Through Gates of Splendor

"In November, 1947, Jim wrote a letter to his parents which showed where his ambition lay: "The Lord has given me a hunger for righteousness and piety that can alone be of Himself. Such hungering He alone can satisfy, yet Satan would delude and cast up all sorts of other baubles, social life, a name renowned, a position of importance, scholastic achievement. What are these but the objects of the 'desire of the Gentiles' whose cravings are warped and perverted. Surely they can mean nothing to the soul who has seen the beauty of Jesus Christ....No doubt you will hear of my receiving preliminary honors at school. They carry the same brand and will lie not long hence in the basement in a battered trunk beside the special gold 'B' pin, with the 'ruby' in it for which I studied four years at Benson. All is vanity below the sun and a 'striving after wind'. Life is not here, but hid above with Christ in God, and therein I rejoice and sing as I think on such exultation."

As quoted from Through Gates of Splendor, the account of the martyrdom of five American missionaries in the Ecuador jungle, as written by Elisabeth Elliot - the widow of Jim.


May we see as clearly the need for eternal focus in our lives.