Amy Carmichael Quotes

If I do not give a friend "The benefit of the doubt," but put the worst construction instead of the best on what is said or done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If the praise of others elates me and their blame depresses me; if I cannot rest under misunderstandin g without defending myself; if I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

But God is the God of the waves and the billows, and they are still His when they come over us; and again and again we have proved that the overwhelming thing does not overwhelm. Once more by His interposition deliverance came. We were cast down, but not destroyed.

Thank God for the battle verses in the Bible. We go into the unknown every day of our lives, and especially every Monday morning, for the week is sure to be a battlefield, outwardly and inwardly in the unseen life of the spirit, which is often by far the sternest battlefield for souls. Either way, the Lord your God goes before you, He shall fight for you!

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.

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 you have never been hurt by a word from God, it is probably that you have never heard God speak.

Bare heights of loneliness...a wilderness whose burning winds sweep over glowing sands, what are they to HIM? Even there He can refresh us, even there He can renew us.

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.

Sometimes when we read the words of those who have been more than conquerors, we feel almost despondent. I feel that I shall never be like that. But they won through step by step, by little bits of wills, little denials of self, little inward victories, by faithfulness in very little things. They became what they are. No one sees these little hidden steps. They only see the accomplishment, but even so, those small steps were taken. There is no sudden triumph, no spiritual maturity. That is the work of the moment.

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.

We must look upon the world, with all its delights and all its attractions, with suspicion and reserve. We who love our Lord and whose affections are set on Heavenly things voluntarily and gladly lay aside the things that charm and ravish the world, that our hearts may be ravished with the things of Heaven; that our whole being may be poured forth in constant and unreserved devotion in the service of the Lord who died to save us.

A cup brimful of sweetness cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, no matter how suddenly jarred.

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

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.

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.

I would rather burn out than rust out.

If I say, "Yes, I forgive, but I cannot forgive," as though the God, who twice a day washes all the sands on all the shores of all the world, could not wash such memories from my mind, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

I believe truly that Satan cannot endure it and so slips out of the room - more or less - when there is a true song.

When I consider the cross of Christ, how can anything that I do be called sacrifice?

If you are ever inclined to pray for a missionary, do it at once, where ever you are. Perhaps he may be in great peril at that moment.

Missionary life is simply a chance to die.

Joy is not gush. Joy is not mere jolliness. Joy is perfect acquiescence ~ acceptance, rest ~ in God’s will, whatever comes.

Can we follow the Savior far, who have no wound or scar?

The night I sailed for China, March 3, 1893, my life, on the human side, was broken, and it never was mended again. But He has been enough.

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

He hath never failed thee yet. Never will His love forget. O fret not thyself nor let Thy heart be troubled, Neither let it be afraid.

...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.

He said "Love...as I have loved you." We cannot love too much.

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 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 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.

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.

I think of the love of God as a great river, pouring through us even as the waters pour through our ravine at floodtime. Nothing can keep this love from pouring through us, except of course our own blocking of the river. Do you sometimes feel that you have got to the end of your love for someone who refuses and repulses you? Such a thought is folly, for one cannot come to the end of what one has not got. We have no store of love at all. We are not jugs, we are riverbeds.

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.

But all the great staining temptations, to selfishness, ambition, and other strong sins that violently affront the soul, appear first in the region of the mind, and can be fought and conquered there. We have been given the power to close the door of the mind. We can lose this power through disuse or increase it by use, by the daily discipline of the inner man in things which seem small and by reliance upon the word of the Spirit of Truth. “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. It is as though He said, 'Learn to live in your will, not in your feelings.'

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.

Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace. If you refuse to be hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from that clearness of spirit which is life and peace. In that stillness you will know what His will is.

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.

Let us not be surprised when we have to face difficulties. When the wind blows hard on a tree, the roots stretch and grow the stronger, Let it be so with us. Let us not be weaklings, yielding to every wind that blows, but strong in spirit to resist.

Our enemy is more aware than we are of the spiritual possibilities that depend upon obedience.

If I am inconsiderate about the comfort of others, or their feelings, or even of their little weaknesses; if I am careless about their little hurts and miss opportunities to smooth their way; if I make the sweet running of household wheels more difficult to accomplish, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

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.

One must as willingly be nothing, as something.

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.

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.

The saddest thing one meets is a nominal Christian.

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.