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Elisabeth Elliot: Just Do the Next Thing

Finding Freedom

When I started living that way, I began experiencing tremendous freedom. Somehow the weight of my decisions was lifted. I didn’t need to figure it all out. I just needed to be connected to God. To hear His voice. To be still. And most of all, to trust Him.

So now when I feel overwhelmed at the enormity of a situation, I begin by tackling the simplest, most mundane tasks. And then move to the things I’ve been putting off because they are either unpleasant or I don’t know where they’ll lead. I’ve discovered that the things I feel inadequate to face fully, I can handle one small thing at a time.

I know I can’t think of everything that needs to be done. I can just focus on the next thing I need to do. Sometimes it’s just to get up and make dinner. Or write an email that I’ve been dreading. Or make a phone call I’ve been putting off. Each time I obey, God gives me clarity to do the next thing after that.

How It Helped Elisabeth Elliot

This simple advice, to do the next thing, has helped countless people. I first read it in Elisabeth Elliot’s book The Shaping of a Christian Family, from a poem her mother loved.

On her Gateway to Joy radio program, Elisabeth explained how “do the next thing” had been so helpful to her. Elisabeth and her husband Jim had been serving on the mission field in Ecuador when he was martyred, leaving her alone with an infant daughter.

When I went back to my jungle station after the death of my first husband, Jim Elliot, I was faced with many confusions and uncertainties. I had a good many new roles, besides that of being a single parent and a widow. I was alone on a jungle station that Jim and I had manned together. I had to learn to do all kinds of things, which I was not trained or prepared in any way to do. It was a great help to me simply to do the next thing.

Elisabeth goes on to say:

I’ve felt that way [other] times in my life, and I go back over and over again to an old Saxon legend, which I’m told is carved in an old English parson somewhere by the sea. I don’t know where this is. But this is a poem which was written about that legend.

The poem says, “Do it immediately, do it with prayer, do it reliantly, casting all care. Do it with reverence, tracing His hand who placed it before thee with earnest command. Stayed on omnipotence, safe ‘neath His wing, leave all resultings, do the next thing.” (The poem in its entirety is here.)

If you are feeling discouraged or overwhelmed, I encourage you just to do the next thing. Pray, and then do the next thing after that. Trust God with the results. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. He will guide you as you look to Him.

Just do the next thing.

This article originally appeared here.