Lisa Barry: One of the signs of the end times is that people will call good evil and evil good. The world looks at a self-absorbed millionaire and calls him clever and resourceful. They look at people who stand up for biblical principles and call them bigots and legalists. A similar sign of the times is that some people think that God is at man's disposal, rather than the other way around.

All this week on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot is driving home the lesson that we are to wait on God with every ounce of our strength. But just how do we do that? And why should we do it? Stay tuned for the answer as we begin this Tuesday 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, continuing my talk today on the subject of waiting on God.

We talked about how waiting requires our cooperation--a conscience, deliberate choice to put ourselves completely at God's disposal. We know for sure that He holds us within His encircling arms. He loves us with an everlasting love. Many of us--I certainly am one of them--are too vehement, too impatient, too headlong. I want things done NOW. I don't want to have to wait for them.

I came across a remarkable book by a man by the name of Viktor Frankl. He is a Viennese psychiatrist, I believe. I'm not sure whether he's still alive, perhaps not, but he wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning. This was about his experience in the Nazi concentration camps. He said:

"The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples--often of a heroic nature--which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress."

Talk about waiting, just imagine the people who were--in the thousands, millions of people--who were in those concentration camps. Frankl goes on to say:

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing--the last of the human freedoms."

Can you think of the one thing that cannot be taken away from a man [what it] would be, in a situation like that? He says:

"The last of the human freedoms is to choice one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. And there were choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered opportunity to make a decision. A decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate."

Think of the waiting and the discipline that it took for some people to actually wander around those concentration camps in order to give away a piece of bread--the one and only piece of bread that they got on that particular day. And they would give it to somebody else.

Waiting on God. It is a discipline which is required of us again and again.

Now when a child wants to learn how to swim, what is he told that he has to do? He has to let go. He has to allow the person who is helping him to float on his back, to just trust him. That's a hard lesson. Trust is one of the great difficult lessons of waiting. Those of us who remember what it's like to have a swimming lesson--I can remember my father just holding us very gently underneath. And we would want to move our legs or put our head up or something. He would just keep saying, "Lie still. Lie still. Wait. The water will hold you up."

There are different ways in which we have to wait. We wait on, for example a waiter waits on us. He waits on not for the customers' orders. He's not standing there saying, "What do you want, what do you want?" He waits. A good waiter is going to be alert, watchful, attentive, able to rest or stand quietly beside these people who can't make up their minds what they want for lunch--to remain in the readiness to follow orders and not to give them.

The Bible tells us that we are to be anxious for nothing (Phil. 4:6). It's a discipline--waiting on God. I think of Mary's resignation, her unconditional acceptance. She was just a little village girl from a very poor home. She was visited one day. I like to think of her as perhaps sweeping the floor. Maybe she was weaving, making bread, doing something there in that humble little home, when suddenly there was a dazzling visitor standing there speaking to her. He has been told that God was to give her an astounding message that she was to become the mother of the Son of God.

What was her response? Perfect resignation, unconditional acceptance. Just one simple and very logical question, "How can this be, I don't even have a husband?" (Luke 1:34). Of course, the angel was given the words to say to her, that the power of the Most High would come upon her and that she would be given the privilege of bearing a child who would be named Jesus. Her resignation was perfect. Her acceptance of this astounding piece of news was unconditional.

Some years ago when I felt as though I needed to write a prayer just for myself and my Lord, this was the prayer that I wrote (and I'm sure that I was thinking also of that little Mary at the time):

"Loving Lord and Heavenly Father, I offer up today all that I am, all that I have, all that I do and all that I suffer, to be Yours today and Yours forever. Give me grace, Lord, to do all that I know of Your holy will. Purify my heart. Sanctify my thinking. Correct my desires. Teach me in all of today's work and trouble and joy to respond with honest praise, simple trust and instant obedience. That my life may be in truth a living sacrifice by the power of Your Holy Spirit and in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, my Master and my All."

There's a verse in Psalm 37:7. It says, "Be still before the LORD. Wait patiently for Him." Wait patiently. That is a discipline in itself, isn't it? I love the hymn: "Be still, my soul--the Lord is on thy side! Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain."

Many times stillness is required. I had a lovely letter from a woman who told me how she had taught her baby--her little baby, who was just old enough to sit up--she taught him how to remain quietly on her lap. It was very interesting. It took her just about one week of sitting down with that child, two or three times a day, having him sitting on her lap facing her. She would take his arms and she would quietly help him to fold those little arms and then gradually she would take her hands away. And, of course, his arms would fling up into the air immediately. But by the end of that week, she said, "He knew what it meant to sit quietly on my lap."

I thought that was a lovely testimony, just another illustration of what God wants us to do. He's not going to show us everything all at once. He simply says, "Do you love Me? Will you trust Me? I do know what I'm doing. I love you." Be still before the Lord. Wait patiently for Him.

I think of Daniel. Now what was Daniel waiting for when he was thrown into that lions' den? I don't suppose he expected that there was going to be much waiting. I wonder if he thought, as he was being hurled into that lion's den, where does a hungry lion start chomping? I'm sure, if I had been Daniel, I would have wanted to know where is he going to start chomping. My face? My arm? My leg? It's a horrible thought, isn't it?

Well, of course, Daniel didn't have any way of knowing that God was going to be in that den of lions and that the mouths of the lions would be shut. But Daniel had to wait before he knew what God was going to do. It was God's action and God's will. And it is God's action and God's will, which is made known to you and me by events--by the things which happen.

As an old woman now, I look back over my whole, long, more than seventy years and realize how faithful God has been. How many times I have had to wait. And I have waited impatiently. And I think of His patience in waiting for me to trust Him.

Trust God. He loves you, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

Lisa Barry: As you consider how God wants you to apply the things you've heard today, I want to encourage you to write everything down. If you're learning things from this program that are helping you walk with God, we'd love to hear about it. Few things encourage us more than hearing firsthand how Christ is meeting your needs on a daily basis.

And when you go the extra mile and offer your support for this program, we are humbled and honored. We would love it if everyone in this world could hear the life-changing message that Elisabeth Elliot brings every weekday. But the truth is, we can only do that to the extent that people like you come alongside us and help. If God has been tugging at your heart about this, then I'd encourage you to drop us a line and tell us you enjoy listening. Thanks for standing in the gap for others. Here's our address:

Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, NE 68501. Or, call toll free anytime, 1-800-759-4JOY. Today's program is also available on tape. Ask about it when you call 1-800-759-4569. And if you're on the Internet, be sure and check out our Web site. That address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow, Elisabeth talks about the importance of relinquishing our own plans and desires and replacing them with God's. Find out how, the next time we meet for Gateway To Joy.