Jim Elliot's Habits

Elisabeth Elliot writes about Jim Elliot's habits:

Jim started his journal as a means of self-discipline. He began to get up early in the morning during his junior year in college to read the Bible and pray before classes. He was realistic enough to recognize the slim chances of fitting in any serious study and prayer later in the day. If it had priority on his list of things that mattered, it had to have chronological priority. To see that he did not waste the dearly-bought time, he began to note down on paper specific things he learned from the Word and specific things he asked for in prayer.

Jim Elliot's early morning habits may seem a little daunting to those of us who are not morning people--or who have babies who keep us up at night or toddlers who already wake us up far too early--but I wanted to include them here because they illustrate the point we have been taking about. If we are to get God to the top of our "to do" lists we need to figure out how to fit Bible reading and prayer into our lives in a way that they don't get pushed out by other things. We have to really think about what will work for us and then take steps to cement it as a habit in our lives. For Jim Elliot, getting up early was a way to make sure Bible reading and prayer actually happened. The journal writing was a way to discipline himself--to keep his mind from wandering, to keep him on task and to help him remember what he had learned. That is what worked for him.

We usually think of Jim Elliot as the brave missionary he was 7 years later, willing to live a totally dedicated life and die a martyr's death. We imagine a state of spirituality well beyond anything we could ever attain. Try for a moment to think of him as the college student, struggling to fit a little Bible reading and prayer into the day, having to force himself to journal so his thoughts wouldn't stray. That sounds a little more like where you and I live, doesn't it? It was interesting to me to read that Jim recorded in his journal that many of his prayers were unanswered during that time. Yet he slogged on and so can we.

(You can see Jim Elliot's story in "The End of the Spear" out in theaters now.)