Lisa Barry: If you're like some people, you keep a daily "to do" list that grows longer all the time. If you're like me, you try to keep that list on the clipboard of your mind and then go crazy trying to remember everything. But regardless of how we organize our tasks, we often feel overwhelmed and restless.

Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot talks again about the need to be quiet before God and let Him offer the peace that the world knows nothing about. 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, continuing my talks today on the subject of restlessness.

Many years ago when my mother was just a young Christian, she went to a Bible conference. It was actually a missionary conference on Long Island. She heard strong encouragement from many missionaries about becoming a missionary. Well, the last thing in my mother's mind was to be a missionary. She had come from a relatively well-to-do home. Her parents were good church-going people, but they certainly had not done much about talking about missions. They had not read the Bible to her. She didn't really remember being prayed with by her parents. But she knew that she had come from a good family.

And here she was, listening to all this talk about missions. It just came over her with horror and revulsion to think that maybe God was going to ask her to be a missionary. At that time, the Lord gave her a quiet word from the Book of Ruth, chapter 3, verse 18. It's what Naomi said to her daughter-in-law Ruth. She said, "Sit still, my daughter, until thou see how the matter will fall." Sit still, my daughter, until thou see how the matter will fall.

Is there a woman or a girl listening to me today who is wondering what to do about something? There's a wonderfully stabilizing and confidence-bringing verse, isn't it? Just sit still and see what God is going to do about it.

I believe that God has given us His Word so that we might learn from it. Of course, that's the reason why I'm constantly quoting Scripture. God has given His Word so that we can learn from it. The principles which are outlined in His Word show us how He deals with different men and different women in widely different circumstances.

Ruth was a woman of noble character. Naomi, her mother-in-law, was helping her to carry out the proper approach to one who could be to her a kinsman-redeemer. This was quite in accord with the ancient rules of how a man and a woman were brought together in marriage. So Naomi was instructing her daughter-in-law and Ruth was very open and ready to obey. Naomi says, "The Lord will tell you what to do." Then Ruth does it and her mother says, "Sit still."

Is there a hard decision facing you today? My father was the editor of a small Christian magazine. It was actually the only non-denominational Christian magazine at that time. My great-grandfather was once the editor, and then my great-uncle was the editor and then my father became the editor. So it was very much of a family business. But times began to get very difficult. Many other Christian magazines hit the market, and of course, my father's magazine began to diminish. The subscription list began to diminish. He was getting very edgy, shall we say, if not really upset.

At that time, I came across a quotation from one of George MacDonald's novels. I copied it out on a little 3x5 slip of paper for my father. He carried that around in his wallet until he died. This is what it said: "The care that is filling your mind at this moment, or but waiting till you lay the book down to leap upon you, that need which is no need is a demon sucking at the spring of your life. The friend says, 'No. Mine is a reasonable care, an unavoidable care indeed.' The first man says, 'Is it something you have to do this very moment?' 'No.' 'Then you are allowing it to usurp the place of something that is required of you this moment.'

'There is nothing required of me at this moment,' says his friend. 'Nay, but there is--the greatest thing that can be required of a man.' 'Well, what's that?' 'Trust in the living God.' 'I do trust Him in spiritual matters.' 'Everything is an affair of the spirit.'" Everything is an affair of the spirit.

Well, when I was preparing this talk, I had an interruption. It was a very welcome phone call. It was from my friend Van. Some time ago I read you some letters from Van when she was a missionary in the Sudan in Africa. She was working with a tribe called Nuers. She gave me these words from 2 Samuel 23:1-5.

"The oracle of David the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man exalted by the Most High, the man anointed by the God of Jacob, Israel's singer of songs. The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me; His word was on my tongue. The God of Israel spoke. The rock of Israel said to me, 'When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.' Is my house not right with God? Has He not made with me an everlasting covenant, arranged and secured in every part? Will He not bring to fruition my salvation and grant me my every desire?"

How I thank God for the reminder of those words at that time. "Has He not made with me an everlasting covenant?" Is He trustworthy? Well, my friend Van was kicked out by the government from the Sudan. They didn't want anybody doing Christian work and they didn't want the language that she had reduced to writing being used at all. They wanted to go entirely to Arabic. So Van, along with all the rest of the missionaries at that time, was expelled from the country.

And instead of going straight home to the States to Pennsylvania where her parents lived, she came to Ecuador where I lived. She spent five months with me in the jungle. You can imagine that after 13 years when we left college, we had a good many things to talk about. Her work in the Sudan; my work in Ecuador. She kept repeating these words to me: "He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things," or secure. Or, "arranged and secure in every part."

As we sat there one day talking about the mysterious ways of God in leading us as He had done, Van said to me, "But Bet, my feet were on the Rock and the Rock never moved." My feet were on the Rock and the Rock never moved.

Try to remember that. Stay your thoughts on God's faithfulness. Banish that everlasting jumpiness, restlessness, anxiety, preoccupation with things which belong only to God. The future belongs only to God, doesn't it? He is already there. Have you thought about that? That comforts me. That quiets me. God is in tomorrow. God owns yesterday; I don't. And He has given me only today.

He gives us a word of peace and quietness in Matthew 11. He says, "Come to Me, you who are tired and overburdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls."

You have to take His yoke, which means submission to His will, the yoke which Jesus had accepted from His Father. He said, "I come to do Thy will, O God." That surrender, that glad submission, is the prerequisite to peace. I know it. I know that it's true. Rest is God's divine gift. But it's also a lesson that we have to learn.

Yesterday I was feeling very pressed with duties and I was racing from one job to another, trying to get everything done within a certain time. I just went and sat down in a chair by the window. I just took myself by the scruff of the neck and sat down and lifted my hands to the Lord in quietness and just said, "Lord, forgive my anxieties, my restlessness. Give me that rest that You promised." "Come to Me," He said, "and I will give you rest." But I have to take His yoke and learn of Him.

And do you know where the Apostle Paul learned more about God than he had known before that? It was in prison. There are some prisoners listening to me today, I'm sure. What is it that God wants to teach you today? Paul was able to say, while he was actually imprisoned and chained in those days, he said, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content." "I have learned wherever I am to be content."

He wrote what we call the epistle of joy. The Book of Philippians was written while he was in the Philippian jail. That is a lesson, isn't it, in restlessness? I can't imagine that there's any prisoner who doesn't from time to time feel restlessness and wish he could get out.

Receive the rest of the Lord.

Lisa Barry: Unfortunately, restlessness isn't something we can do away with once and for all. It will continue to creep back into our minds, unless we take a proactive role in keeping it out. The best way I know how to do that is to remind myself of the things Elisabeth has been saying this week. Since most of us don't take notes during the program, then a cassette tape is the next best thing.

The tape is called DEALING WITH RESTLESSNESS. The cost is $7. 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. That's 1-800-759-4569. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Be with us again tomorrow when Elisabeth shares a few hymn ideas that speak of divine rest. Find out what they are next time on Gateway To Joy.