A Chance to Die Elisabeth Elliot (electronic reader .txt) 📖

in. Let us fancy for a moment we are a band of Israelites who want to build a magnificent abode for the Mighty Presence to dwell in. We convene a committee . . . Moses says, stroking his beard meditatively, “Ah, the people’s tastes must be considered, in the present state of society we cannot do otherwise, though of course it is not a desirable course to pursue.”

“But brother,” remarks Aaron, “the Tabernacle must really have decent curtains, and if they are to be of goat’s hair they will cost quite a large sum of money, and then they must be embroidered. . . .” Then Bezaleel speaks: “You speak, my brethren, as if nothing but the curtains should be considered, but there is a great amount of carving in wood and cutting in stones to be thought of and various curious things to be devised out of gold and silver and brass. These too will cost money.” There is a silence. Moses looks puzzled when in a very hesitating voice Aholiab says, “Have not we, Bezaleel, got both time and talent to devote to this work? Could we not spend and be spent in the service of the sanctuary?” But he is quite squashed by the head-shakings of the committee. Such a thing would never do. “What would become of our families if we worked for nothing? Really Aholiab should be ashamed of himself—such an idea!” etc. etc. Suddenly Moses’ face brightens. “Just what I remarked at first,” he says pleasantly, “In the present state of society we must conform a little to the world. We’ll have a Bazaar!”

Isn’t it a pretty picture—far superior to: “And they came both men and women as many as were willing-hearted, and brought bracelets and earrings and tablets and jewels of gold, and every man that offered, offered an offering of gold unto the Lord.”1 Three things we may notice:

1st as many as were willing-hearted

2nd brought their own possessions

3rd unto the Lord.

Now we give unto Mrs. So and So who wrote us a begging letter, or Miss So and So who called the other day with a collecting card and unfortunately we were in and could not get off without giving her something. . . . May there not be some clue to the money mystery in these thoughts, taking as our keynote three sentences, not very much believed in nowadays:

“The silver and the gold is Mine.”

“Ask, and ye shall receive.”

“My God shall supply all your need.”

1. Is the work for which we want the money God’s chosen work for us, or our chosen work for Him? If the former, will not He see after the money necessary? If the latter, then how can we expect anything better than we have?

2. Can we expect a blessing to follow money given grudgingly?

3. Should we not see that our Root is right, before expecting flowers and fruit?

These principles, discovered when Amy was alone with her Bible and her God, written down only for the small circle of readers of Scraps, were never laid aside. Years later their influence was felt by thousands.

1. Exodus 35:22.

Chapter 5

The Inescapable Calling

Exactly the sort of place I should have chosen if I had been asked to choose!” That was how Amy described the place where she was living later in the year 1889. An old friend of the family, Jacob Wakefield MacGill, had asked her to come to Manchester, England, to begin a work similar to that of The Welcome. Her mother was invited to be superintendent for the women of a rescue home there, so the move was made. Amy lived in a slum, teeming with people—tough, hardworking, hard-drinking people. At night she heard the yells and screams of fights. In the morning it was factory sirens and the clatter of wooden clogs as people went to work in the dark and cold. “But what I remember most vividly is that the most loathly sort of ‘puchie’ used to crawl through the thin walls.”

It was good missionary training. If one is preparing to storm the bastions of heathendom, it won’t do to blench at creepie-crawlies. Another lesson Amy learned was to do at a moment’s notice whatever was required—Uncle Jacob had no patience with those who wouldn’t. She learned to do without things most precious—privacy and quiet. The neighborhood was not what her family would have thought “safe,” and once, walking to the railway station, she was mobbed by hooligans. She walked on unafraid, cheered by the story of a brave ancestor who had marched through a hostile crowd. In Amy Carmichael the faith of her fathers was living still.

Amy was happy in the work with factory girls, but sickness brought it to a halt. “What asses bodies are!” she said.

Eighteen-eighty-eight was the year of the fourteenth Keswick convention, and Amy’s friend Mr. Wilson, cofounder of Keswick, whom she had met in Belfast, invited her to attend. Having heard Keswick teaching in Belfast and Glasgow, she was eager to go to the tent in Keswick. Since its beginning the movement had suffered from various “winds of doctrine,” but by 1888 had been corrected and steadied, largely under the leadership of Bishop Handley Moule, who wrote in 1890 or thereabouts:

Keswick stands for the great and eternal truths, some of which, so to speak, it takes for granted but never forgets: the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ His death for us upon the Cross: Keswick is firm as a rock upon the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and the benefit of pardon, utterly unmerited by us, which we have because Jesus died.

Sanctity was the great emphasis of Keswick, which Moule defined thus:

To be like Christ. To displace self from the inner throne, and to enthrone Him; to make not the slightest compromise with the smallest sin. We aim at nothing less than to walk with God all day long, to abide every hour in Christ and He and His words in us, to love God with all the heart and