Harbingers Of Freedom

I am not posting much this week. Nor have I been able to download more photos yet, either.  I want to do both and I hopefully will soon.

The primary reason is I have been doing what I have been calling when I run and talk to God "the hard work of obedience." And right now that hard work is heavy in my heart. It is exposing in me and breaking and I just haven't had many external words.

I have been meditating on some quotes by one of my dearest (author) mentors. Elisabeth Elliot's books have been close-to-my-heart favourites of mine and she seems to say the right things the right way that slay self-pity, force responsibility and acknowledge the beauty of Jesus in it all.

These are some of the quotes I am pondering right now:

"Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain."

"Choices will continually be necessary and - let us not forget - possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them."

"The world looks for happiness through self-assertion. The Christian knows that joy is found in self-abandonment. 'If a man will let himself be lost for My sake,' Jesus said, 'he will find his true self.' A Christian woman's true freedom lies on the other side of a very small gate - humble obedience ..."

"To be a follower of the Crucified means, sooner or later, a personal encounter with the cross. And the cross always entails loss."

"Maturity starts with the willingness to give oneself."

"If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily "ours" but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes."

"It is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself."

~ Elisabeth Elliot