Journal Entry from Jim Elliot

Here’s a powerful entry I thought I’d share with you from The Journals of Jim Elliot. Jim, as you know, was one of five missionaries killed in the Ecuadorian jungle by an indigenous people whom they were trying to reach with the Gospel. This is from July 7, 1948, four years before arriving in Ecuador and eight years before his death.

July 7 Psalm 104:4 “He makes his ministers a flame of fire.” Am I ignitible? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of “other things.” Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul, short life? In me there dwells the Spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God’s house consumed Him, and He has promised baptism with the Spirit and with fire. “Make me Thy fuel, flame of God.”