Top 118 Quotes & Sayings by Amy Carmichael - Page 2

Part of a soldier's duty is to fill gaps...one must be willing to be nothing, as something.

It is a solemn thing to find oneself drawn out in prayer which knows no relief till the soul it is burdened with is born. It is no less solemn afterwards, until Christ is formed in them.

If I fear to hold another to the highest goal because it is so much easier to avoid doing so, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

The saddest thing one meets is a nominal Christian. I had not seen it in Japan where missions is younger. The church here is a “field full of wheat and tares.

We knew our Father. There was no need for persuasion. Would not His Fatherliness be longing to give us our hearts' desire (if I may put it so)? How could we press Him as though He were not our own most loving Father?

Oh, will you pray? Stop now and pray, lest desire turn to feeling and feeling evaporate.

Strength of my heart, I need not fail, Not mind to fear but to obey, With such a Leader, who could quail? Thou art as Thou wert yesterday. Strength of my heart, I rest in Thee, Fulfil Thy purposes through me.

If my attitude be on of fear, not faith, about the one who has disappointed me; if I say “Just what I expected,” if a fall occurs, then I know nothing of Calvary Love.

Can we accept the unexplained, the loss, The crushing agony, and hold us still. And nowhere is that clearer vision given Which pierces a bewildering providence, And opens windows upon highest heaven, But where we see Suffering Omnipotence.

If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

Ours should be the love that asks not 'how little?' but, 'how much?' The love that delights to pour out everything upon the feet of our Beloved.

continually we look at things about us without seeing more than a very little of what is there.

I wish thy way. And when in me myself should rise, and long for something otherwise, Then Lord, take sword and spear And slay.

We say, then, to anyone who is under trial, give Him time to steep the soul in His eternal truth. Go into the open air, look up into the depths of the sky, or out upon the wideness of the sea, or on the strength of the hills that is His also; or, if bound in the body, go forth in the spirit; spirit is not bound. Give Him time and, as surely as dawn follows night, there will break upon the heart a sense of certainty that cannot be shaken.

We have one crystal clear reason apart from the blessed happiness of this way of life. It is this: prayer is the core of our day. Take prayer out, and the day would collapse, would be pithless, a straw blown in the wind. But how can you pray--really pray, I mean--with one against who you have a grudge or whom you have been discussing critically with another? Try it. You will find it cannot be done.

I don't wonder apostolic miracles have died. Apostolic living certainly has.

When an answer I did not expect comes to a prayer which I believed I truly meant, I shrink back from it; if the burden my Lord asks me to bear be not the burden of my heart's choice, and I fret inwardly and do not welcome His will, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

From all that dims Thy Calvary, O Lamb of God, deliver me.

One must as willingly be nothing, as something.

There is only one way of victory over the bitterness and rage that comes naturally to us--To will what God wills brings peace.

If I myself dominate myself, if my thoughts revolve round myself, if I am so occupied with myself I rarely have "a heart at leisure from itself," then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I cannot hear "The sound of rain' long before the rain falls, and then go out to some hilltop of the Spirit, as near to my God as I can and have faith to wait there with my face between my knees, though six times or sixty times I am told "There is nothing', till at last there arises a little cloud out of the sea, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

Does it not stir up our hearts, to go forth and help them, does it not make us long to leave our luxury, our exceeding abundant light, and go to them that sit in darkness?

O Thou who art my quietness, my deep repose, My rest from strife of tongues, my holy hill, Fair is Thy pavilion, where I hold me still. Back let them fall from me, my clamorous foes, Confusions multiplied; From crowding things of sense I flee, and Thee I hide. Until this tyranny be overpast, Thy hand will hold me fast; What though the tumult of the storm increase, Grant to Thy servant strength, O Lord, and bless with peace.

Love accepts the trying things of life without asking for explanations. It trusts and is at rest.

If the ultimate, the hardest, cannot be asked of me; if my fellows hesitate to ask it and turn to someone else, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

It is impossible for a man to be freed from the habit of sin before he hates it, just as it is impossible to receive forgiveness before confessing his trespasses. Ignatius If I cast up a confessed, repented, and forsaken sin against another, and allow my remembrance of that sin to colour my thinking and feed my suspicions, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

There is nothing dreary or doubtful about (the life). It is meant to be continually joyful...We are called to a settled happiness in the Lord whose joy is our strength.

Love knows how to do without what it naturally wants. Love knows how to say, 'What does it matter.'

Have you given your child unreservedly to the Lord for whatever He will? ...O may He strengthen you to say YES to Him if He asks something which costs.

