A Passion for the Impossible: Book Review

 I would highly recommend this biography of Lilias Trotter who served God in Algeria. It's a fascinating story of her life and it also gave me loads to think about in terms of our work overseas and reaching those of the majority faith there and also was a huge challenge in my walk with the Lord and devotional life.

 I love this description of Lilias' house  growing up and would love to have something similar:

Blanche Pigott, a constant visitor at that time, recalls Montagu Square as “that unique household where Lily lived with her mother and brother and sisters, a place of sunny gladness and laughter, as well as varied work and interest and unstinted hospitality.”

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Lilias:

It is loss to keep when God says ‘give.’

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Lilias on 'trained faith':

Trained faith is a triumphant gladness in having nothing but God—no rest, no foothold—nothing but Himself—A triumphant gladness in swinging out into that abyss, rejoicing in a very fresh emergency that is going to prove Him true—The Lord Alone—that is trained faith.

 It was trained faith that kept Lilias focused on the task and not the results or the uncertain future. It was trained faith that allowed her liberty of movement even when all the obvious avenues were blocked. And it was trained faith that would enable her to survive the arid stretch ahead.

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I'm challenged by the following where Lilias talks about the mind in service. I find it's so easy to flit from one thing to another, without a lot of planning,because culturally one doesn't plan a whole lot in our context! But Lilias is so right in that sense of not leaving things to the moment but being ready. We can be prepared with certain stories to tell in response to certain situations, or ready with an answer to a question we can expect to be asked:

Noting a kind of “amiable wandering round among the people which is not quite doing our service with all our mind though it may well be with all our heart” she urged service “with all the ‘mind’ represents of thought and care and ‘gathered-up-ness.’ . . . in the arrangements of our day I think we must . . . not leave the priceless moment just to the impulse of the moment.”

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The walk of faith that she proposed required a fellowship with the Father as current as breathing. This was no vague, mystical “communion” wrought of some secret formula. Quite simply, Lilias put the highest priority on spending time completely alone with God, studying His Word with a heart open and receptive to His voice—an activity requiring utmost commitment from her, given the many demands on her time. Just as she had found, in the early years, a quiet spot in a nearby woods, later she made sure a place of prayer was prepared in a rooftop room, “so beautifully out of the way of all the sounds of the house.” It was called the melja, Arabic for “refuge,” and no one was to be disturbed there. Even within her summer breaks, rich with family and friends, she actively pursued “two weeks alone with God,” considering them essential to her soul.

Oh so endlessly beautiful the days are—& they go so quickly—God has many things to say & one can sit by the hour on the heather with one’s Bible and listen. (25 August 1900)