirit, took on visible form for thirty-three years in the person of Jesus Christ. When Jesus died, the world could no longer see Him or touch Him. But because He gave us His Spirit when He rose from the dead and returned to His Father, Jesus made sure that the world could continue to see God in the flesh. The same Spirit that is in Him is in us Christians, Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27b, KJV). Even though Jesus may have become invisible to the eyes of people in the world, you and I are quite visible to them and to each other. In us, the world may in fact see God.

When the angel went to Mary, he said, Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words (Luke 1:2829, NIV). The angelic message was alarmingly clear and Marys response was aweand bewilderment. When something interrupts what we are doing (the angel interrupted Marys housework, I suppose), most of us fret. Gods message to Mary would have seemed to most engaged girls an enormous inconvenience, even a disaster. For her, it caused a moment of puzzlement (how could this be?). Then, as far as we know, she raised no objections about what would happen to her or her fianc. Her answer came with simply, Be it unto me according to thy word.

Whether or not an angel ever comes to us, we might be troubled at some of Gods words to us as well. We might wish wed never heard them. But our response should be modeled on Marys and that of her Son Jesusimmediate obedience. Like someone holding out a cup to be filled when a drink is offered, we need to put our hearts forward right when God offers to pour Himself into us for an assignment, large or small. Its the attitude of a Christ-bearer.

A writer once said, Marys was the purposeful emptiness of a virginal heart, not a formless emptiness without meaning. Like Mary, we are best suited as Christ-bearers if we too have a purposeful emptiness, a readiness to be filled. If we fill up on trivialities or anxieties, we wont have room in our hearts for Him.

For Christ-bearers, there is no dichotomy between secular work and spiritual work. There wasnt for Mary and there shouldnt be for us. Her work was to say yes to Gods will and to follow through by doing the everyday tasks that needed to be done. She tended to the simple but time-consuming needs of her husband and family. She raised the baby Jesus into young manhood. She released Him to do the work of the kingdom of God.

Our life may seem more complicated than Marys, but the basics are the same. We live in a continuum of visible, tangible things. We live with the washing machines that break down and the dinner that burns and bills to pay and traffic jams. It is an act of obedient surrender as you tend your small child with all this mess and endure sleepless nights and juggle your responsibilities at work and at home.

The baby Jesus would not only be fed at Marys breast and learn at her feet and in the carpenters shop, but He would one day feel the blindfold, the ropes, the lash, the thorns, and finally the blood, nails, and the splinters of the cross. The Lord of the universe had taken on the body of an ordinary, vulnerable, mortal man in order that He might suffer and be totally emptied and annihilatedto bring Gods life into the world. The bread which I will give is my body and I shall give it for the life of the world (John 6:51b, Phillips). What bread do you and I have to give to the world?