Lisa Barry: Many people find it fairly easy to read the Bible. A few more find the time to study God's Word. But the number severely drops off when it comes to prayer. Why? Does it seem like a mechanical habit? Or maybe gaining control of wandering thoughts is the problem. Certainly we all agree that it's a spiritual battle that needs to be won, but how?

All this week Elisabeth Elliot is talking about transforming our prayer lives. And the first step is to realize that an answer to prayer can be "Yes," "No," or "Wait." Let's find out more as we begin this Thursday edition of Gateway To Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says, "and underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend, Elisabeth Elliot, talking again today about that wonderful matter of prayer--so desperately needed, so often neglected, and so seldom understood. Yet, prayer is something vital in the life of a Christian.

As we closed yesterday, I read something, which the compiler of this book called Pathway to the Heart of God wrote. His name is Terry Glaspey. He said, "Sometimes we realize only in hindsight that the answer we had hoped for would not have been the best thing for us. God, in His wisdom and love, often withholds our requests on the grounds that they would be harmful to our ultimate good."

Amy Carmichael, an Irish missionary to India, had to learn when she was just a very little girl, three years old, that God sometimes says "no." She wanted blue eyes. She asked God for them, but His answer was "no."

Another writer said, "I have lived to thank God that all of my prayers have not been answered." I think all of us can go back in our childhood and realize what silly, stupid prayers we might have prayed. In our teens--what about that person that we just thought was the greatest hunk on the campus, or "the ideal future wife for me" when you were fourteen years old--all kinds of silly prayers.

Hannah Moore wrote, "Oh sad a state of human wretchedness. So weak is man, so ignorant and blind, that did not God sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask, we should be ruined at our own request."

P. T. Forsythe, a brilliant teacher in either Cambridge or Oxford, England, I can't remember which one. He said, "We shall come one day to a heaven where we shall gratefully know that God's great refusals were sometimes the true answers to our truest prayer." I'll read that again. "We shall come one day to a heaven where we shall gratefully know that God's great refusals were sometimes the true answers to our truest prayer."

Here's C. S. Lewis again. "If God had granted all the silly prayers I've made in my life, where should I be now?"

"When we ask we do not receive," the book of James says, "because we ask with wrong motives that we may spend what we get on our pleasures." That's in the Bible, James 4:3. "When you ask you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

We must always remember that even when we get what we prayed for that it is not automatically a spiritually healthy thing. Sometimes an answered prayer can be spiritually hazardous, if it causes us to become proud of spiritual attainments or if we assume that our answer was generated because God is impressed by our spiritual state. Surely God is not impressed by our spiritual state.

He loves us. He wants to teach us how to be like Him. If our own Lord Jesus received a "no" from His loving heavenly Father, should we be surprised if we who are finite should receive a "no" from our heavenly Father? If there are some children listening to me who have been praying and praying and praying for something that you want very badly, and your parents have been saying no to you--do you think it's because your parents don't love you? It may be because they can't afford to buy the thing you're asking for. Or it may be that they can very well afford to buy what you're asking for, but they know that it's not going to be good for you.

So you can weep, and cry, and scream, and slam the doors, and refuse to eat your food--but if they're wise mothers and fathers, they're going to have to say that two-letter word "no." That's what my parents had to do, and I am so thankful for parents who stuck to their guns and gave to us what they knew we needed and withheld from us what they knew we did not need.

A Trappist monk wrote, "There are two main pitfalls on the road to mastering the art of prayer. If a person gets what he asks for, his humility is in danger. If he fails to get what he asks for, he is apt to lose confidence. Indeed, no matter whether prayer seems to be succeeding or failing, humility and confidence are two virtues which are absolutely essential."

"Thank you, Father, that in your wisdom you let many of my prayers go unanswered," said Terry Glaspey, the one who put this book together. He's thanking God that, in His wisdom, He had allowed many of Terry's prayers to go unanswered. "Because I cannot see into the future, because I cannot see into the hearts of others, because I so seldom know what it is that I really need--I trust in your wisdom. Thank you for teaching me that You are the ultimate answer to all my prayers. Amen."

And there's a chapter in this book entitled "The Struggle of Prayer." "If we're honest with ourselves we will admit that the most common reason for prayerlessness in our lives is that we have found prayer to be difficult. It demands time, it demands concentration, and it can sometimes seem like an exercise in futility.

"Of course, if we see prayer only as a quaint devotional exercise or as a few words directed heavenward at the end of the day, then prayer is not going to appear difficult at all. If we approach it thoughtlessly, without preparation or serious intention, prayer will seem easy. But those who have seriously given themselves to prayer are unanimous in testifying that it's hard work. It should not surprise us that prayer is often very difficult. It's serious and eternal work, one of the main tasks God has given His children."

Many of my listeners know that my first husband Jim Elliot was speared to death along with four other American missionaries in Ecuador, South America, in 1956. Now we wives, there were five of us wives who knew exactly what these men were planning to do, we knew how dangerous it was. But we, all ten of us, felt very clearly that God was indicating that He wanted those five men to go into that dangerous territory for His sake. They went, of course, hoping that the Lord was going to enable them to reach the tribe (called Aucas at that time) and that they would be able to give them the Gospel.

Those things didn't happen then. All five of those men were speared to death. You can imagine how earnestly and how continuously we five wives were praying for our husbands when we knew that they were there in that dangerous part of the jungle. We asked the Lord to keep them safe. Well He did. He kept them safe in the arms of Jesus. That's what happened, they were killed. My constant, "Lord, please spare my husband Jim" received an answer. God answered that prayer. What was the answer?

Are there some young children that can remember what we've been talking about during this week? Sometimes God's answer is a two-letter word, "no." And God's answer was no for all five of us wives. Not one of those five men came back alive, but as a result the tribe called Aucas have learned to know God since that time. And some of those Indians themselves are now teaching visitors from the States. Steve Saint, the son of one of the five men, takes groups of people down to visit the Aucas. Sometimes they're non-Christians. And the Aucas who have become Christians are actually ministering to some of these American people.

To pray aright is earnest work. We have to toil at prayer. Martin Luther said, "Nor is prayer ever heard more abundantly than in such agony and groanings of a struggling faith."

John Bunyan said, "The best prayers have often more groans than words."

Don't give up. Keep on praying. Light will break through and you will learn to know God in a way that you could not possibly know Him without this wonderful privilege of prayer. God bless you.

Lisa Barry: Indeed it is. And if you want to know one of my prayer secrets, it's keeping a journal. It helps to center your thoughts on what you're praying about and it gives you a tangible record of what you prayed so you can thank God when He answers it, right on time.

Well, in the few minutes we have left I'd like to take a minute to tell you what your regular support of Gateway To Joy means to us. We believe God has entrusted us with a gift. The gift is a radio program that we believe helps people find truth in this life and be better prepared for the next life. Many of you have been helped by Gateway To Joy, and so you give in the hopes that others will benefit in the same way you did. I want you to know that it happens every day because of your prayers and financial gifts. We thank God to have you on the team. If you're new to Gateway To Joy and you'd like to send a letter of support or a financial gift, here's our address:

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Friday, Elisabeth concludes this series with a challenge to pray in faith. You'll learn how if you make it a point to join us next time for Gateway To Joy.