Elisabeth Elliot - Keep a Quiet Heart

Keep a Quiet Heart

1995 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 2022

ISBN 978-0-8007-4096-2

Previously published in 1995 by Servant Publications

Ebook edition created 2021

Ebook corrections 03.17.2022

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 978-1-4934-3458-9

Scripture marked JB is taken from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, copyright 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

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 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.

Scripture marked NIV is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. 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

Do Not Rush.
Trust.
And Keep a Quiet Heart.

I think I find most help in trying to look on all the interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline, trials sent by God to help one against getting selfish over ones work. Then one can feel that perhaps ones true workones work for Godconsists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into ones day. It is not a waste of time, as one is tempted to think, it is the most important part of the work of the daythe part one can best offer to God. After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it.

Annie Keary, 1825-1879

Introduction

F or about a dozen years I have been writing, every other month, what I called a newsletter. It is not a very good title. Its simply a letter meant to cheer and encourageonce in a while perhaps to nettle or amusethose who want it. There isnt much news. I include an itinerary of the places where I am to speak, and from time to time I announce the arrival of another grandchild. Sometimes I recommend books.

This book is a compilation of lead articles culled from the newsletter. Mostly they are about learning to know God. Nothing else, I believe, comes close to being as important in life as that. Its what we are here for. We are created to glorify Him as long as we live on this planet, and to enjoy Him for the rest of eternity.

Our task is simply to trust and obey. This is what it means to love and worship Him. Jesus came to show us how that can be done. In the Gospel of John, He is called the Word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it....

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of Godchildren born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husbands will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1-14 NIV

It is reasonable to believe that the One who made the worlds, including this one and us who live in it, is willing to teach us how to live. He became flesh in order to show us, day by day as He walked the lanes of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem, how to live in company with God.

The following pages are the musings of a slow learner. It has been well over half a century since I welcomed Christ as my Redeemer and asked Him to be Lord of my life. You will find much repetition of elementary lessons, for I have written as I would to my family and close friends, putting down rather chattily the things by which I was being encouraged, convicted, and strengthened by the Spirit of God.

One rainy afternoon at Wheaton College in 1947 my friend Sarah Spiro and I were at the piano in Williston Hall. I had written down a few lines of a prayer which I hoped was poetry. Sarah studied them for a minute and then set them to music. I havent a copy of the music, but here are the words:

Lord, give to me a quiet heart

That does not ask to understand,

But confident steps forward in

The darkness guided by Thy hand.

This was my hearts desire then. It is the same today. A willing acceptance of all that God assigns and a glad surrender of all that I am and have constitute the key to receiving the gift of a quiet heart. Whenever I have balked, the quietness goes. It is restored, and life immeasurably simplified, when I have trusted and obeyed.

God loves us with an everlasting love. He is unutterably merciful and kind, and sees to it that not a day passes without the opportunity for new applications of the old truth of becoming a child of God. This, to me, sums up the meaning of life.

Magnolia, Massachusetts
October, 1994

Thou art the Lord who slept upon the pillow,

Thou art the Lord who soothed the furious sea,

What matter heating wind and tossing billow

If only we are in the boat with Thee?

Hold us in quiet through the age-long minute

While Thou art silent, and the wind is shrill:

Can the boat sink while Thou, dear Lord, art in it?

Can the heart faint that waiteth on Thy will?

Amy Carmichael
Toward Jerusalem

A Quiet Heart

J esus slept on a pillow in the midst of a raging storm. How could He? The terrified disciples, sure that the next wave would send them straight to the bottom, shook Him awake with rebuke. How could He be so careless of their fate?

He could because He slept in the calm assurance that His Father was in control. His was a quiet heart. We see Him move serenely through all the events of His lifewhen He was reviled, He did not revile in return. When He knew that He would suffer many things and be killed in Jerusalem, He never deviated from His course. He had set His face like flint. He sat at supper with one who would deny Him and another who would betray Him, yet He was able to eat with them, willing even to wash their feet. Jesus in the unbroken intimacy of His Fathers love, kept a quiet heart.