Real Life Wisdom from Elisabeth Elliot | Obedience .06 Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily Jensen: Hey, friends! Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood, it’s Emily, here. Laura isn’t going to be joining me today because we’re airing something really, really special.
As we were thinking about this Obedience series and how we wanted to end it and send you guys off, Laura and I kept talking about Elisabeth Elliot. We kept talking about how wise and helpful she has been as she has talked and written about this topic over the years. We started doing some digging, started listening to different talks that she's had, different lectures, and also a radio program she was on for years.
We came across this lecture that she gave in 1995, almost 30 years ago. You're going to hear that a little bit in the audio quality, it sounds a little bit different than a modern podcast, but it’s still so rich with truth. In this episode you're getting ready to hear, we're going to jump in where Elisabeth is sharing about a woman that she knows who has a quiet heart, a humble spirit, and who faithfully follows the Lord. After she talks about that, she's going to really start to get into these topics of obedience and God's will, both things we've been talking about on this series.
She's going to ask questions like, "Whose agenda are you accepting?” or “Are we struggling with presumption?” or simply shameless boldness about God and his will for our lives and what we think He owes us. She has this really great quote that says, "What looks to us like a good thing might actually be something that ruins us." It's the type of thing that says, "Hey, we may think we know what we should do, we may think we know what's best for our lives, but we actually don't. The Lord knows what's best for our lives."
I'm not going to preach it, I'm going to let Elisabeth share her heart for this, but we think it’s really going to be a blessing for you guys, and we hope that you will just be ministered to as you listen. Before we get into the lecture, I want to share a little bit more. This talk came to us from the Elisabeth Elliot Foundation, which was created based on the life, love, and ministry of Elisabeth and Jim Elliot. We’re so thankful they allowed us to share this message with you.
They have a lot of resources at elisabethelliot.org, which has a variety of different writings and lectures, audio bytes, all these different things. It is just an ever-evolving repository of their work, and is a great resource and collection of teachings and places that you can go to find all those things in honor of their legacy. We're really, really grateful to them for letting us use this. You can find more of her books there and all of that good stuff. We hope that you enjoy this today and let's jump in and hear from Elisabeth.
Elisabeth Elliot: Mrs. Kershaw was a poor, hunchbacked widow who lived in a big old almost empty house. It was greatly in need of repair. She lived alone in that house. Somehow or other my mother found her. I don't know how. I was away at college when my mother began to write letters about this wonderful lady named Mrs. Kershaw who in her 70s came to work for my mother. She came every day and had to be picked up. She was totally deaf, hunchbacked, poor, lonely, and totally deaf, but she did have an old-fashioned hearing aid.
It was a clumsy thing that she had pinned to her dress, and then it had a wire up to her ear. Then she had a little microphone that she had to hold for us to shout into, but that lady had no agenda of her own. She had only one thing in mind when she came to our home and that was, "How can I make these people happy? What can I do to help these people?" She would make gallons of apple sauce and dozens of brown sugar cookies. She washed dishes. She did the laundry.
She did one thing that we all found extremely difficult, she would go upstairs every day and sit with my step-grandmother who was a crotchety old lady, and we had a hard time relating to her. My mother was always urging us, "Go in and talk to Nana." Well, we didn't think Nana was really very interested in talking with us, and I think we were right about that. She certainly would have rather had one of us in there, I should think, than to be alone all day long. Mrs. Kershaw would always take some time to go up and sit with Nana.
Now, of course, Nana was also deaf. Can you imagine the conservations?
[laughter]
It was like ships that passed in the night. Neither one of them had any idea what the other one was talking about, but Mrs. Kershaw smiled all the time and actually was the only one I think, besides my mother, in the family that could make Nana smile. A humble, quiet-hearted woman. An example to me all my life. Whose agenda are you accepting? I had a letter from a woman who told me that she had been praying very specifically that her daughter would marry a particular man that the mother had picked out for her.
He was a very fine Christian man, and the mother thought that this would be a very good match and discovered that neither her daughter nor her husband agreed with her. She told me in her letter, "I am angry with God because he didn't make my husband and my daughter agree with me, so I am not going to pray anymore about her spouse." I thought, "What a dangerous position to put oneself in? To decide from now on that I'm angry with God, and therefore, I don't need to pray about this particular matter that he has not conformed his will to mine. What pride and presumption?"
I have looked up the word presumption to make sure that I had it right. This is what the dictionary says, "Audacity, insolence, arrogance, effrontery, which means shameless boldness, transgression beyond the bounds of duty or of courtesy." Presumption. I've been asked more than once in my life, "Have you ever been angry with God?" I've had many letters from people telling me something like this, "My faith has been challenged, there has been bitterness in my heart toward God, and I have been angry at him for withholding this blessing from me."