All life's training is just exactly what is needed for the true Life-work, still out of view but far away from none of us. Don't grudge me the learning of a new lesson.

When I can see my face in it [the liquid gold in the crucible] then it is pure.

If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

O Love of God, do this for me: Maintain a constant victory.

One can't save and then pitchfork souls into heaven... Souls are more or less securely fastened to bodies... And as you can't get the souls out and deal with them separately, you have to take them both together.

...to the glory of His name let me witness that in far away lands, in loneliness (deepest sometimes when it seems least so), in times of downheartedness and tiredness and sadness, always always He is near. He does comfort, if we let Him. Perhaps someone as weak and good-for-nothing as even I am may read this. Don't be afraid! Through all circumstances, outside, inside, He can keep me close.

Every work undertaken in obedienced to a divine command, whether the work be that form of conflict with the powers of darkness that we call prayer, or whether it be the action that follows, leads sooner or later to a new demand on personal devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ.

If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting "Who made thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou hast not received?" then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If our children were to grow up truthful they much be taught by those who had a regard for truth; and not just a casual regard, a delicate regard. On this point we were adamant.

We stand, when we are young, on the sunny slope among the pines, and look across an unknown country to the mountains. There are clouds, but they are edged with light. We do not fear as we dip into the valley; we do not fear the clouds. Thank God for the splendid fearlessness of youth. And as for older travelers whom the Lord has led over the hill and the dale, they have not been given the spirit of fear. They think of the way they have come since they stood on that bright hillside, and their word is always this: There are reasons and reasons for hope and for happiness, and never one for fear.

If I find myself half-carelessly taking lapses for granted, "Oh, that's what they always do." "Oh, of course she talks like that, he acts like that," then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying "Peace, peace," where is no peace; if I forget the poignant word "Let love be without dissimulation" and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

Do not fight the thing in detail: turn from it. Look ONLY at your Lord. Sing. Read. Work.

It is more important that you should know about the reverses than about the successes of the war. We shall have all eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only the few hours before sunset in which to win them. We are not winning them as we should, because the fact of the reverses is so little realized, and the needed reinforcements are not forthcoming, as they would be in the position were thoroughly understood...So we have tried to tell you the truth the uninteresting, unromantic truth.

If I put my own good name before the other's highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary's love

If I am perturbed by the reproach and misunderstanding that may follow action taken for the good of souls for whom I must give account; if I cannot commit the matter and go on in peace and in silence, remembering Gethsemane and the cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If when I am able to discover something which has baffled others, I forget Him who revealeth the deep and secret things, and knoweth what is in the darkness and showeth it to us; if I forget that it was He who granted that ray of light to His most unworthy servant, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

The only expenditure, and all its outworkings, for which God can be held to be responsible is that which He directs.

In case any are puzzled by the different translations from which I draw strength and help and delight, it is like this: In studying any object with the microscope we use different lenses and turn the mirror in various ways; each change brings out some new wonder and beauty. So it is for those who are not Greek or Hebrew scholars, and who use the work of scholars to open the meaning of the exhaustible Word-the Bible is richer than any single version can fully show.

To me there is no more tragic sight than the average missionary. …We have given so much, yet not the one thing that counts; we aspire so high, and fall so low; we suffer so much, but so seldom with Christ; we have done so much and so little will remain; we have known Christ in part, and have so effectively barricaded our hearts against His mighty love, which surely He must yearn to give His disciples above all people.

The mere telling of how a need was met is often like telling of a need, which is asking crookedly instead of straight out. But this much I will say--with every fresh need has come a fresh supply.

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." How often I think of that 'ought.' No sugary sentiment there. Just the stern, glorious trumpet call, OUGHT. But can words tell the joy buried deep within? Mine cannot. It laughs at words.

Thank God, He does not measure grace out in teaspoons.

If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider 'not spiritual work' I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

There may be love, understanding love, all around us, and yet we may be needing some word of life in our own soul, something that would do what only the Divine can do. “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.

If I slip into the place that can be filled by Christ alone, making myself the first necessity to a soul instead of leading it to fasten upon Him, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

Soldiers may be wounded in battle and sent to a hospital. A hospital isn't a shelf. It's a place of repair. And a soldier in the spiritual army is never off his battlefield. He is only removed to another part of the battlefield when a wound interrupts what he was meant to do, and sets him doing something else.

If Thy dear home be fuller, Lord, For that a little emptier. My house on earth, what rich rewards. That guerdon were.