Elisabeth Elliot - Passion and Purity

Also by Elisabeth Elliot:

A Slow and Certain Light

The Savage My Kinsman

Love Has a Price Tag

No Graven Image

The Journals of Jim Elliot

Through Gates of Splendor

Shadow of the Almighty

Let Me Be a Woman

The Mark of a Man

Discipline: The Glad Surrender

Quest for Love

Rainbows are made of sunlight and rain. The sunlight, which turned my world into a radiance of color, was the knowledge of Jim Elliots love. The rain was the other fact he explained to me as we sat on the grass by the Lagoonthat God was calling him to remain single. Perhaps for life, perhaps only until he had firsthand experience in the place where he was to work as a jungle missionary. Older missionaries had told him that single men were needed to do jobs married ones could never do. There were some areas where women could not go. Jim took their word for it and committed himself to bachelorhood for as long as the will of God required.

Five years passed before Jim Elliot knew that it was Gods will that he and Elisabeth marry. During those five years both experienced the same feelings that you may now haveloneliness .-.-. longing .-.-. impatience ... hope ... fear of what may lie ahead combined with trust in God .-.-. the elation of love mingled with the pain of separation. Through their time of waiting upon the Lord, both grew in faith and their love was purified. They learned many lessons which Elisabeth Elliot now shares with you. You, too, will learn to let your heart rest where true joys are to be found.

1984, 2002 by Elisabeth Elliot

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Repackaged edition published 2013

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, D.C.

ISBN 978-1-4934-3455-8

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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 YOUNG CHURCHES is taken from LETTERS TO YOUNG CHURCHES by J. B. Phillips. Copyright 1947, 1957 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., renewed 1975 by J. B. Phillips. Used by permission.

Scripture marked NEB is taken from 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.

Quotation from The Shooting of Dan McGrew, by Robert Service, reprinted by permission of DODD, MEAD, & COMPANY, INC. from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF ROBERT SERVICE.

Quotation from TOWARD JERUSALEM copyrighted material used by permission of the Christian Literature Crusade, Fort Washington, PA 19034.

Night Song at Amalfi reprinted with permission of Macmillan Publishing Company from COLLECTED POEMS by Sara Teasdale. Copyright 1915 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., renewed 1943 by Mamie T. Wheless.

Contents

Preface

In my day we would have called them love affairs or romances. Now they are called relationships. The word love has fallen on bad times. To many people it means nothing more nor less than going to bed with somebody, never mind what sex the other may belong to. Bumper stickers substitute a picture of a red heart for the word love and apply it to just about anything, anybody, or any place. In some Christian gatherings people are asked to turn around and look the person next to them full in the face, even if he is a perfect stranger, and say, with a broad smile and without the least trace of a blush, God loves you, and so do I, and prove it by a hearty bear hug. This apparently makes some of them feel good. Perhaps it even convinces them theyve obeyed the strongest and toughest command ever laid on human beings: Love one another as Christ has loved you. No wonder people cast about for some other word to describe what they feel for an individual of the opposite sex. Its new. Its neat. Its really neat. Its special.

Whats special? I sometimes ask.

Well, you know, this, like, relationship.

What relationship, exactly?

Well, I dont know, you know, its like, I mean, its just really neat.

A schoolteacher wrote to me recently about a growing friendship with a man she had been riding to work with. He had gone to a distant state, and she was feeling very lonely and uncertain about the future. She was not sure just what their relationship had been or was now or might turn out to be, but having picked up from my writings bits and pieces that refer to matters of the heart, she wanted to know more.

I want to know a little of what you were thinking, if I may. What were your feelings? What was going through your mind? Did your emotions often conflict with your thinking? If you can spare a few minutes and write back, I would hold on to any words of wisdom you have.

Of course I spared the few minutes. The letters keep coming, bombarding me with questions along these lines, suggesting that the experience of one from a different generation might still be a signpost. Here are snippets from other letters:

I am writing to you as a young woman seeking as honestly as I know how to be obedient to God, to know wisdom and discernment, to be pleasing and faithful and to wait on Him. My walk with Christ is rather an alone one. I lack knowing the spiritual leadership of a woman who is older than I. I know that concerning some things it was intended that the older women instruct the younger. I know that you are a servant, and I hope that you might respond.

How should a woman behave if a man is not fulfilling his role?

How shall I know that this woman is right for me?

How far can we go without a commitment to marriage? How far if we have that commitment?

What is our role as single womenwaiting around?

You seem so strong and unswerving in your faith. Over and over I tell God I cannot go through this anymore. I quit. I tell Him I am mad. Dont you ever falter and feel you cannot go on? Have you never had times of giving up?

Did you struggle with the desire to be with Jim all the years you were separated?

Did you struggle with being single if your heart yearned for Jim?

If Tom had not come into my life, all my thoughts would be focused on the Lord. There would be no conflict. It bothers me soI am lonely, and cry so easily, almost as if my heart is breaking. Is this part of Gods plan?

How did you handle the impatience of wanting to be with the man you loved?

I answer all the letters that come. I find myself trying to put into words, again and again, the lessons that came out of my own experience. Ive been there where these men and women are. I know exactly what they mean. I fear that my replies to them must often seem cut and dried. Oh, shes too opinionated. Shes got no sympathy. Shes the strong type anyway; shes never agonized as I do. And the way she dishes out advice! Do this, dont do that, trust God, period. I cant handle that stuff. Ive heard the objections. Ive overheard them, too. In college cafeterias after a talk Ive given. At the book table where theyre leafing through my books, unaware that the author is sitting to their left, with both ears open.

I thought that if I put these things into a book, they would not seem so cut and dried as they must in a one-page letter. Perhaps I must tell enough of my own story to serve as evidence that Ive been there. Could I tell it without stickiness? Without seeming to be at too many removes from people whose vocabulary is different, but whose cries wake clear echoes of my own? I hope I can. But in order to do that I must run the risk of indecent exposure. I must put in my own cries and some of Jims, my own weaknesses, my falteringsnot by any means all (if you knew how much Ive left out!), but some samples.