Just something to chew on...

This shouldn't be too long of a post. Over at my book blog - A Girl and Her Books - I wrote a post about my dedicating February as the month to re-read all of my books about the Ecuador 5... Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming and Ed McCully. In 5 days, I have read 3 of the 9 books in my possession. And it's been amazing to say the least. In my other post I wrote, "All of them have made me cry (like always). All of them have made me shiver and shake because of the power the story holds. All of them have transported me back to the days when I was in 8th grade and first learning about this story and dreaming of the Curaray River. And all of them have had me dreaming of the day when JESUS returns and I find myself worshipping before the throne with the 5 men, their families and the Waodani people. United as one family, one people through the saving grace of Waengongi (GOD in the Wao language)."

I have written many times before about how this story has impacted my life and is one that I always return to when I think about my own missionary journey. So I won't write about that tonight. Instead I want to share some of the words of  Elisabeth Elliot - Jim's wife - in Through Gates of Splendor. I pray they will touch your heart, encourage you as you walk the Christian journey and challenge you to think about how you can make an impact on the life of someone for the sake of the Gospel, even if you don't travel to the dense Amazon Jungle or crowded slums of India or ancient yet modern cities of Italy. You and I  have a calling to share the Gospel with those we come into contact with and GOD will work through us. We just have to be willing.

"Those men had long since given themselves without reservation to do the will of God. So far as they knew, they were to be plain ordinary missionaries -- Roj to the Atshuaras; Jim, Ed and Pete to the Quichuas; Nate to serve all the jungle stations with his airplane. But small things happen (Nate found some inhabited Waodani houses). Small decisions are made (he told Jim and Ed), which lead to bigger ones (they began to pray with new vigor for an entrance into the territory), and ultimately a man's individual choices become momentous. Plain, ordinary missionaries with wives and children whom they loved found themselves faced with a life and death decision. They were not looking for anything bigger to do, let alone for fame. The need of the Waodani simply became the categorical imperative...  (page 266)

It is not the level of our spirituality that we can depend on. It is God and nothing less than God, for the work is God's and the call is God's and everything is summoned by Him and to His purposes, the whole scene, the whole mess, the whole package -- our bravery and our cowardice, our love and our selfishness, our strengths and our weaknesses. The God who could take a murderer like Moses and an adulterer like David and a traitor like Peter and make of them strong servants of His is a God who can also redeem savage Indians, using as the instruments of His peace a conglomeration of sinners who sometimes looks like heroes and sometimes like villains, for 'we are no better than pots of earthenware to contain this treasure (the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ), and this proves that such transcendent power does not come from us, but is God's alone' (2 Corinthians 4:7, NEB)." (page 270)

Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot

Copyright 1996