Jim Elliot was martyred in Ecuador at age 29.

Jim was fueled by a passion to see the nations praise the Lord Jesus. He trusted Jesus as Savior at age 8 and as a teenager began to feel a call to missions. His wife wrote that his aim in life was “to know God.”

Jim’s other great aim in life was to exalt God. In a letter to his parents that he wrote as a 21 year-old, he described missionaries as normal people. He called them, “a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt Somebody.”

On January 8, 1956, Jim and 4 other missionaries waited for the chance to meet with the Auca or Huaorani Indians. They longed to exalt Somebody to a group of men who had never heard His name.

Even thought Jim was carrying a gun, he refused to use it. Suspecting danger his wife asked him before his last journey if he would use his gun to defend himself against the Indians. Jim replied, “We will not use our guns!” When asked why he replied, “Because we are ready for heaven, but they are not.”

Jim’s short life certainly exalted God and His purposes.

Who does your life exalt?

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*Elliot’s remarkable story was made more popular by the 2006 motion picture, End of the Spear. If you have never invested much time into missionary biographies, give a couple of hours to watching this movie and it might just pique your interest.

**For this entry I am in debt to Daniel Akin’s Five Who Changed the World.