The mail brings me many variations on this theme. I'm often asked if I've ever been bitter or angry toward God because he took away two husbands, the first by murder and the second by illness. He has mercifully given me yet a third, as you saw a few minutes ago. As far as I know, he's in excellent health. But unless my memory completely forsakes me, I really think that I can answer "No" to that question. I have not, as far as I can recall, been bitter or angry at God.
Our adversary, the devil, has certainly tempted me in many ways. Don't imagine for a moment that you're looking at someone who is not often tempted, but I don't think anger at God happens to be one of those temptations. I will try to explain why. First of all, God is my heavenly Father, and he loves me with an everlasting love, and the proof of this is the cross. You would probably all of you be able to quote John 3:16. Can you also quote 1 John 3:16? It says, "This is how we know what love is, that Christ laid down his life for us, and we, in our turn, let's lay down our lives for each other.” Love means sacrifice. This is how we know what love is, that Christ laid down his life for us. We know the hymn, “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross.” It says, “Love so amazing, so divine demands,”—say it with me— “my soul, my life, my all,” people that are in my generation I'm sure know that one. We don't have that big a percentage of people in my generation here this morning. Unfortunately, most churches today are not teaching very many of the old hymns and I want to put in a little word here: please learn the old hymns. You have no idea what you're missing theologically.
We, children, were asked to sing every single morning after breakfast, not just asked, but it was required in our family that we had family prayers and they began with a hymn and we sang all the verses and consequently, we learned them all by heart. We are so grateful for that. When my siblings and I (I have four brothers and one sister) when we get together, we do a lot of laughing. We do a lot of talking about our parents and how wonderful they were, and we do a lot of singing because we all have these old hymns in our heads.
That's a little parenthesis, which I hope may fall on some listening ears, but if God is my heavenly Father, if he laid down his life for me, isn't it reasonable to assume that he knows a whole lot better than I do what's good for me?
Angry at God? Our heavenly Father wants nothing but the best for us, for any of us. Was it best that our plane could not land in Chicago yesterday? Of course, I have to believe it was. Otherwise, it wouldn't have happened. God's in control of the weather, isn't he? I'm not at the mercy of United Airlines. So, they had to send us to Minneapolis.
When we got to Minneapolis, there were so many other planes on the ground that there were no gates. We couldn't get off the plane and I don't know how long we sat there, an hour and a half or so, two hours maybe. Then they sent us back to Chicago and you can imagine the state that the Chicago airport was when all the flights from everywhere had been canceled in and out of Chicago because of tremendous wind and sleet.
There were leaks all over the airport. They had tubs everywhere you looked on the floor, but I know that my heavenly Father wants nothing but the best for me and so I can keep a quiet heart. Even though I have to think about the poor people out there in Dubuque who were expecting us to arrive and only he knows what that is because he is all-wise. He is omniscient, omnipotent, all-powerful, omnipresent, he's everywhere and omniscient, he knows everything.
Even an earthly father wants his best for his child and you mothers, you certainly know that there isn't any question, that you want the best for your child. You want the very best. Very often you think what's the very best and God doesn't always provide it, does he? And that's the point where he's saying, "Whose agenda? Yours or mine?" God knows not only what we need, but when we need it. When he withholds from us, the one thing we feel sure would make us happy, it is well to remember his promise that he will meet all our needs.
I get so many anguished letters from young women, very often women in their 30's and 40's who are still single. They feel as though God is withholding from them the one thing in the whole world that would make them happy. Of course, we married women could tell them that there isn't a human being in the world who can make you as happy as you think that unknown possible husband might. We all know that after the wedding, maybe within 24 hours, there are some surprises in this prize package. Some things that you didn't know, even though you knew the man for 6 years or 10 years, or grew up with him from kindergarten.
I also get a whole lot of letters from anguished women who wish they weren’t married. Whose agenda? A contest of wills, is it my will or his? The Bible says, “My God shall supply all your need and if you don't have it, you don't need it today.” We must get that through our heads, mustn't we?
We think we know what we've got to have and a woman came to me and she said, "Elisabeth, would you please pray that the Lord will give us another housing situation?" She described what was really a very miserable housing situation that she was living in. They were missionaries, this was over in Europe and they were living in the basement of another missionary's home. They had three or four children. "Please, Elisabeth, we've got to have another place to live." I said, "No, you don't need it now."
She looked at me with astonishment if not disgust, ''What do you mean?'' she said. I said, "If you needed it today, God would have given it to you because does the Bible say, my God shall supply almost all your needs? [No.] How many? All your needs.” He might give it to you next week.
