George Macdonald said, 'If you knew what God knows about death you would clap your listless hands', but instead I find old people in North America just buying this whole youth obsession. I think growing older is a wonderful privilege. I want to learn to glorify God in every stage of my life. Elisabeth Elliot
About This Quote

George Macdonald said, “If you knew what God knows about death you would clap your listless hands.” This quote is from a poem called "The Old Age", written by George Macdonald in 1879. He was particularly concerned with the passage of time and the inevitable loss of youth. In the poem, he asks the question, “Is it right to accept this as a natural progression?” If we look at other areas of life that have been conquered by man, we may have a better understanding of why he asks this question. Some examples include: - The conquest of the sea and air - The conquest of finance and politics - The conquest of gravity and other natural laws You should know that for every victory gained by man against nature, there is always an equal and opposite victory.

Things like gravity, death, and time work in an opposite way to those we conquer. We can’t conquer gravity or death, but we can still struggle against them. I believe that this quote is about accepting the natural course of life and living fully for God. We all see how things change with time – we grow older – but we also see how we stay the same – we keep fighting to live fully for God!

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More Quotes By Elisabeth Elliot
  1. This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive. Love is not possessive. Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own ideas. Love has good manners and...
  2. Work is a blessing. God has so arranged the world that work is necessary, and He gives us hands and strength to do it. The enjoyment of leisure would be nothing if we had only leisure. It is the joy of work well done that...
  3. We are women, and my plea is Let me be a woman, holy through and through, asking for nothing but what God wants to give me, receiving with both hands and with all my heart whatever that is.
  4. I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts. Its easy to talk oneself into a decision that has no permanence...
  5. Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering.... The love of God did not protect His own Son.... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us...
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