Evelyn Underhill Quotes

You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.

The essence of surrender is getting out of God's way so that He can do in us what He also wants to do through us.

It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.

God allows us to dace difficulties so that our faith will be stretched and refined. The trials we face provide an excellent opportunity for us to declare our dependence on God and not on ourselves. The way we win the battle with discouragement is by humbling ourselves before God and telling Him that we need Him. There is only one way to do this, and it is through prayer.

It's only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God.

No one can sense his own weakness is at least a small temptation is not allowed to afflict either his body or his soul. Then, comparing his weakness to the help of God, a man comes to know its magnitude. But whoever does not know that he needs God's help, let him make many prayers. Insofar as he multiplies them, in that measure will he be humbled.

Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. But when praying, we come "underneath," where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent.

It pleases our heavenly Father when we acknowledge and confess to Him our inability to run our own lives. That is what we are doing when we say, "Father, help me! I need You!"

I think there comes a time when you realize that you need God in your life, God's Word, and the spiritual guidance that only He can give.

The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble.

Let us unlearn our wisdom of the world. Let us lie low in the Lord's power, and learn that truth alone makes rich and great.

Get low; grace will meet you there.

The victorious Christian neither exalts nor downgrades himself. His interests have shifted from self to Christ.

The superior Christian lets God strip him of everything that might serve as a false refuge, a secondary trust.

God also allows suffering so that we might learn what it means to depend on Him, not on our own strength and resources.

Do you find it difficult to forgive one who has wronged you? Then you will find it difficult to get to heaven.

I do not believe that one can earnestly seek and find the priceless treasure of God's call without a devout prayer life. That is where God speaks. The purpose of prayer and of God's call in your life is not to make you number one in the world's eyes, but to make him number one in your life. We must be willing to be outshone while shining for God. We hear very little about being smaller in our own self-estimate.

To know and experience what God can do, we must first realize and acknowledge what we cannot do. We must get our eyes off of ourselves and our limited ability, and totally onto Him and His infinite power.

A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself.

God has surely promised His grace to the humbled: that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another -- God alone.

"But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?" I answer, "What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God's idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need - the need of Himself?"

In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.

It doesn't matter if a million people tell you what you can't do, or if ten million tell you no. If you get one yes from God that's all you need.

Forgiveness is the Most Powerful thing you can Do for Yourself on the Spiritual Path.

There are two classes of Christians: the proud who imagine they are humble and the humble who are afraid they are proud. There should be another class: the self-forgetful who leave the whole thing in the hands of Christ and refuse to waste any time trying to make themselves good. They will reach the goal far ahead of the rest.