Amy Carmichael Quotes on Love, Prayer, Sacrifice and Missions
Amy Carmichael served in South India for fifty-five years, and she wrote the way she lived: plainly, with no pretending, and with a fierce love for Christ and for the people He sent her to. Her lines on sacrifice and prayer are some of the most quoted in missionary writing.
A lot of the Amy Carmichael quotes passed around online come from her later books, and some aren't hers at all. Every quotation below is copied exactly from one of her seven books in TheWay Library, with the book and chapter it comes from, so you can read each one in its setting. For her life story, see who was Amy Carmichael. For a guide to her books, see Amy Carmichael books.
On what souls are worth
These come from the last pages of Things as They Are, after she watched a family worshipping at a temple on the southern tip of India.
God looks down on all the world; and for every one of the millions who have never crowned Him King, Christ wore the crown of thorns.
Things as They Are, What do we count them worth?
Do we count them worth the rearrangement of our day, that we may have more time to pray?
Things as They Are, What do we count them worth?
Christ counted souls worth Calvary. What do we count them worth?
Things as They Are, What do we count them worth?
But singing hymns from a distance will never save souls. By God's grace, coming and giving and praying will.
Things as They Are, What do we count them worth?
Oh to see these people as souls!
Things as They Are, What do we count them worth?
On prayer
She believed only God could open a heart, so prayer was the real work. She wanted prayer that cost something.
Are we coming, giving, praying till it hurts? Are we praying, yea agonising in prayer? or is prayer but "a pleasant exercise" — a holy relief for our feelings?
Things as They Are, What do we count them worth?
We longed that our prayers might be a lens to focus the Love-light of our God, and set their souls on fire.
Things as They Are, What do we count them worth?
There is the restful prayer of committal to which the immediate answer is peace.
Lotus Buds, "To Continue the Succession"
Prayer is being answered. It is worth while going on.
Overweights of Joy, Before the Gods Will I Sing
Do you ever pray, as you pray for these, that the Spirit would create in them what is not there now — true soul-thirst after God?
From the Fight, Indoors
On telling the truth
She refused to write cheerful mission stories that weren't true. These lines explain why.
There is nothing romantic about potters except in poetry, nor is there much of romance about missions except on platforms and in books.
Things as They Are, Humdrum
Most days in real life end exactly as they began, so far as visible results are concerned.
Things as They Are, Humdrum
Practical missionary life is an unexciting thing. It is not sparkling all over with incident. It is very prosaic at times.
Things as They Are, Humdrum
Lord God of truthfulness, save us from sham! Make us perfectly true!
Things as They Are, "Show me Thy Glory!"
In India we do not paint our teak: we let it show its grain.
Walker of Tinnevelly, Foreword
Sin may be covered with garlands of jasmine, but it is sin.
Mimosa, Not in Despair
On joy in obedience
Hard work and few results didn't take away her joy. She found it in obeying.
Yet "though it's dull at whiles," there is joy in the doing of it, there is joy in just obeying.
Things as They Are, Humdrum
And as one obeys it, there is the joy of obedience, quite apart from the joy of success.
Things as They Are, The Call Intensified
The song is sung in the night: let no one dream the night has passed.
Overweights of Joy, Before the Gods Will I Sing
And the joy of the Lord, we have often proved, is strength for body as well as soul.
Lotus Buds, The Accals
On the sacredness of ordinary work
At Dohnavur much of her time went to babies, milk bottles and kitchens. She learned to see it as holy work.
Sometimes it has seemed to us that we were set to learn and to teach a new and difficult lesson, the sacredness of the commonplace.
Lotus Buds, The Glory of the Usual
The enlightening of a dark soul or the lighting of a kitchen fire, it matters not which it is, if only we are obedient to the heavenly vision, and work with a pure intention to the glory of our God.
Lotus Buds, The Glory of the Usual
One of the first lessons the young convert has to learn is to honour the "Grey Angel," Drudgery, and not to call her bad names.
Lotus Buds, The Glory of the Usual
On the temple children
All souls are His, all flowers.
Lotus Buds, Lotus Buds
The children of the temples of South India are His — His and not another's.
Lotus Buds, Lotus Buds
God make our hearts tender, and revive our determination, and give it to us to care so that we shall not be able to bear that the children go on perishing.
Overweights of Joy, Persist
On love that holds nothing back
God give us a pure passion of love that knows nothing of hesitation and grudging, and measuring, nothing of compromise!
Lotus Buds, What if she misses her Chance?
Shall the waterfalls do more for their river than we are willing to do for our Lord?
Ragland, Pioneer, Except
Verily, it is no vain and fruitless thing to be God's corn of wheat.
Ragland, Pioneer, Note
We cannot lower the standard and offer them Christ without His Cross. Nor can we dress that Cross in flowers, and hide the thorny Crown.
From the Fight, Sorrow and Suffering
On the love of God that finds a way
These come from Mimosa, the story of a Hindu woman who held to God for twenty years after one short visit to Dohnavur.
Where your hands cannot reach and your love cannot help, His hands can reach and His love can help.
Mimosa, Foreword to the First Edition
The seed is not your poor little word. The seed is the Word of God.
Mimosa, Foreword to the First Edition
Is not the courage of the love of God amazing?
Mimosa, I Could Be Crucified Once
He is here, sometimes revealed to us, sometimes hidden, but always a God at hand and not a God far off.
Mimosa, I Know Him by Suffering
Love is mighty and must prevail.
Mimosa, Love Will Find a Way
On not losing heart
Let us never lose heart. That day is nearer than when we first believed.
Ragland, Pioneer, Except
Read them in context
Her words are strongest in their setting, next to the stories of the people she loved. Start with Mimosa, then read the chapter "What do we count them worth?" in Things as They Are, and The Glory of the Usual in Lotus Buds. All her books are on the Amy Carmichael author page.