Finding Your Way through Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God

by Elisabeth Elliot

At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that’s why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you’re down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.

In solitude Isaiah saw the Lord. In solitude he found himself and the revelation was more than he could bear. “What a wretched state I am in! I am lost!” So it is with all who enter into real solitude. The layers of acquired knowledge, conditioned behavior, and self-confidence are sloughed off. The vision of the self without all its accustomed accretions is shocking. How different from the cherished image does the authentic self appear!

I thought how strange we grow when we’re alone, And how unlike the selves that meet and talk,

It takes the fire of God to cleanse our hearts of selfishness in all its subtle forms.

In Isaiah’s case, this was followed by God’s call for a volunteer to work for Him. With a heart at leisure now from itself, Isaiah could answer, “Here I am. Send me.”

I have a sense of expectancy every day. What does the Lord want to do with me today? I have no agenda of my own.”

The heart which has no agenda but God’s is the heart at leisure from itself. Its emptiness is filled with the Love of God. Its solitude can be turned into prayer.

Sometimes we are subject to criticism from others because we seem to be doing nothing. When waiting is an act of obedience it is of course an invisible one. Only the One waited on sees it for what it is, but we must resist the temptation to defend and explain to our critics, and simply go on trusting.

Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land (make your home, settle down, be at peace where God puts you). Delight in the Lord (make the Lord your only joy) and He will give you what your heart desires. Commit your life to the Lord. Trust in Him and He will act. Be quiet before the Lord. Wait patiently for Him, not worrying about others.1

The archetypal feminine characteristic is receptivity, as we can learn from the human form (the female body is made to receive), and from the Genesis account of creation (the woman was made for the man). Because all human creatures are dependent on God for life, the soul (whether that of a man or a woman) is a receptor, and therefore has always been viewed as feminine. God is always the initiator in the soul’s relation to Him. We are receivers of God’s grace and responders to Him in gratitude.

Therefore it seems reasonable that if God wants a woman to marry, He will see to it that the man finds her. She need not go out hunting (I didn’t, and three of them found me).

Instead I would say that if a man is to walk with God, surely he needs to come to grips, before he enters into any emotional involvements with women, with whether or not marriage is a part of his God-given task.

Waiting on God is an act of faith—the greatest thing ever required of us humans. Not faith in the outcome we are dictating to God, but faith in His character, faith in Himself. It is resting in the perfect confidence that He will guide in the right way, at the right time. He will supply our need. He will fulfill His word. He will give us the very best if we trust Him.

A woman’s waiting, regarding the question of marriage, means leaving the whole thing in God’s hands.

Waiting is an offering and a sacrifice. We may lift up our very waiting to Him as a daily oblation, in a spirit of expectancy—like Linda’s, who asks daily only for God’s agenda. Waiting on God in this way is true faith—no agenda of one’s own, no deadlines, no demands on what God must do. Simply an open heart and open hands ready to receive that which God shall choose, and a perfect confidence that what He chooses will be better than our best. God takes the part of that kind of soul.

The wildernesses spoken of in the Bible were usually very barren places, but God can change that. He can make streams in the desert, springs in the valley, and furnish tables in the wilderness.

“Fill up the emptiness of your heart with love for God and your neighbor,” wrote Edith Stein, whose love made even a concentration camp a place of joy.

Those whose lives have had the deepest spiritual impact in the world are t...

Our own diminishments, in God’s sovereign ordering of all things for His glory and our good, are not only the prerequisites to our own joy, but may also be the means of enriching the lives of others.

And what has happened? Not the miracle of an instant change of feelings, but the miracle of life out of death—the transformation of one woman’s diminishment into the enrichment of others.

If distress be our lot, it is the price we pay for your consolation, for your salvation; if our lot be consolation, it is to help us to bring you comfort, and strength to face with fortitude the same sufferings we now endure. 2 Corinthians 1:3–6 NEB