Passion and Purity, Part One

I was boy crazy as a preteen and early teen--absolutely boy crazy.  Frankly, it was debilitating.  I had a constant awareness of any boy around me and wondered if they noticed me, if they liked me, if they thought I was cute. I giggled constantly and talked incessantly, trying to get their attention.  I wonder how much stronger my relationship with the Lord would have been, how much better my relationships with my parents and family would have been, how much better focused my marriage would have been sooner, if I had come across such a resource twenty five years ago.

I recently finished reading Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control by Elizabeth Elliot with Briana
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I can't recommend it highly enough.

If you have a teenager, if you are a teenager, if you are not married. . .what am I saying?  If you desire to surrender every area of your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you need to read this book.

In Passion and Purity, Elisabeth Elliot shares the struggles and victories she and Jim encountered in their commitment to give their lives to the Lord before giving them to one another.  As he served on the mission field and she attended college, they wrestled in their individual relationships with the Lord always striving to put Him first and not get caught up in their emotions or desires.  This is not just a book about physical and emotional purity (although it certainly addresses that principle).  It is a book about growing in sincere devotion to the Lord first and above all.

This book prompted many heart-searching conversations between me and my sixteen-year-old daughter.  She was especially blessed and challenged by Elisabeth's choices and guidance, and she has agreed to write a guest post for me highlighting thoughts that most affected her.

But the book was good for me too, even as I approach my twentieth wedding anniversary, especially the sections dealing with loneliness and putting God first, no matter what.  I was also strongly affected by a chapter on being willing to let go.

Loneliness.  The first few months after we moved to Iowa from Missouri, I really struggled with loneliness and "few things have the power to make us feel as sorry for ourselves as has loneliness" (116).  I missed friendships and despaired of ever finding new friends here.  Starting over is so tedious--it's much easier to talk to someone who already knows you, who knows your history, who knows your struggles and temptations and where you're coming from.  I'm not a fan of opening myself up to a new friendship and having to fill in all those blanks.  In some respects, I felt like this stage of my life was "in-between".  We were renting, looking for a place to buy.  It was "after Missouri and its friendships" and "before establishing relationships in Iowa."

But Elisabeth reminded me "it is quite possible to waste the present altogether.  Don't waste it.  Wherever you are, be all there" (78).  When anticipating some better future, Jim wrote "let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.  No matter who or where you are, there is something you can do, somebody who needs you.  Do something for somebody else" (80).  "Taken in a spirit of trust, even loneliness contributes to the maturing of character, even the endurance of separation and silence and that hardest thing of all, uncertainty, can build in us a steady hope" (82).  I was challenged throughout the book to love the Lord above all else, to take my heart and my thoughts to Him and to trust Him with the future while using the present to serve Him by loving and reaching out to others in His name without seeking to be filled by human relationships.

Letting Go.  What have you had to let go of?  What can you look back over your life and see that ultimately led to your growth in the Lord, even as it required sacrifice?  It required a loss.  A failed adoption?  A church family?  An ideal little farm?

There is no ongoing spiritual life without this process of letting go.  At the precise point where we refuse, growth stops.  If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul.  It is easy to make a mistake here.  'If God gave it to me,' we say, 'it's mine.  I can do what I want with it.'  No.  The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of--if we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory.

Think of the self that God has given as an acorn.  It is a marvelous little thing, a perfect shape, perfectly designed for its purpose, perfectly functional.  Think of the grand glory of an oak tree.  God's intention when He made the acorn was the oak tree.  His intention for us is ". . .the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."  Many deaths must go into our reaching that measure, many letting-goes.  When you look at the oak tree, you don't feel that the 'loss' of the acorn is a very great loss.  The more you perceive God's purpose in your life, the less terrible will the losses seem. (164)

 Isn't that a perfectly beautiful illustration of letting go in order to grow and be conformed into the image of Christ?  In our humanity, we cling to the acorn, afraid of an unknown future, unwilling to die, to be cracked, to produce life.  But what greater glory the immense oak tree brings the Father.  May I never be content to remain an acorn but rather yield my branches ever higher in the purposes of the Lord.