The Path of Loneliness Quotes

“God has promised to supply our needs. What we don’t have now we don’t need now.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God

“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.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God

“To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then and 'be safe'?” That's the only alternative, really. But locking ourselves up and never facing another person won't fix what's really going on in our souls.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God

“Can we give up all for the love of God? When the surrender of ourselves seems too much to ask, it is first of all because our thoughts about God Himself are paltry. We have not really seen Him, we have hardly tested Him at all and learned how good He is. In our blindness we approach Him with suspicious reserve. We ask how much of our fun He intends to spoil, how much He will demand from us, how high is the price we must pay before He is placated.

If we had the least notion of His loving-kindness and tender mercy, His fatherly care for His poor children, His generosity, His beautiful plans for us; if we knew how patiently He waits for our turning to Him, how gently He means to lead us to green pastures and still waters, how carefully He is preparing a place for us, how ceaselessly He is ordering and ordaining and engineering His Master Plan for our good-if we had any inkling of all this, could we be reluctant to let go of our smashed dandelions or whatever we clutch so fiercely in our sweaty little hands?

If with courage and joy we pour ourselves out for Him and for others for His sake, it is not possible to lose, in any final sense, anything worth keeping. We will lose ourselves and our selfishness. We will gain everything worth having.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God

“Our loneliness cannot always be fixed, but it can always be accepted as the very will of God for now, and that turns into something beautiful. Perhaps it is like the field wherein lies the valuable treasure. We must buy the field. It is no sun drenched meadow embroidered with wildflowers. It is a bleak and empty place, but once we know it contains a jewel the whole picture changes.

In my case, "selling everything" meant giving up the self-pity and the bitter questions. I do not mean we are to go out looking for chances to be as lonely as possible. I am talking about acceptance of the inevitable. And when, through a willed act we receive this thing we did not want, then Loneliness, the name of the field nobody wants, is transformed into a place of hidden treasure.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God

“What we don't have now we don't need now. Possibly His very withholding is in order that the boy may learn, at this crucial juncture in his life, to turn to God in prayer for a deeply felt need.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, Loneliness: It Can Be A Wilderness. It Can Be A Pathway To God.

“I cannot close my heart to Thee. This is the response of a humble heart, one that admits its poverty and recognizes the gentle Love that waits, the Joy that is seeking him precisely because he is in such pain that he can hardly seek anything but death. Then, although he is blind, he sees with the eye of faith, and what he sees, through the mist of tears, is a rainbow. He comes to believe that the promise is true: Tears are not forever. There will be a morning without them. His faith lays hold of the promise and, mysteriously, he finds that pain has been exchanged for joy.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, Loneliness: It Can Be A Wilderness. It Can Be A Pathway To God.

“Cwe give up all for the love of God? When the surrender of ourselves seems too much to ask, it is first of all because our thoughts about God Himself are paltry. We have not really seen Him, we have hardly tested Him at all and learned how good He is. In our blindness we approach Him with suspicious reserve. We ask how much of our fun He intends to spoil, how much He will demand from us, how high is the price we must pay before He is placated.

If we had the least notion of His loving-kindness and tender mercy, His fatherly care for His poor children, His generosity, His beautiful plans for us; if we knew how patiently He waits for our turning to Him, how gently He means to lead us to green pastures and still waters, how carefully He is preparing a place for us, how ceaselessly He is ordering and ordaining and engineering His Master Plan for our good-if we had any inkling of all this, could we be reluctant to let go of our smashed dandelions or whatever we clutch so fiercely in our sweaty little hands?

If with courage and joy we pour ourselves out for Him and for others for His sake, it is not possible to lose, in any final sense, anything worth keeping. We will lose ourselves and our selfishness. We will gain everything worth having.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God

“There is no hope for any of us until we confess our helplessness . Then we are in a position to receive grace,”
― Elisabeth Elliot, The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God

“If God loves me, He´ll make me happy”.
Well, yes and no. Happy isn´t the word, really. It´s joy, a far better thing. Not a sentiment, not mere “feeling good”, but something that can never be taken away.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, Loneliness: It Can Be A Wilderness. It Can Be A Pathway To God.