He might bring that wonderful man along next week. He might give you another place to live by next Wednesday, but that doesn't indicate indifference or forgetfulness or poor timing on God's part. There is no such thing as poor timing on God's part. His is always perfect.
Shall I be angry at a God who knows not only what I need, but when I need it? Then this is the thing that is very dangerous and I would surmise that there's probably more than one person in this room this morning, who is angry with God or upset with God, resentful because of something that has happened or something that has not happened. This is the dangerous aspect. It makes us vulnerable to Satan who was called “the destroyer.”
Think what a dangerous position we put ourselves in, voluntarily, when we get angry with God. Is there anywhere else for us to turn? If you're angry with God, I don't know any other refuge. God is my refuge and strength. A very present help in trouble.
He is the ruler of all and he's got the whole world, where? In his hands, that's not one of the old hymns. That's one of the new hymns, within the last three decades, anyway. I thought maybe a few more of you would know where he's got the world? In his hands.
He's got you and me and sister in his hands. Shall we deliberately reject such a refuge? Then if I'm angry at God, let me remember that I have only this present moment.
God doesn’t usually give us previews of coming attractions, but I can look back over these seven decades and remember how worried I sometimes was and how bewildered at things that God had permitted to happen in my life. Now I can see them as a golden chain of mercies, gifts of God, from a merciful Father who, like the father Jesus described, would never give his son a snake if he asked for a fish. What looks to us like a good thing might actually ruin us and how thankful I am for God's withholdings.
I'm sure some of you know that lovely little story that Amy Carmichael told her children in India. She was three years old and she learned from adults that God answers prayer. She decided that she would test that amazing statement and see whether God answered her prayers. She got down beside her bed one night and she prayed for the one thing that she wanted more than anything else in the world, which was blue eyes.
She went to sleep in perfect confidence that God would change those brown eyes into blue ones. In the morning, she woke up so excited and happy and she jumped out of bed and she pushed the chair over to the mirror by the dresser and she climbed up and she looked into the mirror with the same brown eyes. That little three-year-old had no idea that someday, God was going to call her to be a missionary in India, where everybody has black eyes and black hair and that there would be times when she was a missionary when her life would be endangered if she was not seen as an Indian. Amy Carmichael always wore the saree and she had beautiful, very dark, wavy hair. She went barefoot. She identified in every outward way that she could with the Indians, but if she had had blue eyes, she would have been recognized and spotted from a distance.
Does God know what he's doing? I don't think she ever said she was angry with God as a little girl because he didn't give her those blue eyes, but she certainly was bewildered, wasn't she? As you and I so often are. What looks to us like a good thing might actually ruin us. Might've been a matter literally of life and death in Amy Carmichael's life. How thankful we all can be for God's refusals or his withholdings. Can you think back, you who are maybe almost as old as I am, might be a few here that age, you can look back and think of the silly things that you prayed about and thought were so terribly important in your life. I can remember praying when I was in the eighth grade that a certain boy named Bob, would like me. Of all the ridiculous things, of course, Bob didn't like me, never did.
As I look forward to what may be left of my future, I think of John Greenleaf Whittier’s beautiful lines, "I know not where his islands lift their fronded palms in air, I only know I cannot drift beyond his love and care." Keep a quiet heart. Don't pit your will against the will of God. Pause now, think in your heart, “What is that one thing that springs to your mind immediately so strange to you in the will of God in what he has permitted or what he has not permitted?” Does he know what he's doing? Are we going to resent him? Presumption means dictating to God. It’s a display of pride. It’s a display of presumption and it’s unbelief, isn't it? Let's call things by their proper names. It’s unbelief. We call ourselves believers. Yet, how often we really don't believe what God has said.
We forget his promises. We forget his faithfulness. We hear the word of God sometimes and we decide we don't really like it. I've always been interested in people's questions that they ask when I have question and answer sessions such as we will have today. Often there is that note of, "I really would rather have answers than holiness." Sometimes we have to choose between the two. God may not give us an answer because he wants to make us holy or he won’t give us the answer that we're banging on his door to get because he wants to sanctify us and make us like Jesus Christ. When we ask questions, let's remember that seed that falls on the footpath. Satan takes away from some, what has been sown. The seed falls on rocks, which have no staying power when trouble or persecution occurs, they give up. Some would fall among the thistles, which are the worries of this world, the false glamor of riches, ambitions which choke out life. Then there's the seed that falls on good soil. The one who hears welcomes and produces fruit.
