Lisa Barry: When the bottom seems to fall out of your life, what are your thoughts toward God? I know some people who just sit and take it. They don't question. They don't wonder. They don't pray about it. They consider it just one of life's downsides. Other people question God about everything. "How could You let this happen, God? Where were You? Why did You abandon me? What did I ever do to You? Haven't I taught Sunday school for 15 years? Haven't I been faithful to read the Bible? Why me? Why not someone who doesn't even care about You?"

Now many of us might think those questions, but never really articulate them. So just what is the right response to adversity and how much questioning is the Christian allowed to do? Find out more about this important subject today on Gateway To Joy. Here's Elisabeth.

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 with you again today about keeping a quiet heart.

E. W. Faber, author of a good many hymns, wrote this. "How shalt thou bear the cross that now so dread a weight appears? Keep quietly to God and think upon the eternal years."

Is someone listening to me today who has a very heavy cross? Remember that Jesus' cross was so heavy that He had to have help. Simon the Cyrene was forced to bear that cross for Him when His human strength had gone.

"And how shalt thou bear the cross that now so dread a weight appears? Keep quietly to God and think upon the eternal years." Now that's a choice. You can make that choice of thinking upon the eternal years, of keeping quietly to God.

Have you ever been bitter? "Sometimes I've said, 'Oh, Lord, You wouldn't do this to me, would You? How could You, Lord?' I can recall such times later on and realize that my perspective was skewed.

"One Scripture passage which helps me rectify it is Isaiah 45:9-11. 'Will the pot contend with the potter or the earthenware with the hand that shapes it? Will the clay ask the potter what he is making?. . . .Thus says the Lord, Would you dare question Me concerning My children or instruct Me in My handiwork? I alone, I made the earth and created man upon it.'

"God knows exactly what He is doing. I'm clay. The word humble comes from the root word humus, which means earth or clay. Let me remember that when I question God's dealings, I don't understand Him. But then I'm not asked to understand; only to trust.

"Bitterness dissolves when I remember the kind of love with which He has loved me. He gave Himself for me. He gave Himself for me! He gave Himself for me! Whatever He is doing now, therefore, is not cause for bitterness. It has to be designed for good, because He loved me and gave Himself for me.

"Now is it a sin to ask God why? It's always best to go first for our answers to Jesus Himself. He cried out on the cross, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?' It was a human cry; a cry of desperation springing from His heart's agony at the prospect of being put into the hands of wicked men and actually becoming sin for you and me. We can never suffer anything like that, yet we do at times feel forsaken, don't we? It's quite natural for us to cry, 'Why, Lord?'

"The psalmist asked why. Job, a blameless man suffering horrible torments on an ash heap, asked why. It doesn't seem to me to be sinful to ask the question. What is sinful is resentment against God and His dealings with us. When we begin to doubt His love and imagine that He is cheating us of something we have a right to, we are guilty as Adam and Eve were guilty. They took the snake at his word rather than God.

The same snake comes to us repeatedly with the same suggestions. 'Does God love you? Does He really want the best for you? Is His Word trustworthy? Isn't He cheating you? Forget His promises. You'd be better off if you'd do it your way.'

"I've often asked why. Many things have happened which I didn't plan and which human rationality could not explain. In the darkness of my perplexity and sorrow, I have heard God say quietly, 'Trust Me.' He knew that my question was not the challenge of unbelief or of resentment.

"I have never doubted that He loves me, but I have sometimes felt like St. Teresa of Avila, who, when she was dumped out of a carriage into a ditch, said, 'If this is the way You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few.'" I wish we had the Lord's answer to that complaint. It's not on record.

"Job was not, it seems to me, a very patient man. We speak of the patience of Job. He doesn't sound very patient to me. But he never gave up his conviction that he was in God's hands. God was big enough to take whatever Job dished out." If you want to read a chapter giving you a sample of what Job was dishing out to God, try reading Job 16. Some of the worst things that were ever said about God are recorded there.