Do you want solutions or do you want holiness? Do you want comfort or do you want Christ? Do you want answers or do you want orders? Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:4, "A soldier on active service will not become entangled in civilian affairs. He must be holy at his commanding officer's disposal." If we are soldiers of Jesus Christ, he is our commanding officer and we take his orders and we’re completely disposable. Let's never forget that we’re completely disposable. I'm going to tell you this afternoon a little bit about the lessons in disposability that God has given me in my life. Yesterday, as I sat for hour after hour after hour, I wasn't even able to be reading a book for a good part of that time because I had to keep my eyes watching for the man who was supposed to pick us up in Chicago. Because I am an absolutely fanatical organizer, as Lars has already given you to understand, I’m extremely irritated when my time is in any way interrupted or when I have to spend time when I don't have a book with me, which is very rare because I always have a good book, or when I have to do what I had to do yesterday and sit there for all those hours.
I just thought what a waste, but then I remembered I am disposable, you know, and my times are in whose hands? The psalmist says, "My times are in your hands," in God's hands. He knows exactly how I am to dispose of my time. I can keep a quiet heart. I really do think that yesterday I kept a quiet heart. These human temptations and natural aspects of my personality, of course, are there and they will always be there and they will always be in conflict. Most of the time, let's say they will be in some kind of conflict with the will of God. Pride, presumption or something, but he, by his gracious Holy Spirit, speaks to us and says, "I'm with you, I'm still in charge, I do know what I'm doing." This is not for nothing. Any kind of suffering, any kind of bewilderment, any kind of perplexity, anything you want that you don't have or anything that you have that you don't want, God has assigned it. He has ordained it for our sanctification.
Is it too tough? Is it too outdated? Is it not applicable? Do you want to exclude this lesson in sanctification from your life? People say, "Yes, I do believe in God, but sometimes I can't figure him out.” Now, may I see the hands of those of you who can always figure God out? “God rules in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.” My husband and I live on the coast of Massachusetts. I've never seen any footprints in the sea. “Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain.” Of course. we don't understand God. Of course, we don't always know what he's doing, but we can always be sure that what he is doing is for our blessing and for our richness and for our sanctification and redemption.
Can you honestly read the Bible and not believe the "coincidences," quotation marks around that word because I don't believe there are any coincidences in God's economy, but there are so many wonderful stories in the Bible of what you and I, humanly speaking, would call coincidences. Little things that happened in strange ways. Do you remember how it came about that Saul got anointed King by Samuel? That is an amazing story. It was because Saul's father's donkeys got lost and his father, Kish—or was it his father-in-law, I have forgotten—sent him out to look for the donkeys. Those blinking donkeys, who knows where they are. He walked on, he searched and he searched and on his searching, he came upon Samuel whom God had told was to anoint Saul as king.
Samuel just happened to be coming along when Saul happened to be looking for the donkeys who happened to choose that day to get lost and on and on and on. There are so many so-called coincidences just in that one single story. As Saul was going along, he happened to meet some girls who were going up to a feast and he asked them if they knew where Samuel was and they said, "Yes, he's just gone up to the feast himself. If you go now, you'll find him." Coincidences.
Jesus sent the disciples to prepare the upper room for that last supper. He said, "Go to such and such a place and you will find a man carrying a pitcher of water." Are these merely natural events or is somebody in charge? Will you accept the will of God? Will you believe that even though this particular thing that worries you goes against the grain, you're not going to put your will against the will of God? You are going to accept his will. Satan schemes against us. We get discouraged because we judge and measure the things that are happening in our lives by human measurements. God's ways are infinitely beyond common sense. Those sinkings of heart, those times when we can think of saying, "Oh, no."
Just the other day I had a dear friend, an old man, who came for breakfast and he got a phone call while he was there and I was washing the dishes and he was saying, "Oh my, and where is he now?" Of course, when he hung up the phone, he told me what had happened. The man had a very serious accident. A bone in his leg had been broken and splintered and went into his spinal cord. Now, he was paralyzed and this had all happened within a matter of seconds. This dear man, his first response was not, "Oh no, God wouldn't let a thing like this to happen to this dear man."
He just prayed for him. We prayed together. May God deliver us for being prideful, displaying our pride, as my brother Phil was doing when he was two years old. We are born proud, aren't we? We are born fighting. My brother, Tom says his baby son when he was six months old in his crib was thrusting his fist heavenward. As if to say, "My will be done."
That's the way we're born, rebels. No display of pride, no presumption, which is audacity, insolence, arrogance, effrontery. May God deliver us from unbelief. May we hear his words. May the words that you hear today fall on good soil in your heart. There will be some hard words, some tough words. I'm using the wrong pair of glasses this morning, I just had a hard time seeing how many fingers Lars had up back there. My other glasses are in my suitcase.
Keep a quiet heart. Conform your will to the will of God. You’ll be able to keep a quiet heart because Jesus said in his last discourse with his disciples, "Peace, I leave with you. My peace, I give unto you, not as the world giveth to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." God bless you.