Do not be afraid to tell God exactly how you feel. He has already read your thoughts, anyway. "Don't tell the whole world. God can take it; others can't. Then listen for His answer. Six scriptural answers come to mind."

1 Peter 4:12,13 says, "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His grace is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed: for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler."

And then in Romans 5:3,4, we're told that one of the reasons for suffering is in order that we might grow in grace. "Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed."

In 2 Corinthians 12:9: "My grace is all you need."

Well, I could give you three more references. I think you've had enough. "There is mystery, but it is not all mystery." May the Lord enable us to pursue His will and to remain in peace, to keep a quiet heart even under the unexplained.

It's a great temptation to ask the Lord to remove the dilemma. This, too, is in the section of my book, KEEP A QUIET HEART, under the heading of "Faith for the Unexplained." This chapter is entitled, "Lord, Please Remove the Dilemma."

"Because my husband Lars is a Norwegian, who would happily eat fish three times a day if I'd give it to him (I seldom do), I often have fish heads and fish bones to discard. I don't like the noise the disposal makes if I put them in there, so I fire them out the window onto the grass. The prompt and thorough garbage service is provided free of charge by the seven resident crows, who materialize out of nowhere. Nine minutes is the maximum time it has taken them to detect my offerings.

"Recently I watched one of them attempt to stuff all the pieces into his beak before his buddies arrived. He carefully picked up everything, except one long backbone. Here was a dilemma. How was he to grab the backbone without dropping the beakful he already had? Solemnly he surveyed the scene, stepped slowly around the bone and cogitated. So everything is done by instinct, is it? I don't believe it. That crow was reasoning. He made a decision. He dropped the smaller pieces, grasped the bone right in the middle and raised. Too unwieldy. More cogitation.

"Then delicately he lifted one end of the backbone, bent it around with his claw and picked up the other end. Now holding both ends in his beak, he succeeded somehow (I couldn't for the life of me see exactly how) in gathering in all but a few small bits, and flew off triumphant to relish his find in solitude.

"Is there anyone listening to me today who is not faced with a perplexity of some sort? Perhaps a serious dilemma. We want to pray, 'Lord, please remove the dilemma.' Usually the answer is 'No, not right away.' We must face it, pray over it, think about it, wait on the Lord, make a choice. Sometimes it's an excruciating choice.

"But St. Augustine said, 'The very pleasures of human life men acquire by difficulties.' There are times when the entire arrangement of our existence is disrupted, and we long then for just one ordinary day. Seeing our life as greatly desirable, even wonderful, in the light of the terrible disruption that has taken place. Difficulty opens our eyes to pleasures that we had taken for granted.

"I recall one of the times my second husband Ad was released from the hospital when he had cancer. I didn't suppose he was cured, but just having him home once more was all I asked for that day. I set the table in the dining room with candlelight, as I always did for dinner, fixed his favorite meal--steak, baked potato, salad, my home-baked apple pie. As he bowed his head to give thanks in the usual way, I had the sudden urge to do something very unusual--to drop to the floor and clutch his hands and sing, 'Let us break bread together on our knees.' I didn't do it.

"Things proceeded in the ordinary way, but there was a new radiance about them simply because we had been deprived for a while and knew we would soon be deprived again--probably permanently." And of course, we were. But the Bible says, "It is for your sake that all things are ordered."

Lisa Barry: If you found encouragement from Elisabeth's words today, then why not pass them along to a friend? Some listeners to Gateway To Joy consider it their ministry to purchase the tape series and then turn around and give it to someone struggling with that area. Why not pass around the encouragement?

The cost of this two-week tape series is $11.50. You can send that, along with your request, to Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call toll-free: 1-800-759-4JOY. The Web address is gatewaytojoy.org. Today's program has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Now some of you might feel like God has enrolled you in the school of hard knocks. Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about what's included in God's curriculum. Don't miss the next Gateway To Joy.